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4
honisoit.com Australia’s only weekly student newspaper. News, culture and satire since 1929. Published by the Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney

Transcript of honisoitsrcusyd.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2020-Honi-Soit-Media-Kit.pdf · Amanda Le May and...

Page 1: honisoitsrcusyd.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2020-Honi-Soit-Media-Kit.pdf · Amanda Le May and Mickie Quick, Publications Managers Students’ Representative Council, University

honisoit.com

Australia’s only weekly student newspaper. News, culture and satire since 1929. Published by the Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney

Page 2: honisoitsrcusyd.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2020-Honi-Soit-Media-Kit.pdf · Amanda Le May and Mickie Quick, Publications Managers Students’ Representative Council, University

Australia’s only weekly student newspaper. News, culture and satire since 1929. Published by the Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney.

About Honi Soit newspaper Honi Soit has been published by the Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney since 1929 and has a proud reputation of being the most vibrant and prestigious student publication in Australia. It has an illustrious alumni of student editors who have gone on to become well known faces in the media and in public life.

Honi Soit is a tabloid sized weekly, produced during semesters (27 editions per year). It has a print run of 3 000 and is distributed free at over 62 locations on Sydney University campuses including main campus, Faculty of Nursing, Camperdown; Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle; Conservatorium of Music, and Cumberland College of Health Sciences. This includes newspaper stands in foyers, cafes, faculty desks and libraries.

Published weekly during semester (27 editions per year) Tabloid size newspaper, full colour throughout, distributed free.

Target the student marketThere are over 45 000 students and nearly 10 000 staff at Sydney University. Honi Soit offers an exciting opportunity for you to capture the undergraduate and postgraduate student markets. University students represent a lucrative potential market: they are high discretionary spenders, and are an important force in the youth market.

honisoit.comHoni Soit is online! (Average UV’s per edition: 11 000)

Leaderboard banner ads (728 x 90px, or 970 x 90px) are available. Your ad will feature at the top of every page of the site and be displayed exclusively for 1 full week, including click through to your site.

Print display ads will feature in the online ebook of the print edition, published on our website as well as in the printed copies.

Social media Facebook: /honisoitsydney (over 13 600 followers) Twitter: @honi_soit (over 5 400 followers)

We post feature articles and breaking news approximately 3 times each week and link through to the Honi Soit website.

A selection of Honi Soit covers

Online advertisingLeaderboard banner ads (728 x 90px, or 970 x 90px) are available. Your ad will feature at the top of every page of the site and be displayed exclusively for 1 full week, including click through to your site.

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Information current 01/01/19

Page 3: honisoitsrcusyd.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2020-Honi-Soit-Media-Kit.pdf · Amanda Le May and Mickie Quick, Publications Managers Students’ Representative Council, University

Australia’s only weekly student newspaper. News, culture and satire since 1929. Published by the Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney.

PRODUCTION SPECIFICATIONS Artwork to be supplied by email by 2pm on ad deadline date.

Print ads: File formats accepted: PDF or TIFF. Mode: CMYK. Resolution 300dpi.*Add 5mm Bleed to full page artwork.

Web banner ads: (970 x 90 pixels, or 728 x 90 pixels) File Formats: JPG, PNG or GIF. Mode: RGB. Resolution 72dpi. Include a click-through URL for your campaign.

Files will be placed in Honi Soit as supplied. Any errors in preparation or content are the advertiser’s responsibility. Additional artwork preparation fees will apply if adjustments are required.

CONTACT DETAILSAmanda Le May and Mickie Quick, Publications Managers Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney Level 1, Wentworth Bldg G01, City Road, University of Sydney, NSW 2006Ph: 02 9660 5222 Fax: 02 9660 4260email: [email protected]

TO BOOK AN ADVERTISEMENT: Please fill out this form and email or fax by 10am on ad deadline date. Your booking will be processed and an invoice will be sent back to you. All invoices must be paid by 2pm on the ad deadline date. Payment details will be on your invoice.

SIZES

ONLINE ADVERTISING - honisoit.com

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE 2019Tick Size Width Height Base Cost Incl. gst

Full Page * 275mm 385mm $816 $897.60 Half 118.5mm 359.5mm $440 $484.00 Half Horiz. 242mm 177mm $440 $484.00 Quarter 118.5mm 177mm $280 $308.00 Quarter Horiz. 242mm 86mm $280 $308.00 Eighth 57mm 177mm $173 $190.30 Sixteenth 57mm 86mm $93 $102.30 Insertion ** single sheet up to A4 size $982 $1080.20

Tick Size Width Depth Base Cost Incl. gst

Banner 728px 90px $350 $385 Banner 970px 90px $350 $385

ADDITIONAL SPECIFICATIONSTick Position cost (add to base cost)

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* Allow 5mm bleed on full page artwork. ** Advertiser to provide insertions to Spotpress by ad deadline date.† Issue distributed on Thursday, due to public holiday. Honi Soit is a non-profit newspaper, and does not pay agency commission.

