Fear for our body - but those who would wish to kill us and our bodies cannot kill our spirit

The body is almost everything to us,

so we fear those who can harm and kill the body, precisely those whom Jesus commands us not to fear.

— Miroslav Volf (@MiroslavVolf) January 26, 2016

Paul Keating's Redfern Park Speech - 10 December 1992

Cross-posted with permission from The Network

Posted previously below is the Stan Grant speech which was given last year

but released on Australia Day 2016.

The video has gone viral and the speech is being compared to
  "The Redfern Park Speech" delivered on 10 December 1992.  

For those who have never heard this oft-quoted landmark speech
by one of Australia's finest Prime Ministers, Paul Keating -

Please go here

for the transcript of Keating's speech

Stan Grant's speech

Cross-posted with permission from The Network

From http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-24/stan-grant's-racism-is-killing-the-australia-dream-speech-viral/7110506
A powerful speech by Indigenous journalist Stan Grant in which he says the "Australian dream is rooted in racism" has gone viral.

Key points:

• Grant spoke about the impact of colonisation and discrimination in Sydney
• He said when Adam Goodes was booed "it said to us again, you're not welcome"
• Speech viewed more than 736,000 times on Facebook and 15,000 times on YouTube

Grant addressed an audience in Sydney on the impact of colonisation and discrimination as part of the IQ2 debate series held by The Ethics Centre.

The speech was made last year but was published online just a week before Australia Day. It has resonated with Australians, having been viewed more than 736,000 times on Facebook and 15,000 times on YouTube.

In his address Grant was asked to argue for or against the topic "Racism is destroying the Australian Dream", and said racism was at its heart.

Grant opened his speech acknowledging when AFL player Adam Goodes was "hounded" and booed, and told "he was not Australian".

"When we heard those boos, we heard a sound that was very familiar to us ... we heard a howl of humiliation that echoes across two centuries of dispossession, injustice, suffering and survival," Grant said.

"We heard the howl of the Australian dream, and it said to us again, you're not welcome."

He said we sung of the Australian dream, "Australians all let us rejoice for we are young and free".

"My people die young in this country," Grant said.

"We die 10 years younger than the average Australian, and we are far from free. We are fewer than 3 per cent of the Australian population and yet we are 25 per cent — a quarter of those Australians locked up in our prisons.

"And if you're a juvenile it is worse, it is 50 per cent. An Indigenous child is more likely to be locked up in prison than they are to finish high school."

He referenced a famous poem from Dorothea Mackellar, saying his people's rights "were extinguished because we were not here according to British law".

"I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges," Grant quoted from the poem My Country.

"It reminds me that my people were killed on those plains. We were shot on those plains, diseases ravaged us on those plains."

Grant has received praise online, including from journalists Hugh Riminton and Fran Kelly, as well as Mike Carlton who described it as a "Martin Luther King moment" on Twitter.

He said he had succeeded in life not because of, but in spite of, the Australian dream.

"My grandfather on my mother's side, who married a white woman, who reached out to Australia, lived on the fringes of town until the police came, put a gun to his head, bulldozed his tin humpy, and ran over the graves of the three children he buried there. That's the Australian dream," Grant said.

"And if the white blood in me was here tonight, my grandmother, she would tell you of how she was turned away from a hospital giving birth to her first child because she was giving birth to the child of a black person.

"The Australian dream. We are better than this."

INVASION DAY MELBOURNE AND ADVOCACY WAS REPRESENTED THERE

Advocacy was at Invasion Day Melbourne. 

Well - the Secretary of Advocacy was.

She is visible.

Go the bottom middle.

You will see someone with a huge camera.

Behind the lens end of the huge camera

You can see a woman in a black hat

with a black and white scarf around it.

There is grey hair underneath the hat at the back.

That's me.

For a larger version of this picture,

and plenty more,

please go here.

The politics of Jesus --- Where does it hurt?

