Program: The Minefield

Source:ABC Radio National

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Presented by

Waleed Aly

Scott Stephens

In a world marked by wicked social problems, The Minefield helps you negotiate the ethical dilemmas, contradictory claims and unacknowledged complicities of modern life.

The Minefield special event
To mark its tenth year on air, join Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens for a special recording of The Minefield at the ABC studios in Melbourne on Friday, 23 February. If you would like to be part of the studio audience, register your interest and secure your tickets here.

Airs Sunday 10am. Repeated Monday 9pm, Thursday 4am and Saturday 12am.

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Latest

What’s fueling the tension between the courts and the media?

There has been an odd confluence of events over the past couple weeks that has managed to intensify the sense of a conflict between two of our most important democratic institutions: the law and the media.

Published: 17 Apr 2024Wed 17 Apr 2024 at 6:00pmwith Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens

Duration: 53 minutes 56 seconds

More from The Minefield

What would the moral obligation to avoid civilian deaths look like in Gaza?

Does the failure on the part of Israel to enable the provision of humanitarian aid or to do everything in its power to prevent civilian casualties suggest “a blameworthy indifference to Palestinian lives”?

Duration: 53 minutes 13 seconds

Published: 10 Apr 2024Wed 10 Apr 2024 at 6:00pmwith Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens

Ramadan — the rediscovery of society

It is important to remember that Thoreau’s motivation for withdrawing was neither escapism nor apolitical quietism. The fact that he departed on 4 July signals an invitation to discover a different way of living together.

Duration: 53 minutes 54 seconds

Published: 3 Apr 2024Wed 3 Apr 2024 at 5:00pmwith Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens

Ramadan — the importance of friendship

If Thoreau regards withdrawal and solitude as means by which we learn to escape self-deception, then they may well be little more than preparation for the moral demands friends make of one another.

Duration: 53 minutes 25 seconds

Published: 27 Mar 2024Wed 27 Mar 2024 at 5:00pmwith Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens

Ramadan — the discipline of solitude

Solitude is neither alone-ness nor idleness. It is strenuous and takes practice. Solitude does not simply happen in the way that isolation or loneliness does — it must be inhabited.

Duration: 53 minutes 27 seconds

Published: 20 Mar 2024Wed 20 Mar 2024 at 5:00pmwith Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens

Feature articles

Best of 2023: Rediscovering what it means to be Jewish after 7 October

I am both secular and a proud Jew. My hatred of prejudice of every kind is rooted both in my family’s history and in Judaism’s venerable humanistic tradition — to those who insist people like me must “take a side”, my side is humanity.

Published: 4 Feb 2024Sun 4 Feb 2024 at 9:49pm

Best of 2023: The atrocities in Israel and Gaza dehumanise their victims differently

As distant observers to atrocity, it can be difficult not to turn away from the horror and pain. When others are dehumanised, however, we have a moral obligation to reaffirm their worth in our collective response.

Published: 2 Jan 2024Tue 2 Jan 2024 at 1:29am

You are not unloved: An open letter to Indigenous Australians after the referendum

Noel Pearson once described Aboriginal Australians as “a much-unloved people” — the referendum result seems to confirm this. But we should not lose sight of those signs of appreciation that can only be called “love”.

Published: 23 Oct 2023Mon 23 Oct 2023 at 4:20am

Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands must end, but civilian massacres won’t achieve this

Successive Israeli governments have held that the country’s security must inevitably rely on military might. But what may have worked in other places has not proven sustainable for the complex realities of the Israel-Palestine situation.

Published: 25 Oct 2023Wed 25 Oct 2023 at 9:37am

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