Tick Issue No. Ad Deadline (Thurs) Issue Date (Wed)

2000 (Welcome Week) 13 February 19 February

2001 (Wk 1, Sem 1) 20 February 26 February

2002 (Wk 2, Sem 1) 27 February 04 March

2003 (Wk 3, Sem 1) 05 March 11 March

2004 (Wk 4, Sem 1) 12 March 18 March

2005 (Wk 5, Sem 1) 19 March 25 March

2006 (Wk 6, Sem 1) 26 March 01 April 2007 (Wk 7, Sem 1) 02 April 08 April

Mid Semester Break 2008 (Wk 8, Sem 1) 16 April 22 April

2009 (Wk 9, Sem 1) 23 April 29 April 2010 (Wk 10, Sem 1) 30 April 06 May 2011 (Wk 11, Sem 1) 07 May 13 May 2012 (Wk 12, Sem 1) 14 May 20 May

2013 (Wk 13, Sem 1) 21 May 27 May

Mid Year Break

2014 (Wk 1, Sem 2) 30 July 05 August

2015 (Wk 2, Sem 2) 06 August 12 August

2016 (Wk 3, Sem 2) 13 August 19 August

2017 (Wk 4, Sem 2) 20 August 26 August

2018 (Wk 5, Sem 2) 27 August 02 September

2019 (Wk 6, Sem 2) 03 August 09 September

2020 (Wk 7, Sem 2) 10 September 16 September

2021 (Wk 8, Sem 2) 17 September 23 September

Mid Semester Break

2022 (Wk 9, Sem 2) 01 October 07 October †

2023 (Wk 10, Sem 2) 08 October 14 October

2024 (Wk 11, Sem 2) 15 October 21 October

2025 (Wk 12, Sem 2) 22 October 28 October

2026 (Wk 13, Sem 2) 29 October 04 November

DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE (More than one discount may apply) Local small business 10% Not-for-profit organisation 10% Offering discounts to students 10% 3 or more ads in one booking 10%

Please indicate intention to pay by credit card. A credit card surcharge of 2% applies. Payment by EFT does not incur a surcharge. Payment details will be listed on your invoice.

Information current 30/10/19

Page 4: honisoitsrcusyd.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2020-Honi-Soit-Media-Kit.pdf · Amanda Le May and Mickie Quick, Publications Managers Students’ Representative Council, University

Australia’s only weekly student newspaper. News, culture and satire since 1929. Published by the Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney.

Web leaderboard banner W: 728px x H: 90px

Web leaderboard banner W: 970px x H: 90px

Web leaderboard banner W: 728px x H: 90px

Web leaderboard banner W: 970px x H: 90px

10 HONI SOIT SEMESTER 1 • WEEK 3

PROFILE FEATURE

A s Shaun Harris and Simone Davi-son approached the Students’ Repre-sentative Council (SRC) stall during OWeek, they asked us if we could take

a photograph with a sign that read “Justice for Julieka Dhu.”

I’d read about Ms Dhu’s story before – an Abo-riginal death in custody. A 22-year-old woman, similar in age to many of us, who was incarcer-ated for failing to pay fines, only to die of staph-ylococcal septicaemia and pneumonia three days later. “Her only crime was being poor,” Shaun – her uncle – put it later.

Shaun walked in and out of my life that morn-ing, as the issues of Indigenous Australians often do. I was overcome by the story he’d told, but it would soon slip to the back of my mind, like a Guardian article on my Twitter feed, or an elo-quently phrased Facebook post.

That afternoon, an activist – Rachel Evans – brought Shaun to the SRC for an impromptu interview. I ushered them inside and to the office bearer room. Simone is a fellow Black Activist, who is a member of the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy. She was showing Shaun, who’s from Western Australia, around.

As our conversation progressed, the surround-ing banners and drums grew inconsequential in comparison to the struggle that Shaun had been forced to know.

Ms Dhu’s fate was not an unfortunate failure of the system, it was a product of the system.

