Timor Sea Justice

 

The Campaign 

Significant disputed petroleum resources, worth tens of billions of dollars, lie beneath the Timor Sea. Despite these resources lying closer to East Timor than Australia, both countries are staking a claim on the proceeds.

No maritime boundary has ever existed between Australia and East Timor: a boundary drawn in accordance with contemporary International law would deliver all of the resources on East Timor’s side of the median line to East Timor.

The Australian Government is stalling the negotiations and bullying the East Timorese Government to give up billions of dollars’ worth of entitlements. In the meantime, Australia is unilaterally depleting oil fields in disputed areas and taking all of the government revenues.

East Timor is unable to take the matter to an international arbitration because two months before East Timor’s independence, Australia suddenly and secretly withdrew from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea.

The Timor Sea Justice Campaign is demanding that the Australian Government gives East Timor a fair go.

We call on the Australian Government to:

1.	Stop unilaterally exploiting contested gas and oil resources in the Timor Sea.
2.	Place disputed revenues taken by the Australian Government into a trust fund to be distributed accordingly when the dispute is resolved.
3.	Immediately negotiate a permanent maritime boundary with East Timor in accordance with current principles of International Law.
4.	Re-submit to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea to settle the dispute by independent arbitration if necessary.

More info timorseajustice.org

A true revolution of values

"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. A revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast between poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists in the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America only to take profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: ‘This is not just.’"

Justify the Unthinkable

The War on Words

Just as feminism was able to demonstrate, language itself is often one of the biggest barriers to finding a sensible solution to a problem.

“The War on Terror” is an unfortunate phrase, and while ever we insist on using it we’ll never be able to win it. The more I’ve been thinking about this, the more convinced I am. You simply can’t declare war on a noun as vague as this. Just like the war on drugs, you end up fighting an amorphous, ill-defined and ever changing enemy. Fighting an enemy as indeterminate as this ensures that the charade is able to continue indefinitely.

The British have been dealing with terrorism for decades, against groups like the IRA. Countries around the world have dealt with terrorism in one form or another since the dawn of time. Do we honestly believe that this is something new? September 11 was without doubt a major tragedy, and on a grand scale. Why are we constantly being urged to believe that “things have changed” since that moment? Have they really?

Those of us on the left of politics have a responsibility to engage in the debate in a way which doesn’t reinforce this mindset. We have to come up with better ways of describing what’s happening, and be vigilant enough to stop parroting the language of the right without giving it a second thought.

The concessions and the infringements on human rights that people might expect in a real war situation are made more acceptable under the guise of this language. Politicians everywhere are talking about the need to accept these concessions in order to make us all safer.

It’s ironic that the ideals we’re supposedly trying to protect—“freedom” and “democracy”—are the things we stand to lose. The ideals that "those people" supposedly hate. Long held ideals about the meting out of justice, of fair trials, accountability, and of privacy, all seem to be fair game right now. After each terrorist attack we hear politicians beating their chests that “the terrorists won’t win”, and ever so slowly, we edge closer and closer to what the terrorists want.

Playing on the language of war, politicians and the media alike perpetrate and promote a campaign of fear. They constantly tell us how we’re afraid of more attacks (something which I’ve found quite curious. How do they know?)

There are calls now to ban Islamic books, and to investigate the supposedly free speech of a number of individuals against our criminal code. Prime Minister Howard, and his unimaginative Opposition Leader, openly insinuate that expressing particular extreme views won’t be tolerated.

The freedom to express views of all types is what makes our countries so great. The discourse that follows after radical views are espoused is the very thing that keeps them in check… but drive those radical views underground even further, so that they become whispers, and we’ll soon find ourselves in a very shady world indeed.

MoreTim

Star wars lost in translation

Apparently some things get lost in the translation. In a chinese dub version of "Revenge of the Sith" (titled "Backstroke of the West") the english subtitles reveal the real name of the The Jedi council to be "presbyterian church." So thats where the Jedi disappeared to after the disbanding of the council!

Dr Dave 

 

White Arm Band Your Church

 

As part of the Micah Challenge and Make Poverty History Campaign to see that governments around the world live up to there promise to halve global poverty by 2015, J.I.M  is inviting Uniting Church congregations to follow the example of Uk Churches and display white banners with the slogan Make Poverty History.  Or you may want to make up your own slogans, perhaps linked to biblical verses, such as:

Do Justice, Love Kindness:  Halve Global Poverty by 2015

I was hungry and you fed me: Halve Global Poverty by 2015

Love your neighbour: Halve Global Poverty by 2015

It is better to give than receive: Halve Global Poverty by 2015

I’m sure you can think of more.

J.I.M will arrange for printing and delivery of banners and may subsidise their costs.  To Contact the Justice and International Mission Unit - email jesse.cain@vic.uca.org.au 

So let’s aim to involve our churches and wrists in the next White Arm Band day Sept 10 for highly visible witness for a better world.

