Tag Archives: Issues

Christmas where?

I was going to try to write something, to sermonise a little, but this says it.

Christmas where?

… and so does this:

Finally, in considering the situation of migrants and refugees, I would point to yet another element in building a better world, namely, the elimination of prejudices and presuppositions in the approach to migration. Not infrequently, the arrival of migrants, displaced persons, asylum-seekers and refugees gives rise to suspicion and hostility. There is a fear that society will become less secure, that identity and culture will be lost, that competition for jobs will become stiffer and even that criminal activity will increase. The communications media have a role of great responsibility in this regard: it is up to them, in fact, to break down stereotypes and to offer correct information in reporting the errors of a few as well as the honesty, rectitude and goodness of the majority. A change of attitude towards migrants and refugees is needed on the part of everyone, moving away from attitudes of defensiveness and fear, indifference and marginalization – all typical of a throwaway culture – towards attitudes based on a culture of encounter, the only culture capable of building a better, more just and fraternal world. The communications media are themselves called to embrace this “conversion of attitudes” and to promote this change in the way migrants and refugees are treated.
— Pope Francis. Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which will be held on 19 January 2014

Interruption

In the midst of an usually-too-hectic work life, this is a favourite story I used to tell my colleagues

While visiting the University of Notre Dame, where I had been a teacher for a few years, I met an older experienced professor who had spent most of his life there. And while we strolled over the beautiful campus, he said with a certain melancholy in his voice, ‘You know … my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.’ —Henri J. Nouwen, Reaching out: the three movements of the spiritual life. London: Collins, 1976, p52.

Pilling

The Church Times (6 Dec 13) is disappointed by The Report of the House of Bishops Working Group on Human Sexuality. How unsurprising.

The Pilling report, The Report of the House of Bishops Working Group on Human Sexuality, adds a shade more civility to the gay debate. It talks of repentance for homophobia, and begins its findings and recommendations with a statement of welcome and affirmation of the “presence and ministry” of gay people in the Church of England. And at various points in the report we can feel the group’s members, or rather most of them, yearning towards a greater liberalism. Its concession, however, that same-sex partnerships might be “marked” in church has been construed as the very least that the group could have recommended. The C of E, if it has the stomach for it, now faces the prospect of two years of facilitated conversations, “conducted without undue haste but with a sense of urgency”, about a move that will be moribund unless it encompasses same-sex marriage, and will do little to convince the gay community, and society at large, that the Church really knows the meaning of the words “welcome” and “affirmation”. The report was always likely to be disappointing. When it was set up in 2011, the Pilling group’s task was to reflect on the post-Lambeth ’98 “listening process” and merely “advise the House [of Bishops] on what proposals to offer on how the continuing discussion about these matters might best be shaped”. In other words, it was not being asked about policy, only about process. Even this modest goal of directing how future talks might be modelled proved too difficult, damaged by the fact that one of its number, the Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Revd Keith Sinclair, queried even the continuation of the listening process on the grounds that no further discernment is necessary. His dissenting statement, which, with his appendix, takes up more space than the group’s reflections, is a key factor in the report’s ambivalence. If evidence were needed on the brokenness of the Church on this matter, here it is. A narrow brief and internal disagreement have made for a tame report, one that is hardly likely to enliven further consultation. Bishop Sinclair does his best to portray it as dangerously radical, but his description of it as undermining the Church’s teaching about homosexuality is inaccurate. The undermining has already happened: the report’s most radical act is to reveal in an official document what is already widely known: that a significant proportion of churchpeople regard that teaching as flawed. Faced with this gulf between conservatives such as Bishop Sinclair and, say, almost everybody under the age of 30, it is easy to see why the majority in the working group latched on to the concept of “pastoral accommodation” with such enthusiasm. But this merely takes the Church’s ambivalence into a pastoral situation, saying to a couple, in effect: “We agree with what you’re doing, but are too weak to prevail against those who disapprove of you.” This is hardly a convincing response to the missiological challenge that the Pilling report identifies.