“The CCTV footage is something I’ll never forget in my life,” he said. “It was unbelievable, the way they treated her. They all say that she was faking it, and feigning…you can hear her, and see her limping and begging and moaning.”

Shaun weaved together the complicity of gov-ernment policies and state-sanctioned institu-tions so seamlessly. His words painted a picture of a world structured to disenfranchise Indigenous people, perverse in its cohesion.

“They kick us off our homelands, our commu-nities, and the crime rates are going to go up — it’s already happened in Western Australia from Col-in Barnett’s forced community closures. They’re leaving their communities and going into rural centres to live on the streets, homeless. They have to steal for food, for medication…they’re going to end up being incarcerated. More deaths in custody,” he explained.

Since Ms Dhu’s death, Shaun has been a cen-tral figure in the movement to bring her justice. One inquest on, there have been no real answers. “There was a lot of cover-up and shifting of blame and that was mainly from the health system. We heard from the nurses and doctors trying to make up excuses and give reasons why they did not take my niece’s temperature, or other basic stats,” he says. The second part of the inquest is due to take place on March 14.

Shaun never shies away from Ms. Dhu’s story as one in a series. The names of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and others are stamped into the brains of Australian progressives, but few of us look to our own Black lives, that should also matter.

Shaun Harris: “They all say that she was faking it. How

could she fake dying over three days?”

When asked for the names we should remem-ber, Shaun reminds me of Cameron Doomadgee and TJ Hickey, two of only 339 victims Austral-ia’s racist police state has produced in the last few decades.

“We’re only 2%, roughly, of the Australian pop-ulation, which is much less than the black popu-lation in the US or South Africa”, Shaun explains.

“That’s part of our problem, as well, we’re such a minority, and especially on our own lands, dispossessed lands — there’s no treaty — and that all brings it back to the fact there’s no juris-diction, as well.”

Despite, and perhaps due to the indictment Ms Dhu’s death delivers to the “fair go” we want to believe, the mainstream media have only report-ed on it in pockets of the news cycle.

“The mainstream media, they did not want to get on board — but we knew that if the story got too big they’d have to, or lose ratings, and that’s happened.” I wondered what it felt like to be told

Subeta Vimalarajah met someone who taught her more in thirty minutes than any University class ever did

that fifteen minutes was all the “fame” your mur-dered niece deserved.

With media often diametrically opposed to the interests of Indigenous people and instead controlled by corporate interests, Shaun had to craft his own platform through social media. As a result, his Facebook profile is a political anthology, as dense as that you’d find in a library.

He carefully documents rallies and events,

“My daughter lives in the same town where all this happened to my niece... she’s got the same perpetrators of my niece’s murder in her space.”

tagging most of his posts with hashtags like #NoPrideInGenocide and #BuildCommuni-tiesNotPrisons; he runs his own Facebook pages and has organised multiple events and rallies. It’s an avenue that makes him hopeful. “With my niece we’ve tapped into that global support to a certain extent, which has a lot more effect than we’ve been able to in the past.”

Despite the overwhelming force that Shaun wakes to battle against each day, he maintains a sense of optimism, an optimism I felt I didn’t deserve from him.

“We can’t get to the top of that hill unless we’re standing together as one. It’s the only way we can enforce systemic reforms and custodial reforms for our entire country — and not just for black people; we’re a united nation and we have to stick together,” he assures me.

I delve cautiously and uncomfortably into his personal life, I want to know how he has sus-tained this fight for so long.

In the most harrowing point of the conversa-tion, he shares his personal motivations.

“Ms Dhu passed away on the 10th anniver-sary of my son’s death… that in itself is a big factor… I clearly remember the day that hap-pened, and I’ll never forget that. My daughter also lives in the same town where all this happened to my niece. She’s not a trouble-maker or any-thing like that, she’s sensible, but that doesn’t mat-ter when you’re black. If she gets in trouble with the police, she’s still got the same perpetrators of my niece’s murder in her space, and if she gets sick and has to go to hospital she’s still got the same medical perpetrators in those wards as well.”

As centuries of government policy have attempted to eradicate Indigenous Australi-ans, activists like Shaun have fought the system at every step.

As I led Shaun and his friends out of the SRC, I felt a mixture of gratitude and undeserved priv-ilege. He asked, smiling, that we keep at least ten copies for him if we published the article in print.

We kept in contact and Shaun gave me the opportunity to talk to Aunty Carol – Ms Dhu’s grandmother. In her voice she carried the dead-ening weight of every meaningless inquiry and uncharged policeman. As she spoke with strength and conviction, I started to cry and Aunty Carol apologised for making me upset.

