By Marc Eliot Stein, May 30, 2022
Alison Broinowski is an author, diplomat, global peace activist and World BEYOND War board member with an amazing career calling attention to the corruption and dysfunction motivating Australia’s past military leadership. Earlier this month, Alison shared some good news from her part of the world: Australia has elected new national leadership in a dramatic election that mobilized woman power and channeled dormant public outrage. As president of Australians for War Powers Reform, Alison has high hopes for a real change in Australia’s quagmire of militarist corruption, and its disturbing trajectory towards conflict with China.
I invited Alison to be the guest for the May 2022 episode of the World BEYOND War podcast because we can all use a touch of hope – and I really enjoyed our freewheeling conversation in which she described her decades of public service, which began in the diplomatic and literary spheres. We talked particularly about the apparent impossibility of peace negotiation in the worst conflict zones around the world. “Is diplomacy dead?” I asked her at one point. “It’s in intensive care,” Alison replied.
We also talked about Helen Caldicott, kakistrocacy in Australia and USA, the legacies of John Howard and Donald Trump, the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine, and the difficult question: does Australia’s democracy have integrity?
This episode begins with a preview of World BEYOND War’s #NoWar2022 annual conference featuring Greta Zarro.
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