The churches are weary with the whole business; they have no heart for any more arguing and wish it would all go away. It might “go away”, if we could (a) agree on how to decide what is right and true on a matter that is not essential to the faith and the Gospel, (b) decide accordingly, and (c) all abide by the decision in good conscience.

That’s not possible, at least not this millenium.

So the sooner we agree that debates about sexuality are not important and that we can live with disagreement and difference of practice, the better it will be for ourselves and for God’s service. Otherwise these tediously endless debates will not go away. If we cannot agree to differ on sexuality (and other things), we risk permanent distraction from the work of the Gospel and from God’s presence.

Labor’s UNAA report card: good overall, but two serious failures

The United Nations Association of Australia publishes a periodical United Nations Report Card, which details Australia’s performance and participation in the UN. The 2013 Report Card, edited by Professor Alex Bellamy, focused on the performance of the Labor Government 2007-13. Each author assessed Australia’s performance across a number of specified criteria and awarded a grade from A to F.

The Report Card overall paints a positive picture of the past Government’s performance. The great failure, concerning Refugees and Asylum Seekers is all the more stark. The authors write:

We have given the Australian Government an ‘F’ on the topic of refugees and asylum seekers due to the serious questions that remain about the compatibility of government policy with our domestic and international legal obligations. The Australian Government also scores poorly on the issue of climate change given our dependence on fossil fuels and the uncertainties over our commitment to reducing emissions compared to many other developed countries.

2013 Report Card Grades on the Australian Government’s performance in the United Nations

SUBJECT GRADE COMMENT
UN Security Council and General Assembly

A

 It was significant, and a credit to Australia’s diplomacy, that
we were elected to the Security Council on the first ballot with 140
votes in October 2012.
Human Rights

B

 Australia has been a strong advocate across a broad range of issues.
Humanitarian and Development Aid

B

 Australia’s record on overseas aid is very mixed.
Climate Change

D

 Australia must raise its mitigation ambition, increase its share of international climate finance and develop a transformative national energy policy.
Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding

B

 Australia has demonstrated a clear preference for deploying forces outside the UN framework.
Disarmament

B

 Australia has had a mixed history with nuclear weapons and has
demonstrated a lack of consistency both internationally and
domestically.
Indigenous Peoples

C+

 Some positive steps have been taken toward implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 
Gender Equality

B

 Australia is an active participant in UN Forums on gender equality,
including the Commission on the Status of Women and the Convention.
Refugees and Asylum Seekers

F

 Australia’s response to asylum seekers has been marked by increasing hostility and a near-total absence of any concern.

The United Nations Association of Australia’s goals are:

  • to promote among Australians greater awareness of the purposes of the United Nations, and
  • to ensure that the Australian Government fulfils its obligations as a member-state of the UN.

Australia’s representatives were amongst the most committed participants in negotiation of the UN Charter at San Francisco in 1945 and Australia was one of the founding members of the Organisation. The preamble to the UN Charter says that “We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war . . . to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights . . . to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, . . . have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.”

We will decide?

Sadly, all too current …

2001
We will decide
Who comes into this country-
And the circumstances
In which they come. [Prime Minister John Howard, Liberal Party election campaign launch, 28 Oct 2001.]

Like a piece of poetry it was,
the toughening iambics,
those sharpened ‘c’s, like angled pikes,

the two-beat lines that got us going –
except line 3 which had its extra
fist banged on the table.

Note the subtle half-rhyme, too,
‘country’ matched with ‘come’
and how the preposition ‘in

assumes its proper place.
Like most great poetry, of course,
it’s mainly made from echoe

the glorious Three Hundred Greeks
who held Thermopylae
and Winston Churchill roaring still

“We shall fight them on the beaches . . .”
Like all such deathless works of art
it’s shivering with myth:

the golden hordes who spoil our sleep
across two centuries,
the bard far back with lyre and smoke

declaiming his alliterations,
the ancient battles of his race
with dragons, gods and men.

No wonder, then, that those who might
have shown us something else,
defeated now by poetry.

had nowhere left to turn.

