A few days ago, I arrived in Sydney, Australia, to promote Amir Amirani’s documentary film “We Are Many,” and for a series of speaking engagements with unions, environmental groups, public health organizations, community antiwar activists and cinephiles.

Once I settled in and caught up with some friends, I eventually picked up a copy of The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia’s longest running daily newspaper.

Unsurprisingly, interest rate hikes dominated the front page. Westpac, Australia’s second largest bank, recently hiked rates 0.2 percent in a cynical ploy to dampen exploding property prices. In reality, the costs of doing business are simply being offset by taxpayer money, as Westpac seeks to build up its capital reserves on the backs of homeowners (Westpac’s profits have soared to US$7.8 billion in 2015).

In some ways, the story is similar to what has taken place in the U.S. over the years: deregulation, deindustrialization and financial speculation, in short, neoliberalism. Remember, low growth and high unemployment are great for global elites. In fact, global elites do their best during recessions, so they must be happy that Australia is projected to garner a measly 2 percent GDP growth in 2016.

In recent years, Australia has experienced a massive mining boom, but those days have ended, and that’s both good and bad — good for the environment, but bad for the economy, at least in the short term, as the mining boom has transitioned to the housing boom. As a result, Sydney and Melbourne are two of the most expensive cities in the world. This new urban reality has caused Australians legitimate concern. After all, property bubbles burst.

However, it’s not just property bubbles that are cause for major concern, it’s also Sydney and Melbourne’s lack of public transportation infrastructure. Further, these cities not only lack the infrastructure required to maintain their absurd development projects, they are also quickly losing their flavor, their uniqueness, as cookie-cutter apartments and condominiums now litter their urban landscapes. According to Chris Johnson, CEO of Urban Taskforce, Sydney must double the height of its skyscrapers “if Sydney wants to stay on par with other Australian cities, and with Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore.”

Michael O’Neil, Director of the University of Adelaide’s Center for Economic Studies, worries that, “Nobody’s answered the question, where are we going to get growth from?” Mr. O’Neil goes on to suggest that South Australia would benefit from defense projects, such as the production of submarines. Unfortunately, he might find many Australians who agree with him, as unemployment in South Australia is at a 15-year high. When people are desperate, they will gladly take defense industry jobs if given no alternative options.

Speaking of the defense industry, they must be quite glad that Australia has yet again decided to be Uncle Sam’s lapdog, as the Australian military bombs Syria. Yet, none of this is new: Australia offered to help NATO’s efforts in Libya, helped occupy and destroy Afghanistan, and provided the second largest contribution of forces during the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, the 21st Century’s greatest war crime and humanitarian disaster.

Where there’s war and unemployment, there’s plenty of room for xenophobia. Australia, a nation built on genocidal policies, is now experiencing an upsurge of anti-Muslim groups throughout the nation. Just a few days ago, over 1,000 anti-Muslim protesters gathered in Melbourne to denounce Islam. Back in July, pro-refugee and anti-refugee protesters also clashed in Melbourne. Indeed, these tensions have been building for some time now.

Earlier this month, a 15-year-old boy named Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar shot and killed a Sydney police officer. Consequently, the Sydney Police raided dozens of homes in the city’s western suburbs, further feeding into the tension created by Australia’s decade-long wars in the Middle East. Last year, in December 2014, “a self-styled preacher of Islamic State,” Man Haron Monis took over a dozen people hostage in a Sydney cafe. Monis and two others were killed in the siege. In short, Australia is experiencing blowback, a CIA term used to classify the unintended consequences of U.S. foreign interventions. As any reasonable person can understand, the hijackers of 9/11 didn’t carry out their attacks because they hated American “freedoms,” but because they despised American foreign policy. The same is true in the Australian context.

Unfortunately, Australia has responded in predictable fashion, clamping down on civil liberties and expanding its scope of security operations to include children. As David Wroe points out in a recent Herald article:

“Children as young as 14 have been monitored by ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organization) under warrants signed by Attorney-General George Brandis, underscoring the dramatic drop in the age of suspects in terrorism-related charges.”

As the Turnball government prepares to host a high-level counter-terrorism meeting in Canberra on Thursday, Senator Brandis revealed that he had signed ASIO warrants for 14-year-olds, which he said pointed to the need for further counter-terrorism reforms.

Meanwhile, Australia’s natural environment is feeling the impacts of runaway climate change. In fact, Goldman Sachs’ chief economist in Australia, Tim Toohey, has suggested that the recent drought poses a grave risk to the economy, further adding to ongoing economic tensions. Just the other day, “The nation’s largest coal mine has passed a significant hurdle after Environment Minister Greg Hunt approved it with ‘the strictest conditions in Australian history,’ in a decision environment groups have declared a disaster.”

None of this should come as a surprise, as Australia’s current Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has an estimated wealth of US$144 million (AUD$200 million). Turnbull recently replaced Australia’s version of George W. Bush, Tony Abbott, a man who thoroughly embarrassed and decimated the country for the last couple of years. When confronted in Parliament about his Cayman Island financial accounts, Prime Minister Turnbull answered, “Some of us will be more successful than others, some of us are fortunate in the turn of business, some of us are fortunate in the intellect we inherit from our parents.”

Overall, the political trajectory in Australia isn’t looking good: neoliberal policies and ideologies are on the rise; individualism and materialism dominate the pop-culture landscape; and there’s no sense that things are going to get significantly better anytime in the near future.

As always, however, people are fighting back: environmentalists, unions, community groups, anti-racist organizations, and so on. And to be quite honest, that’s what I’m most interested to learn about during this current trip: organizing. What’s working? What’s not working? What progressive movements, organizations and communities are building political power? How can they be more effective? These are the questions I’ll be asking activists around the country.

In the end, the Left has plenty of analysts and commentators, but not nearly as many people who can clearly articulate their objectives and how they hope to achieve their goals. Back in 2003, over 250,000 people filled Hyde Park in Sydney; in Brisbane, over 100,000 marched against the impending war in Iraq.

In the meantime, where have our comrades gone? Surely, these anti-war protesters haven’t transitioned to pro-militarists. But where are they? How can they be remobilized around issues concerning militarism, war, surveillance and torture? I look forward to finding out. Vincent Emanuele can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com

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