I'm never too bothered if I miss a Sunday Sermon.  I know I am able to fill that space here.  Father Michael  writes from the USA where politics is hotting up for a presidential election in 2016 - and he gives us a glimpse of the politics of Jesus...

Picture above from here 

It is an illustration from the Warsan Shire poem,

What They Did Yesterday Afternoon,

by Warsan Shire.

...At the heart of Jesus’ politics is an unspoken and yet ever present question: Where does it hurt?

That’s the question that drives and directs Jesus’ life and ministry. As Jesus will later say, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Luke 5:31). Where does it hurt?

Look at the world, read the news, reflect on your life and it’s not hard to see how much we need a new politics, a Jesus kind of politics. Think back on those examples I gave at the beginning. Each of those is a story in which someone or some people is poor, captive, blind, oppressed, in need of divine favor. They are stories of pain and hurt, and sometimes they are our personal stories.

Jesus’ politics is large and all encompassing. No one gets left out. Jesus does not put conditions or qualifiers on his politics. The divine favor knows no boundaries and has no favorites. That’s what will upset and anger the hometown crowd in next week’s gospel (Luke 4:21-30).

Jesus’ political agenda is not determined or influenced by who is good or bad, or an insider or outsider. It doesn’t seem to matter to Jesus who you are, what you have done or left undone, or what you life is like. It’s really pretty simple. Are you poor? Good news to you. Are you a captive? Release for you. Are you blind? Sight to you. Are you oppressed? Go in freedom. Divine favor is not given to the poor, the captive, the blind, or the oppressed because they are good or righteous but because God is good and righteous.

So let me ask you this. How does the politics of Jesus compare with your own? ...

To read this post in its entirety, please go here.

CHANGE THE DATE : Why 26 January should not be celebrated by Australians

To understand why Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people find Australia Day so offensive, you only need to ask yourself this one, simple question.

To understand why Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people find Australia Day so offensive, you only need to ask yourself this one, simple question.

To understand why Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people find Australia Day so offensive, you only need to ask yourself this one, simple question.The iconic Aboriginal flag on the Tony Mundine Gym at The Block in Redfern.

 (IMAGE: Newtown grafitti, Flickr).

CHANGE THE DATE: 

Read This If You Want To Know Why Australia Day Is So

Offensive To Aboriginal People

Chris Graham on January 26, 2016

If your ancestors were dispossessed, slaughtered and had their land and their children stolen, would you celebrate the date on which that all began?

Obviously, you wouldn’t. It’s simply insane that anyone could expect Aboriginal people to embrace January 26 as the national day, given what it means to them.

The most common refrain against this is, ‘It’s time to move on’. Here’s the problem with that statement.

If you apply the same logic to non-Aboriginal Australia, then we should stop commemorating Anzac Day. ‘It’s time to move on. The wars were years ago.’

Obviously, we’d never treat our veterans with so much disrespect, living or dead. The simple truth is we shouldn’t treat Aboriginal people that way either. If we think it’s important to still mark the sacrifice of our ancestors for something that happened 100 years ago, why would we expect Aboriginal people to react any differently?

Another common refrain directed at Aboriginal people is: “I didn’t do it, it was previous generations.”

That’s probably true – if you’re a young Australian, aged 23 or under, then the laws which dispossessed Aboriginal people were not created by a government in your lifetime (the Mabo High Court decision, which found Aboriginal people owned the land prior to invasion, was handed down in 1992).

NEW MATILDA IS A SMALL, INDEPENDENT MEDIA OUTLET. IF YOU LIKE OUR WORK YOU CAN SUPPORT OUR LATEST POZIBLE FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN HERE. EVEN $5 HELPS US ENORMOUSLY

But here’s the problem: All Australians, regardless of their age, have directly benefitted from the dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. You enjoy the privileges of everything Australia has to offer directly at the expense of Aboriginal people. That’s something worth acknowledging.