Geoff Page. Overland 181:92, Summer 2005

An obligation of equality

Amist all of the present hullabaloo concerning same-sex marriage, one might recall that Australia is signatory to international human rights agreements prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

2.1 Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. — 26. All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. — International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Articles 2.1 and 26.

Alastair Nicholson, recently retired as Chief Justice of Australia’s Family Law Court wrote in the The Age of 20 September 2004, describing that year’s Australian legislation to prevent same-sex marriage as “one of the most shameful pieces of legislation that has ever been passed by the Australian Parliament”.

It was clearly intended by the Howard Government to constitute a pitch to the religious right and mirrored a similar attempt in the United States introduced by President George Bush for the same purpose. Unfortunately, it was more successful here than there.

The reason for its success reflects no credit on the Latham Opposition, which abandoned principle for pragmatism rather than hand an election issue to the Government.

[…] What the Government, with the help of the Opposition, has succeeded in doing is to turn back the clock nearly 140 years. They have done so at the expense not only of the gay and lesbian community, but quite possibly the transsexual community as well. They have passed one of the most discriminatory laws that could be imagined. They have ridden roughshod over the legitimate rights and aspirations of these citizens.

We’re doing it all again

In 2008 I was heartened by Tony Kevin’s conclusion (Eureka Street 11 Apr 08) that Prime Minister Rudd’s current trip was doing much to repair the damage done by the Howard government to Australia’s international reputation. For there was much repair work to be done. In particular, we had to stop slavishly emulating the U.S. foreign policy. Mr Kevin said then:

I don’t think Rudd-immersed in domestic politics these past ten years—understands how much Australia put the UN General Assembly offside under John Howard’s rule. … Still-fresh images of Australia voting with UN pariahs, the US and Israel and a few bought failed states, and of Australian delegates taking orders from US delegates in corridors, behind the meeting rooms and near the toilets, will not be quickly forgotten.

Australia offended the majority UN membership by the way we treated refugees in detention, by pushing refugee boats away, by anti-Muslim harassment at home …

I’ll stop there. We’re doing it all again. I try not to be too angry or ashamed.

Iran must be accountable

As talks on Iran’s nuclear program we’re producing some small breakthrough, the Washington Free Beacon examined the state of five other rights demanded by the Iranian people—and not respected by their government.  Even if Iran does as the West wishes on matter nuclear, it must still be held to account for its apalling abuse of human liberties and freedoms.

There is no right of free assembly;
There is no effective right to a free trial and has been a massive surge in executions;
There is no freedom of the press.
There is no freedom of religion.

Pastor Saeed Abedini is just one of many imprisoned for the conduct of Christian worship. Iranian Christians were sentenced last month to 80 lashes for drinking wine during communion and possessing a satellite antenna. Members of the Baha’i community, a minority offshoot of Shiite Islam, have also faced persecution and violence.

The Iran authorities continue floggings and executions of minors and homosexuals and have the 3rd highest rate of capital punishment in the world. The butchering of gay and lesbian people has been particularly horrific. Iran continues frequently to execute gay men and some lesbians. It has been estimated that 4,000 lesbians and gays have been executed since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Methods of execution have included beheading, being chopped in two, stoning, burning alive, hanging and being thrown alive from a high building.

iran_hangingNothing has changed since The Times reported on 13 Nov 07 that Iranian politican Mohsen Yahyavi had told a meeting of British MPs in the UK that homosexuals deserve to be executed or tortured and possibly both. Britain is one country has regularly challenged Iran about its hangings of gays, and stonings and executions of adulterers and other alleged moral criminals. Mr Yahyavi, a member of Iran’s parliament, told the MPs that that if homosexual activity is in private there is no problem, but those in overt activity should be executed. He argued that homosexuality is against human nature and that humans are here to reproduce.

Mahmoud Asqari and Ayad Marhouni were hanged in Justice Square in Mashhad in 2005. Graphic photographs of the execution of the youths, who were under 18 when arrested, were released by the Iranian Students News Agency. President Ahmadinejad, questioned by students in New York about the executions, dodged the issue by suggesting that there were no gays in his country. “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country”, he lied. Yet Iran is also accused of cloaking executions for homosexuality with bogus charges for more serious crimes.

