Raymond Evans

Muslims and the Australian labour market, 1980–2001

The unemployment of Muslims in Australia was 28 and 25 per cent compared to the national total of around nine per cent in 1986 and 1996 respectively (Australian Bureau of Statistics). This article conceptually analyses the disadvantaged position of the Muslims in the Australian labour market from 1980 to 2001 within a framework of ‘structural racism’. It studies the Muslims from three perspectives: first, a comparative study of the qualifications and unemployment of the Muslim labour force in relation to the dominant population. Secondly, it examines the extent of this disadvantaged position in comparison with other ethnic minorities within an historical context. Finally, the basis of structural racism is explored to demonstrate how the Muslims have become systematically victimized. The analysis concludes that Muslims are significantly disadvantaged in Australia on the basis of their ethnicity and religion.

Commanding men: Masculinities and the convict system

(1998). Commanding men: Masculinities and the convict system. Journal of Australian Studies: Vol. 22, Australian masculinities, pp. 17-34.

Visibility problems: Concepts of gender in Australian historical discourse∗

Feminist historiography of the 1970s challenged dominant paradigms by attempting to integrate ‘women’ into historical narratives. Gender relations studies have taken this re‐evaluation further by problematising categories of ‘men’ and ‘women’. Yet these endeavours have been fraught with conceptual and methodological difficulties as the range, complexity and interpenetration of categories of race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion and region have been coterminously analysed.

Fragments from the Front

We are encouraged to enter upon this text with high expectations. We first approach a dramatic cover, designed by Nada Backovic, of bloody swipes, forming a rough VW over a portrait of Lieutenant G...

‘Peace! Peace! Where there is no peace!’

Does contemporary Australian society seek self-definition by persisting with a demonstrably fictitious narrative about itself? Does it promote a sense of exceptionalism, boosting an imagined national profile of a tranquil, convivial and consensual history and culture? And, if so, why? Do all nations indulge in such confections about themselves, unfolding an endlessly encouraging narrative of quietly rational progress towards a better and better future, in order to fly their flags and beat their patriotic chests? Or does Australia stand out in the matter of degree and its manner of insistence here, blending big-noting with denialism about darker secrets in a peculiarly excessive way? And what role have historians played in either cementing a national edifice without worrisome cracks and slippage, or inspecting the same construction for severe foundational damage or dangerous structural faults? From at least the late nineteenth century, local historiography supported a long tradition of affirmation concerning an exceptionally peaceful land, with just a little Eureka-style or Myall Creek-like or Lambing Flat kind of violent fissure opening up here and there, and every now and then, on the otherwise calm and placid plains of promise. Australian commentators, historians, poets and journalists congratulated themselves on showing up, as a society, ‘white’ (indeed, what other colour?) against a blood-red global map of carnage: the only nation from the womb of peace, it was happily declared – in fact possessing ‘a blessed record of unruffled peace’, as journeyman historian Ernest Scott described it in 1910. ‘We have no songs of strife/Of bloodshed

The Debatable Land

Review(s) of: The Cambridge history of Australia: Volume I, indigenous and colonial Australia and volume 2, the commonwealth of Australia, edited by Alison Bashford and Stuart Macintyre (Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2013,1536pp,

From Deserts the Marchers Come: Confessions of a Peripatetic Historian

325hb)

Radical Melbourne 2: The Enemy within@@@Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History

The country of Australia was trapped in a lie. They were shattered from their positions. Freedom was very far away from them. This article describes the young protesters who came and help the people to achieve freedom.

Private Pleasures, Public Leisure: A History of Australian Popular Culture Since 1788 [Book review]

Review(s) of: Radical Melbourne 2: The Enemy Within by Jeff Sparrow and Jill Sparrow, Vulgar Press, Carlton North, 2004. pp. 254.

The lowest common denominator: loyalism and school children in war torn Australia 1914/ 1918

50.00 paper. Review(s) of: Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History by Raymond Evans and Carole Ferrier, Vulgar Press, Carlton North, 2004. pp. 335.