And here’s another problem: the policies that flowed from the arrival of the British are still being enforced on Aboriginal people today – contrary to our claims, Aboriginal people do not have the same rights as non-Aboriginal people (Google ‘NT intervention’) in Australia – for example, child removal rates are higher today than at any point during the Stolen Generations era.

The debate among Aboriginal people to #changethedate is not a new one – it’s been raging, for a long, long time.

Perhaps the most important occasion in recent history occurred in 2009, after Kevin Rudd came to power.

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. (IMAGE: UK Department for International Development, Flickr)

In Opposition, Labor had promised Aboriginal people if it was elected it would change the date of Australia Day to one that is more inclusive. The promise was contained in the ALP’s 2007 National Platform, which guaranteed the implementation of the Roadmap For Reconciliation, a series of policies produced by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in 2000.

Rudd won the election, but in the lead-up to Australia Day, the story broke of his promise. Rudd did what so many politicians before him have done – he lied, and then back-tracked.

After denying the promise was even made (startling, given it was freely available to download from the ALP website) – Rudd tried to quell the media storm with this one-liner: “To our Indigenous leaders, and those who call for a change to our national day, let me say a simple, respectful, but straightforward no.”

It was neither simple, nor respectful. It was a broken promise, but non-Aboriginal Australians were either uninterested, or quickly moved on. Every year since, the debate has still raged (and it raged for many, many years before as well).

Aboriginal Australia has been asking non-Aboriginal Australia to consider their feeling son this matter for generations. They’ve been largely ignored.

Unfortunately, there really is only one way forward if Australia wants a truly inclusive national date – #changethedate. Until we do, our national day will be marred by this conversation every year.

Tell your friends by sharing this story on social media.

The author of this article, Chris Graham, tweets here. You can follow New Matilda on Twitter here. You can follow New Matilda on Facebook here.

A Bishop in the right place can be a very handy thing - especially for children living in poverty

Bishop accuses ministers of "studiously ignoring" the views of almost everyone

The Rt Rev Paul Butler

Tuesday 26 January 2016 / News

THE Bishop of Durham has led the House of Lords in defeating the Government over plans to down-play income-related measures of child poverty levels.

Peers voted by 290 to 198, a majority of 92, to back an amendment to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill proposed by the Bishop of Durham which forces Ministers to present a report to Parliament each year setting out the percentage of children in low income households.

The Rt Rev Paul Butler said the income-related situation needed to be recorded so that it could be assessed with other measurements of deprivation.

Read more here

Exclusion and Embrace 2016: Disability, Justice and Spirituality: broadening our understandings of sacred texts, and the experiences of people with disabilities and carers within the context of faith.

Exclusion and Embrace 2016: Disability, Justice and Spirituality

From August 21, 2016 03:04 until August 23, 2016 05:04

•  At Jasper Hotel, 489 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, Australia

The Australian Catholic University, The Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, The Progressive Christian Network of Victoria Inc., would like to invite you to:

2016 Exclusion and Embrace Conference

Date: 21-23 August 2016
Venue: Jasper Hotel, 489 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, Australia.

This Conference is a rare opportunity to bring together people interested in understandings of sacred texts, and the experiences of people with disabilities and carers within the context of faith. This  multi-faith Australasian Conference  has the support of a wide number of organisations including the Jewish Christian Muslim Association (JCMA) and the Faith Communities Council of Victoria (FCCV). The Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania is providing the Conference Secretariat.

The Conference will draw on the wisdom of all faiths, and will deepen our understanding of the many aspects of disability and spirituality. We are interested in your experience, research, practice, and ideas and knowledge.

Among the themes explored will be ethics, care, inclusion in faith communities, friendship, discrimination, love, justice, liberation.

In Australia, and abroad, an increasing number of people are actively exploring the intersection of disability and spirituality. An excellent Conference program will present perspectives across the faith spectrum, with opportunities for dialogue and formation of new networks. It will have appeal to people who live with disability, families and carers, academics and practitioners (volunteers and staff).

Two esteemed speakers will be keynoters at our Conference: Prof Hans Reinders is Chair of Ethics at VU University, Holland, and editor of the journal Religion and Disability. Rev Bill Gaventa is Director of the Summer Institute of Theology and Disability and President-elect of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD). We are also delighted that an Australian cast of presenters is increasingly coming on board: Prof David Tacey an interdisciplinary scholar who is widely published for his knowledge of Australian spirituality. Other presenters include Lorna Hallahan, Sheik Isse Musse, Melinda Jones and Diana Cousens (see website Speakers tab for details).

There will also be an exhibition of artworks that reflect people’s experience of disability and spirituality, as it relates to the conference theme.

View and download the brochure (note: when printing remember to tick print on both sides and flip on short edge)

The Conference is also seeking Abstracts within these three streams, as they relate to disability and spirituality.

(i)         Supports in faith communities/service providers

(ii)        Sa­cred texts/theological understandings of disability

(iii)       Theological Educa­tion/Research.

Please go to Call for Presentations for details of Abstract Details and Guidelines. Abstracts need to be submitted by 10 April, 2016. Presentations may include formal papers, posters, personal stories, poetry, or other approaches.

We invite presentations which address aspects and experiences as they relate to spirituality and disability. Themes include liberation, education, bioethics, reconciliation, sexuality, pastoral care, inclusion, love, theological interpretations. All presenters must be registered for the event by 15 July, 2016.

Other sponsors and endorsers include Spiritual Health Victoria, Spiritual Care Australia, Christian Blind Mission, Victorian Council of Churches, Progressive Christian Network Victoria, Australian Catholic University and the University of Divinity.

As part of the Conference, we are also launching and displaying an  Art Exhibition, depicting the conference themes. Andy Calder, Conference Convenor

Further Information:  Ann Byrne  The Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania  Email: ann.byrne@victas.uca.org.au

Phone: (03) 9251 5404

Endorsed by: Faith Communities Council of Victoria, Jewish Christian Muslim Association of Australia, Victorian Council of Churches, Spiritual Care Australia, Spiritual Health Victoria and University of Divinity.

8 WAYS TO DEFEND AGAINST TERROR NONVIOLENTLY - Think the conversation of re-active violence dominates politics and media? You'd better read this

This blog post came from the Uniting Church of Australia blog, morepraxis.org.au

It is a must read.  It is not unusual for people to rail against war, the United States proxy wars in which Australia is a strong supporter and so on.  But what do people actually do, in a sustained manner, to fight for peace, to change the conversation and actions that support war and provoke violence? Quakers have been working for peace for almost 400 years --- so there is a lot of experience from which the rest of us can learn.

Some good thoughts & tools from George Lakey a Quaker activist and expert in nonviolent activism.

Original Article in full can be found here  http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/8-ways-defend-terror-nonviolently/

8 Ways to Defend Against Terror Nonviolently

One of my most popular courses at Swarthmore College focused on the challenge of how to defend against terrorism, nonviolently. Events now unfolding in France make our course more relevant than ever. (The syllabus was published in “Peace, Justice, and Security Studies: A Curriculum Guide” in 2009.) In fact, the international post-9/11 “war against terror” has been accompanied by increased actual threats of terror almost everywhere.

In the first place, who knew that non-military techniques have, in actual historical cases, reduced the threat of terror?

I gathered for the students eight non-military techniques that have worked for some country or other. The eight comprised the “toolbox” that the students had to work with. We didn’t spend time criticizing military counter-terrorism because we were more interested in alternatives.

Each student chose a country somewhere in the world that is presently threatened by terrorism and, taking the role of a consultant to that country, devised from our nonviolent toolbox a strategy for defines….

What are the eight techniques?

1. Ally-building and the infrastructure of economic development

Poverty and terrorism are indirectly linked. Economic development can reduce recruits and gain allies, especially if development is done in a democratic way. The terrorism by Northern Ireland’s Irish Republican Army, for example, was strongly reduced by grassroots, job-creating, economic development.

2. Reducing cultural marginalization

As France, Britain and other countries have learned, marginalizing a group within your population is not safe or sensible; terrorists grow under those conditions. This is also true on a global level. Much marginalizing is unintentional, but it can be reduced. “Freedom of the press,” for example, transforms into “provocation” when it further marginalizes a population that is already one-down, as are Muslims in France. When Anglophone Canada reduced its marginalization, it reduced the threat of terrorism from Quebec.

3. Nonviolent protest/campaigns among the defenders, plus unarmed civilian peacekeeping

Terrorism happens in a larger context and is therefore influenced by that context. Some terror campaigns have lapsed because they lost popular support. That’s because terror’s strategic use is often to gain attention, provoke a violent response and win more support in the broader population.

The rise and fall of support for terrorism is in turn influenced by social movements using people power, or nonviolent struggle. The U.S. civil rights movement brilliantly handled the Ku Klux Klan’s threat to activists, most dangerous when there was no effective law enforcement to help. The nonviolent tactics reduced the KKK’s appeal among white segregationists. Since the 1980s, pacifists and others have established an additional, promising tool: intentional and planned unarmed civilian peacekeeping. (Check out Peace Brigades International, for one example.)

4. Pro-conflict education and training

Ironically, terror often happens when a population tries to suppress conflicts instead of supporting their expression. A technique for reducing terror, therefore, is to spread a pro-conflict attitude and the nonviolent skills that support people waging conflict to give full voice to their grievances.

5. Post-terror recovery programs

Not all terror can be prevented, any more than all crime can be prevented. Keep in mind that terrorists often have the goal of increasing polarization. Recovery programs can help prevent that polarization, the cycle of hawks on one side “arming” the hawks on the other side. One place we’ve seen this cycle of violence is in the Palestine/Israel struggle.

Recovery programs build resilience, so people don’t go rigid with fear and create self-fulfilling prophecies. The leap forward in trauma counseling is relevant for this technique along with innovative rituals such as those the Norwegians used after the 2011 terrorist massacre there.

6. Police as peace officers: the infrastructure of norms and laws

Police work can become far more effective through more community policing and reduction of the social distance between police and the neighborhoods they serve. In some countries this requires re-conceptualization of the police from defenders of the property of the dominant group to genuine peace officers; witness the unarmed Icelandic police. Countries like the United States need to join the growing global infrastructure of human rights law reflected in the Land Mines Treaty and International Criminal Court, and accept accountability for their own officials who are probable war criminals.

7. Policy changes and the concept of reckless behavior

Governments sometimes make choices that invite — almost beg for — a terrorist response. Political scientist and sometime U.S. Air Force consultant Robert A. Pape showed in 2005 that the United States has repeatedly done this, often by putting troops on someone else’s land. In his recent book “Cutting the Fuse,” he and James K. Feldman give concrete examples of governments reducing the terror threat by ending such reckless behavior. To protect themselves from terror, citizens in all countries need to gain control of their own governments and force them to behave.

8. Negotiation

Governments often say “we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” but when they say that they are often lying. Governments have often reduced or eliminated terrorism through negotiation, and negotiation skills continue to grow in sophistication.

Realistic application of non-military defense against terror

At the request of a group of U.S. experts on counter-terrorism, I described our Swarthmore work and especially the eight techniques. The experts recognized that each of these tools have indeed been used in real-life situations in one place or another, with some degree of success. They also saw no problem, in principle, in devising a comprehensive strategy that would create synergies among the tools.

The problem they saw was persuading a government to take such a bold, innovative leap.

Continue reading here : http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/8-ways-defend-terror-nonviolently/

JOIN THE FREEDOM RIDE TO GET THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE ALL CHILDREN FROM DETENTION - AN EVENT FROM GRANDMOTHERS AGAINST THE DETENTION OF REFUGEE CHILDREN

PLEASE JOIN GRANDMOTHERS ON THIS EPIC JOURNEY 

TO RELEASE THE WORLD'S CHILDREN 

IMPRISONED BY THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT 

Please download this poster and promote The Freedom Ride. 

This event is significant 

and we need to mass as many people as possible for the sake of the children. 

Australia has gone down a path of shame with the indefinite detention of refugee children - 

no matter what successive Australian Governments have said.

Free the children.

Do your best to overcome Australia's shame.

Join the Freedom Ride to Canberra being organised by the Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children in March.

Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children Ballarat are participating - with other Grandmothers groups in...
Posted by Brigid O'Carroll Walsh on Friday, 22 January 2016

In a video appealing to the Australian government, released on Wednesday evening, a group of about 35 children sit...

Posted by Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children Ballarat on Thursday, 21 January 2016

Putting NDIS where it should be and delivering what was promised : Online Consultation - First Round : Conference - March 16

National Reform Series 2016 | Civil Society Australia Reforming NDIS: Fulfilling the Promise to Revolutionise Disability Services       Online Consultation - First Round   What Do You Think? The following are proposals for reform of NDIS. There are twelve (12) proposals on which comments are invited. We want to know what you think. Our aim is to receive comments on these proposals so that refined proposals can be presented to the National Conference on Reforming NDIS on 21 March 2016.  1      Participants' Plans  2      Participant-Controlled Information Tool  3       Local Area Circles and Networks  4      Registered Providers of Supports  5      Monitoring and Protection of Self-Direction  6       NDIS Board and Advisory Council  7      Election of 50% of NDIS Board by Participants  8      Control of Management and Administration Costs  9      Participant-Driven Employment Assistance  10    Small /Micro-Business Development Grant  11    Family Support Entitlement  12    Advocacy Voucher for every NDIS ParticipantIf you have suggestions for reform of NDIS and its operations, processes and culture, you have until the end of January 2016 to send them in.  CLICK HERE to submit a proposal. People with disabilities, families, friends, support organisations, community groups, services and policy makers are invited to contribute to this people-driven process to ensure NDIS delivers on the promise to Revolutionise Disability Services. Reforming NDIS: Process and Timeline 1 December 2015 - 31 January 2016 Submit your suggestions and proposals for reform of NDIS. Proposals will be distributed  for consideration. Participants consider various suggestions and proposals for reform, and offer their assessments. 1 February - 21 March 2016 Refinement of proposals based on participant feedback. 21 March 2016 Conference participants assess proposals for NDIS Reform and establish mechanisms for driving an ongoing reform process. CLICK HERE to register your interest in participating in this process.  CLICK HERE to submit a suggestion or proposal for reform.  CLICK HERE to read the submitted proposals and add your comments.  CLICK HERE to register for the 21 March 2016 national conference.

Two Days in March 2016This process and conference on Monday 21 March 2016 forms part of a series of reform events hosted by Civil Society Australia in 2016. Two events will be held in March 2016. Participants may attend one or both of these as they wish. Monday 21 March 2016  Reforming NDIS Revolutionising Disability Services Tuesday 22 March 2016  Reforming Mental Health Breaking the Inertia in Reform CLICK HERE for further information. Venue The Angliss Conference Centre is located in the Melbourne CBD, on the corner of LaTrobe and King Streets, on the fifth floor. It is close to train and tram services. Flagstaff railway station is one block away in LaTrobe St, and Southern Cross station is three blocks away in Spencer St. Trams 23, 24, 30, 34, and City Circle run along LaTrobe Street. There are numerous accommodation options close by, to suit all budgets. Start and Finish Times Both events begin at 9.15am, finishing at 5.00pm.  CLICK HERE to register for one or both of these events.  Further Information CLICK HERE for further information. CLICK HERE for Civil Society Australia website.

Civil Society Australia.