Dianne Francis asked in Canada’s National Post (11 Dec 07):

Is this why Iran has no homosexuality? Think Iran’s nuclear ambitions are frightening? We now are learning that this land of lunatics run by fanatics is undertaking its own Final Solution with homosexuals.Here’s the real reason why Iran’s President Ahmadinejad could say in September at Columbia University could dodge the question of executions and say that there were no homosexuals in his society. They are killing them.

publichanging

Former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, wrote in The Financial Times on  Why we must not take the pressure off Iran.

mouloodzadeh Mr. Makvan Mouloodzadeh was executed in Iran’s Kermanshah Central Prison at 5 a.m. on 5 December 07.He was a 21-year-old Iranian accused of committing anal rape (ighab) with other young boys when he himslef was still a child. At Mr. Mouloodzadeh’s trial, all the witnesses retracted their pre-trial testimonies, claiming to have lied to the authorities under duress. Makvan also told the court that his confession was made under coercion and pleaded not guilty. On 7 Jun 07, the Seventh District Criminal Court of Kermanshah in Western Iran found him guilty and sentenced him to death.

On the petition of Mr. Mouloodzadeh’s lawyer, the Iranian Chief Justice, Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, nullified the death sentence on 10 Nov 07, describing the sentence as in violation of Islamic teachings, the religious decrees of high-ranking Shiite clerics, and the law of the land. The case was sent to the Special Supervision Bureau of the Iranian Justice Department, a designated group of judges responsible for reviewing and ordering retrials of flawed cases flagged by the Iranian Chief Justice. The judges defied the Chief Justice by ratifying the original ruling and ordering the execution. Neither Mr. Mouloodzadeh’s family nor his lawyer were told of the execution until after it occurred.

Whether or not the execution was technically illegal, it was utterly immoral and disgusting beyond belief.

Howard’s dog whistle

Howard’s dog whistle is still being heavily used by Tony Abbott.

johnhowarddogwhistle(Image from: 101 uses for a John Howard.com)

“Howard is whistling in wind”, by Paul Syvret The Courier-Mail 17 April 07

Dog whistles are clever devices. They emit a high-pitched tone beyond the range of human hearing, but one that dogs’ more sensitive ears can easily detect. In short, they send a message only to those pre-programmed to receive and respond.

Prime Minister John Howard has quite a collection of these whistles—finely tuned instruments designed to bore into the brains of certain sections of the Australian voting public. If you listen hard right now you can just hear them—a discordant tweeting noise at the very fringe of the political spectrum. There’s a special whistle for whipping up fear of trade unions, another for multiculturalism, one for “the Aboriginal industry” and an orchestra of whistles for summoning forth fear and votes over national security and immigration.

They are Howard’s alarm and divide tools. The latest inharmonious tune coming from the wind section in Howard’s Government is an oldie but a goodie-a classic hit from the past decade of our discontent.

Immigration is always a favourite, with the fear and unease used to justify humanitarian abominations such as children locked behind razor wire and asylum seekers processed at God-forsaken gulags such as the detention centre on Nauru. We’ve already heard the number about the nasty illegal immigrants who toss children overboard, we’ve played the tune about the armada of asylum seekers sailing through our northern waters, and we’ve sung the song about the ingrate “towel-heads” who refuse to assimilate into our culture.

Now the variant is the faceless hordes of disease-ridden dispossessed who want to come here and spread their sickness. It is only Howard and our brave Immigration and Customs officials standing between Australia and the Grim Reaper. We’re talking AIDS here—or more specifically those people living with the human immune-deficiency virus, or HIV. Last week, Howard argued that HIV-positive people should be banned from migrating to Australia in all but the most exceptional of circumstances. “My initial reaction is no (they should not be allowed in),” he said. “There may be some humanitarian considerations that could temper that in certain cases but prima facie, no.” …

It’s the dog whistle, you see.