After their land, their culture and their chil-dren have been stolen by Australia’s racism and the colonial project, Aunty Carol and Shaun still have the energy to share their sto-ry. They even have the empathy to console the tears of wide-eyed non-Indigenous people who are part of the system, yet crumble at being reminded of that.

With their continuing labour comes our obligation. I asked Shaun what non-Indige-nous people could do. “Little things like sharing posts, or when there are events up —say you’re going, regardless of whether you are because at least it shows your support”, was his unspeakably modest request.

My Salty Summer Liam Donohoe reflects

on his bitter-not-so-

sweet summer as a

member of Socialist

Alternative.

Art by Brigitte Samaha

and Katie Thorburn.

It began in a similar way to how it probably begins for everyone. My friend Brian* and I were attending a dance rally against the tampon tax at Martin Place on August 14

when we were approached by Sarah Garnham, Socialist Alternative’s National Students Coor-dinator. Brian* and I stood alone on the crowd’s periphery, an awkward island unaccustomed to pro-test, naively ditching school to be there.

It may have been our isolation that piqued her interest, our novelty in a parochial scene. Our subsequent conversation, which lasted the dura-tion of a now subordinated rally, indicated that we were obvious targets.

Flattered and eager to please, I replied to her torrent of questions with some Marxist thought derived from an HSC English course.

“How’d you hear about this?”“Do you consider yourself anti-Capitalist?” “Where do you / did you go to school?”As Brian and I ambled back to the North Shore

line, my private school sports bag brimming with a litany of leftist literature, I was met with a series of concerned text messages from older friends who’d observed the proceedings. They swiftly and definitively discouraged further contact. Lucy*, in particular, passed on her experiences of Social-ist Alternative at USyd, saying they were sectarian and a blight on the left.

Yet in the face of a post-HSC purposelessness, a budding interest in leftist politics slowly ripened.

Brian and I took to Martin Place again on November 25 in order to support an anti-Reclaim Australia counter rally. As Lucy rightly predict-ed, a familiar face greeted us. Sarah, immediately recognising us, brought us over to their stall, iso-lating me in an attempt to sell the first of many books as fellow ‘rades insisted on our attendance at

a post-rally meeting.When Honi asked Socialist Alternative if Sarah

recruited me, they said, "No she did not recruit Liam." Unfortunately our many exchanged mes-sages tell a different story.

Things moved quickly from there. Within a week I’d completed a number of Marxist Discussion Groups (MDGs), finished reading their “Introduc-tion to Marxism” book, and shared in post-meet-ing merriment with my new friends. I was always greeted with a warm smile, always welcomed into discussions if I looked out of place. I was made to feel wanted, even appreciated, as I moved deeper into the organisation and its quasi-familial nexus.

This nexus was not the only source of wis-dom, however. Lucy met my daily recounts with an intrigue and concern. She helped maintain an existing scepticism and curiosity that belied my image as a faithful recruit. Her constant surprise at every revelation made clear how opaque the organisation is. Fortunately for me, Lucy was the constant source of perspective that other recruits might not ordinarily have. She made clear that Socialist Alternative were not the only option for an anti-capitalist, a reassur-ance that lingered in the back of my mind.

The road to membership

My goal was to understand the organisation and I performed whatever version of myself was neces-sary for their approval.

This performance soon led to work on stalls. Socialist Alternative has a clear modus operandi – to establish within the first minute of conversation whether you are a potential mem-ber, or “contact”, with a view to recruiting as many members as possible.

Photo: Twitter

Half Horiz W: 242mm x H: 177mm

Quarter HorizW: 242mm x H: 86mm

Quarter

W: 118.5mmx

H: 177mm

Eighth

W: 57mmx

H: 177mm

16th

W: 57mmx

H: 86mm

A visual guide to ad sizes

8 HONI SOIT SEMESTER 1 • WEEK 3

PROFILE FEATURE

A s Shaun Harris and Simone Davi-son approached the Students’ Repre-sentative Council (SRC) stall during OWeek, they asked us if we could take

a photograph with a sign that read “Justice for Julieka Dhu.”

I’d read about Ms Dhu’s story before – an Abo-riginal death in custody. A 22-year-old woman, similar in age to many of us, who was incarcer-ated for failing to pay fines, only to die of staph-ylococcal septicaemia and pneumonia three days later. “Her only crime was being poor,” Shaun – her uncle – put it later.

Shaun walked in and out of my life that morn-ing, as the issues of Indigenous Australians often do. I was overcome by the story he’d told, but it would soon slip to the back of my mind, like a Guardian article on my Twitter feed, or an elo-quently phrased Facebook post.

That afternoon, an activist – Rachel Evans – brought Shaun to the SRC for an impromptu interview. I ushered them inside and to the office bearer room. Simone is a fellow Black Activist, who is a member of the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy. She was showing Shaun, who’s from Western Australia, around.

As our conversation progressed, the surround-ing banners and drums grew inconsequential in comparison to the struggle that Shaun had been forced to know.

Ms Dhu’s fate was not an unfortunate failure of the system, it was a product of the system.

“The CCTV footage is something I’ll never forget in my life,” he said. “It was unbelievable, the way they treated her. They all say that she was faking it, and feigning…you can hear her, and see her limping and begging and moaning.”

Shaun weaved together the complicity of gov-ernment policies and state-sanctioned institu-tions so seamlessly. His words painted a picture of a world structured to disenfranchise Indigenous people, perverse in its cohesion.

“They kick us off our homelands, our commu-nities, and the crime rates are going to go up — it’s already happened in Western Australia from Col-in Barnett’s forced community closures. They’re leaving their communities and going into rural centres to live on the streets, homeless. They have to steal for food, for medication…they’re going to end up being incarcerated. More deaths in custody,” he explained.

Since Ms Dhu’s death, Shaun has been a cen-tral figure in the movement to bring her justice. One inquest on, there have been no real answers. “There was a lot of cover-up and shifting of blame and that was mainly from the health system. We heard from the nurses and doctors trying to make up excuses and give reasons why they did not take my niece’s temperature, or other basic stats,” he says. The second part of the inquest is due to take place on March 14.

Shaun never shies away from Ms. Dhu’s story as one in a series. The names of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and others are stamped into the brains of Australian progressives, but few of us look to our own Black lives, that should also matter.

Shaun Harris: “They all say that she was faking it. How

could she fake dying over three days?”

When asked for the names we should remem-ber, Shaun reminds me of Cameron Doomadgee and TJ Hickey, two of only 339 victims Austral-ia’s racist police state has produced in the last few decades.

“We’re only 2%, roughly, of the Australian pop-ulation, which is much less than the black popu-lation in the US or South Africa”, Shaun explains.

“That’s part of our problem, as well, we’re such a minority, and especially on our own lands, dispossessed lands — there’s no treaty — and that all brings it back to the fact there’s no juris-diction, as well.”

Despite, and perhaps due to the indictment Ms Dhu’s death delivers to the “fair go” we want to believe, the mainstream media have only report-ed on it in pockets of the news cycle.

“The mainstream media, they did not want to get on board — but we knew that if the story got too big they’d have to, or lose ratings, and that’s happened.” I wondered what it felt like to be told

Subeta Vimalarajah met someone who taught her more in thirty minutes than any University class ever did

that fifteen minutes was all the “fame” your mur-dered niece deserved.

With media often diametrically opposed to the interests of Indigenous people and instead controlled by corporate interests, Shaun had to craft his own platform through social media. As a result, his Facebook profile is a political anthology, as dense as that you’d find in a library.

He carefully documents rallies and events,

“My daughter lives in the same town where all this happened to my niece... she’s got the same perpetrators of my niece’s murder in her space.”

tagging most of his posts with hashtags like #NoPrideInGenocide and #BuildCommuni-tiesNotPrisons; he runs his own Facebook pages and has organised multiple events and rallies. It’s an avenue that makes him hopeful. “With my niece we’ve tapped into that global support to a certain extent, which has a lot more effect than we’ve been able to in the past.”

Despite the overwhelming force that Shaun wakes to battle against each day, he maintains a sense of optimism, an optimism I felt I didn’t deserve from him.

“We can’t get to the top of that hill unless we’re standing together as one. It’s the only way we can enforce systemic reforms and custodial reforms for our entire country — and not just for black people; we’re a united nation and we have to stick together,” he assures me.

I delve cautiously and uncomfortably into his personal life, I want to know how he has sus-tained this fight for so long.

In the most harrowing point of the conversa-tion, he shares his personal motivations.

“Ms Dhu passed away on the 10th anniver-sary of my son’s death… that in itself is a big factor… I clearly remember the day that hap-pened, and I’ll never forget that. My daughter also lives in the same town where all this happened to my niece. She’s not a trouble-maker or any-thing like that, she’s sensible, but that doesn’t mat-ter when you’re black. If she gets in trouble with the police, she’s still got the same perpetrators of my niece’s murder in her space, and if she gets sick and has to go to hospital she’s still got the same medical perpetrators in those wards as well.”

