Agent Orange Justice Concert

Often worthy causes that uplift justice and remember the triumphs of the past have the power to bring music, poetry and politics together. This year’s Anti-War concert is a charity event that will be hosting singer songwriters, musicians and poets to acknowledge three different events: the commemoration of the WWI anti-conscription victory in the 1917 plebiscite, a benefit to the Agent Orange Justice movement that recognises the 30,000 vets affected as well as the 4 million Vietnamese who have birth defects due to the chemicals sprayed by the Americans during the Vietnam War and a memorial concert to remember the Australian poet and human rights activist Denis Kevans who past away 12 years ago.

City Hub Spoke to poet Jenni Nixon on how she became involved with the Anti-War concert and what do all these causes mean to her personally.

“I got into reading political poetry quite a while ago and I’ve done political poems and acting with the Queensland Theatre Company, which taught me about politics and performance. As it is an anti-war concert, I think it’s the boys taking the toys away from the bullies. Deciding conflicts through war is wrong so I’m a pacifist even though my grandfather was in Gallipoli and my father was in New Guinea, I know through family history the experience of war and what it does to men and women who fight.”

This event is a timely reminder to think about what kind of world we want to live in and why wars are never the answer.

Dec 3. Gaelic Club, 1/64 Devonshire St, Surry Hills. $5 or above donation upon entry. Info: www.agentorangejustice.org.au

By Daniel Jaramillo.