Another quick post of updates.

First, Kate Grealy and I have recorded two more Sub Rosa episodes, which we will release soon. Kate’s episode will be out first:

Second, I’ve had a new AVERT post published, looking back at controversies over neo-Ustasha terrorism in the 1960s and 1970s, and their relevance to current debates about revoking citizenship:

One prominent feature of the debate is that both sides often treat the involvement of Australians in violent extremist groups like Islamic State (IS) as a radically new dilemma. The debate lacks a strong sense of history.

On the few occasions when historical analogies have been made, it is usually to compare IS fighters with people who fought for the Nazis in the Second World War. Those who draw such comparisons argue that it has long been the case that Australian citizenship could be revoked for dual-nationals who serve in “the armed forces of a country at war with Australia”, and that revoking citizenship for suspected involvement in terrorist activity logically follows. Abbott made this argument in 2015, stating that the laws “reflect modern conditions where often people don’t go and fight against us in a foreign army, they fight against us in a terrorist group”.

The resort to analogies with state-based armies implies that Australia has never faced another situation comparable to the current IS threat. However, Australia has faced threats from transnational non-state violent extremists on many other occasions.

For this post, I look back at the spate of violence Australia experienced in the 1960s and 1970s, involving neo-Ustasha groups at war with the government of Yugoslavia, to show how Australia once responded quite differently to a situation somewhat similar to that seen today.

Third, I plan to be posting much less often on this blog over the next 3-6 months, because I will be focused on finishing my PhD:

The PhD has been a tremendous journey (which involved transferring to a different university mid-way through) and I am finally reaching the end. It will be my number one professional priority until then. This doesn’t mean I won’t still write the occasional post here when something interesting crops up, but it will be less frequent.