Latest Articles
We are encouraged to rely more and more on government officials to do for us what we could equally well do for ourselves—and, maybe more importantly, not to do what might help us solve our own problems.
Sep 08 2024
10 mins
If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.
Sep 06 2024
5 mins
UNESCO and the Future of Cultural Patrimony
Twenty-five miles east of Timbuktu, amidst the scattered acacias and sandburs that alone populate this desolate corner of the Sahel, lies the cemetery of Cheikh Sīdi al-Wāfi al-Amīr al-Arawāni. The moment this mausoleum was established, back in the early eighteenth century, it began its gradual surrender to the abrasive sand and dust borne along by north-easterly harmattan winds. Centuries of scouring have left the site, according to UNESCO’s 2014 Étude sur les mausolées de Tombouktou, “non-repérable”. It was to this forlorn place that the remains of the great librarian Ahmad bin Mbarak bin Barka bin Muhammad Bul’arāf were conveyed upon his demise in 1955. Renowned as he was for having amassed a library of 2076 invaluable manuscripts, for having penned the influential “Essay on the Importance of History”, and for having compiled a wide-ranging biographical dictionary, or tarjamah, of scholars from Takrūr, the Sahara, and Chinguetti, Ahmad Bul’arāf’s death…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins
