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John Englart | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | 1955 (age 68–69) Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | Web content administrator |
| Known for | Blogging, citizen journalism |
John Englart (born 1955), pseudonym Takver, is an Australian citizen journalist, photojournalist, Videographer and blogger from Melbourne.
His pseudonym was adopted in 1997 from a minor character in Ursula Le Guin's novel The Dispossessed . [1] On his website he outlined a reason for adopting this pseudonym: "By adopting the name of Takver, I pay tribute to Ursula Le Guin and her humanism as a person and her skill and integrity as a writer. It is also an attempt to articulate that history is made by lots of ordinary people - not just governments, or the rich and famous." [2]
John Englart worked for Telstra Corporation [3] for 31 years before being made redundant in 2005. He has worked in web design and web content administration since 1996. After being made redundant, he attended TAFE to do a dual Diploma in IT Web Development and Multimedia. [4] After finishing his course he was employed in the web team at Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE, now known as Melbourne Polytechnic. [5] [6]
John Englart received the Environmental Sustainability Award from Moreland Council in 2019 at the Moreland Awards ceremony for his continuing advocacy on climate action at the local level. [7] [8]
His work as a citizen journalist initially came to widespread public attention in the 1998 Australian waterfront dispute where he ran a website called Takver's Soapbox - War on the Wharfies that collated and paraphrased the daily news reports with his own reporting of Melbourne events to present an accurate and timely account sympathetic to the Maritime Union of Australia point of view as a pro-union anarchist. [1] [9] [10]
The website was awarded LabourStart website of the week in April 1998. [11]
The importance of his citizen journalism in this dispute has been noted in expanding how unions campaign online. [12] [13]
He documented the growing peace movement protests in Melbourne after the September 11 attacks on New York in 2001 and the subsequent invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, including publishing an 80-page booklet covering the period from 2001 to 2007. [14] [15] [16]
He has used his own website to publish a range of radical political and historical pamphlets and books, including by labour history researchers Dr Bob James on early Anarchism in Australia, trade unionism and benefit societies, and Issy Wyner on the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union. [10]
For the Friends of the Earth Australia book published in 2004 on the history of Friends of the Earth campaigns in Australia he contributed an article on the Rides against Uranium in the 1970s, which he participated in. These events helped launch FoE to prominence as an environmental organisation in Australia. [17]
In 2013 he joined Margo Kingston's team of citizen journalists for the Nofibs website to report the 2013 Australian federal election within individual electorates. Englart covered the candidates and issues for the Federal Division of Wills with Labor sitting MP Kelvin Thomson. [18]
In 2014 some of Englart's early citizen photojournalism work of Gay Pride Week events in Sydney in 1973, donated to the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives, were featured in a Melbourne photographic exhibition curated by Dr Marcus Bunyan. [19]
"Notice the intimacy of the image here, getting in amongst the crowd, the photographer getting intimate with the crowd, getting involved with the action." described Dr Marcus Bunyan about one of Englart's photos. [20]
Since 2004 Englart has gradually increased his focus on climate change and environmental issues in his journalism and blogging, and is involved in local groups Sustainable Fawkner and Climate Action Moreland. [21] In 2015 Englart was an accredited NGO delegate for Climate Action Moreland and Climate Action Network Australia to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. [22] Subsequently, he also attended the 2016 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Marrakech. [23] [24] [25]
The importance of Englart's writing and online publishing has been recognised with two websites being permanently archived in the Pandora Archive of the National Library of Australia : the Radical Tradition website [10] and the Climate Citizen Blog. [26]
His contributions to activism as a founding member of Jura Books in 1977 and other activist book collectives plus his citizen journalism were recognised by the Eureka Australia Medal award conferred by Dr Joseph Toscano and the Anarchist Media Institute at Bakery Hill, Ballarat on 3 December 2009. [27] [28]
The Eureka Rebellion was a series of events involving gold miners who revolted against the British colonial government in Victoria, Australia during the Victorian gold rush. It culminated in the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, which took place on 3 December 1854 at Ballarat between the rebels and the colonial forces of Australia. The fighting left at least 27 dead and many injured, most of the casualties being rebels. There was a preceding period beginning in 1851 of peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience on the Victorian goldfields. The miners, many of whom such as Raffaello Carboni came from Europe and were veterans of the Revolutions of 1848, had various grievances, chiefly the cost of mining permits and the officious way the system was enforced.

The City of Merri-bek is a local government area in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. It comprises the inner northern suburbs between 4 and 11 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD. The Merri-bek local government area covers 51 km2 (20 sq mi), and in June 2018, it had a population of 181,725.
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The Australia First Party (AFP), officially known as the Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated, is an Australian nationalist political party founded in 1996 by Graeme Campbell, a former member of the Australian Labor Party. The policies of the party have been described as nationalist, anti-multicultural and economically protectionist, advocating for strict immigration controls, the prioritization of Australian citizens in employment, and the promotion of Australian culture and values. The party's logo includes the Southern Cross of the Eureka Flag.
Fawkner railway station is located on the Upfield line in Victoria, Australia. It serves the northern Melbourne suburbs of Hadfield and Fawkner the station opened on 8 October 1889 as Fawkner. It closed on 13 July 1903, and reopened on 12 December 1906 as Fawkner Cemetery. It was renamed Fawkner in 1914.
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Norman Leslie Gallagher was a controversial Australian trade unionist, and Maoist who led the militant Builders Labourers Federation as federal Secretary and as Victorian State Secretary.
Brunswick Juventus FC is an Australian soccer club based in the Melbourne municipality of Merri-bek. The club currently competes in the National Premier Leagues Victoria 2 and is based at CB Smith Reserve in the suburb of Fawkner. The earliest traces of the club date back to 1948 with the founding of Brunswick Zebras, and was officially founded in 1997 with mergers and de-mergers occurring between Italian backed clubs within the Italian community of Melbourne.
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Anarchism in Australia arrived within a few years of anarchism developing as a distinct tendency in the wake of the 1871 Paris Commune. Although a minor school of thought and politics, composed primarily of campaigners and intellectuals, Australian anarchism has formed a significant current throughout the history and literature of the colonies and nation. Anarchism's influence has been industrial and cultural, though its influence has waned from its high point in the early 20th century where anarchist techniques and ideas deeply influenced the official Australian union movement. In the mid 20th century anarchism's influence was primarily restricted to urban bohemian cultural movements. In the late 20th century and early 21st century Australian anarchism has been an element in Australia's social justice and protest movements.
Montague David Miller, born 7 July 1839 in Van Diemen's Land, was an Australian trade unionist, secularist, and revolutionary anarchist-socialist chiefly active in the states of Victoria and, in his most productive period, in Western Australia. His activism with unions and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), during the early years of the twentieth century, saw him acting as a speaker and organiser for these sometimes illegal groups, leading to his conviction for conspiracy in 1916.
Ellen José (1951 – 2 June 2017) was an Australian Indigenous artist, photographer and anarchist. She was a Torres Strait Islander descendant from Murray, Darnley and Horn Islands who lived in Melbourne with husband and fellow anarchist Joseph Toscano.
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