As centuries of government policy have attempted to eradicate Indigenous Australi-ans, activists like Shaun have fought the system at every step.

As I led Shaun and his friends out of the SRC, I felt a mixture of gratitude and undeserved priv-ilege. He asked, smiling, that we keep at least ten copies for him if we published the article in print.

We kept in contact and Shaun gave me the opportunity to talk to Aunty Carol – Ms Dhu’s grandmother. In her voice she carried the dead-ening weight of every meaningless inquiry and uncharged policeman. As she spoke with strength and conviction, I started to cry and Aunty Carol apologised for making me upset.

After their land, their culture and their chil-dren have been stolen by Australia’s racism and the colonial project, Aunty Carol and Shaun still have the energy to share their sto-ry. They even have the empathy to console the tears of wide-eyed non-Indigenous people who are part of the system, yet crumble at being reminded of that.

With their continuing labour comes our obligation. I asked Shaun what non-Indige-nous people could do. “Little things like sharing posts, or when there are events up —say you’re going, regardless of whether you are because at least it shows your support”, was his unspeakably modest request.

My Salty Summer Liam Donohoe reflects

on his bitter-not-so-

sweet summer as a

member of Socialist

Alternative.

Art by Brigitte Samaha

and Katie Thorburn.

It began in a similar way to how it probably begins for everyone. My friend Brian* and I were attending a dance rally against the tampon tax at Martin Place on August 14

when we were approached by Sarah Garnham, Socialist Alternative’s National Students Coor-dinator. Brian* and I stood alone on the crowd’s periphery, an awkward island unaccustomed to pro-test, naively ditching school to be there.

It may have been our isolation that piqued her interest, our novelty in a parochial scene. Our subsequent conversation, which lasted the dura-tion of a now subordinated rally, indicated that we were obvious targets.

Flattered and eager to please, I replied to her torrent of questions with some Marxist thought derived from an HSC English course.

“How’d you hear about this?”“Do you consider yourself anti-Capitalist?” “Where do you / did you go to school?”As Brian and I ambled back to the North Shore

line, my private school sports bag brimming with a litany of leftist literature, I was met with a series of concerned text messages from older friends who’d observed the proceedings. They swiftly and definitively discouraged further contact. Lucy*, in particular, passed on her experiences of Social-ist Alternative at USyd, saying they were sectarian and a blight on the left.

Yet in the face of a post-HSC purposelessness, a budding interest in leftist politics slowly ripened.

Brian and I took to Martin Place again on November 25 in order to support an anti-Reclaim Australia counter rally. As Lucy rightly predict-ed, a familiar face greeted us. Sarah, immediately recognising us, brought us over to their stall, iso-lating me in an attempt to sell the first of many books as fellow ‘rades insisted on our attendance at

a post-rally meeting.When Honi asked Socialist Alternative if Sarah

recruited me, they said, "No she did not recruit Liam." Unfortunately our many exchanged mes-sages tell a different story.

Things moved quickly from there. Within a week I’d completed a number of Marxist Discussion Groups (MDGs), finished reading their “Introduc-tion to Marxism” book, and shared in post-meet-ing merriment with my new friends. I was always greeted with a warm smile, always welcomed into discussions if I looked out of place. I was made to feel wanted, even appreciated, as I moved deeper into the organisation and its quasi-familial nexus.

This nexus was not the only source of wis-dom, however. Lucy met my daily recounts with an intrigue and concern. She helped maintain an existing scepticism and curiosity that belied my image as a faithful recruit. Her constant surprise at every revelation made clear how opaque the organisation is. Fortunately for me, Lucy was the constant source of perspective that other recruits might not ordinarily have. She made clear that Socialist Alternative were not the only option for an anti-capitalist, a reassur-ance that lingered in the back of my mind.

The road to membership

My goal was to understand the organisation and I performed whatever version of myself was neces-sary for their approval.

This performance soon led to work on stalls. Socialist Alternative has a clear modus operandi – to establish within the first minute of conversation whether you are a potential mem-ber, or “contact”, with a view to recruiting as many members as possible.

Photo: Twitter

Half

W: 118.5mmx

H: 359.5mm

Full Page W: 275mm x H: 385mm*

*plus 5mm bleed

Information current 01/01/19