Age

(maybe wear your morepraxis T-shirt too)

The London bombings: Moving beyond the horror

Below is some a couple of paragraphs from an article about the London Bombings by Vinoth Ramachandra for Sojourners

….If my experience of the 25-year conflict in Sri Lanka has taught me anything, it is that what often begins as a legitimate struggle for political rights very quickly loses direction and implodes into an endless destructive spiral of face-saving violence, with vengeance on the enemy as the only goal. I suggest that the misguided young men responsible for the London bombings were motivated not by cultural or economic alienation (not only were they were not poor, but the world’s poor don’t tend to do such things), nor by "hatred of the West" (there are many non-Muslims who hate liberal institutions and values but don’t kill innocent civilians), nor by the study of the Quran per se (millions of Muslims who study the Quran diligently do not become suicide bombers), but rather by the simple and ancient motivation of revenge in "shame cultures" - not for evils committed against them or their families, but against what they had been indoctrinated (probably in Pakistan) into seeing as evils committed against the Ummah, or household of Islam, by the United States and Britain. These are honor killings, and have no military objectives……..

…..Finally, while we must support the U.S. and U.K. governments in their quest for tighter security and better intelligence to prevent more attacks in the future, we also need to call them publicly to account for their own crimes in Muslim lands. The blatant falsehoods concocted by politicians to justify the invasion of Iraq, the routine practice of torture and outsourcing of prisoner interrogation to security firms, the shredding of U.S. constitutional safeguards against the abuses of power, and the "shock and awe" tactics practiced in Afghanistan and Iraq, are all grist to the mill of those seeking to enlist naive young men to avenge the collective shame inflicted on "Islam." Chickens have a habit of coming home to roost.

Vinoth Ramachandra, the co-author of The Message of Mission (InterVarsity, 2003), lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka and is secretary for dialogue and social engagement (Asia) for the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

 

Jesus Truck

 

 

"Car Crushing High Hopping Free-Styling Soul Saving Action!!!!

Watch as JESUS crushes and destroys all of his enemies then finishes them off with the stimata blaster.

All in the name of God"

 

 Apparently.

Small Acts

 

"Small acts of humanity amid the chaos of inhumanity provide hope. But small acts are insufficient."

- Paul Rusesabagina, Rwandan and former hotel manager whose actions inspired the movie Hotel Rwanda.

  "Ten years ago, some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind took place in
the country of Rwanda; and in an era of high-speed communication and round-the-clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, almost 1 million people were brutally murdered. In the face of these unspeakable actions, inspired by his love for his family, an ordinary man summons extraordinary courage to save the lives of over a thousand helpless refugees by granting them shelter in the hotel he manages."

Getting behind the story

The fancy word is ‘exegesis’ but the practice of drawing out meaning in a text is otherwise known as ‘picking it apart’.  It is a common practice in Christian, Muslim and Jewish scholarship and is often used to apply a critical interpretation to what might seem obvious at first glance.  When a story or text presents itself, a series of questions are employed to uncover what lies behind the words.

Where is power located in this story? Who has the power? How is it exercised?

What resources are apparent? Who owns or controls them? Whose voice is heard, whose is not?

What values are present? What is life giving? What is life denying?

Exegesis is a valuable tool not only for theological scholarship, but as a tool for the stories and events that are unfolding in our midst.  

Recent changes to the Migration Act created a boom of media attention on Petro Georgiou and others labelled as ‘small ‘l’ Liberals’.  The story unfolded as renegade Liberals challenged their leader to reform a cruel policy creating damage to the health of vulnerable children, women and men.  The challenge was accepted, and through private negotiations legislation was drafted, passed and victory was announced.  

At first glance the story reveals itself as one in which the powerless have been lifted from their place of oppression, restored by the vision of a small team of courageous leaders.  Success achieved, the media has left the story behind and the public has moved on to other world tragedies.  

But there is more to this story than appears on the surface.  When we begin to ask questions of power, resources, control, voices and values we find there is much that remains unanswered and still more that is yet to be determined.

Whilst Petro Georgiou and those who supported detention reform should indeed be congratulated for their courage in pushing for changes in the current detention and temporary protection system, much of the positive impact of the changes relies on the government implementing the legislation in good faith.  For those of us who wish to see the best of this legislation implemented, we too have a role as exegetes to continue to ask the questions that will bring the complexities of the story into the open.  

For now, the power and control lies with the government as it discerns just what community detention (or residence determination) may mean.  Resources can be made available, but if talk of curfews, geographical restrictions and inflexibility with Centrelink requirements come to fruition, it could leave people with little room to move - literally.  

This year the theme for Refugee and Migrant Sunday is “We can given them a future”.  On 28th August churches across Australia with the support of the National Council of Churches will use this theme to reflect on the Christian message that every person is created in the image of God and is of immeasurable worth and dignity.  We know we CAN give them a future.  Documents such as The Better Way produced by the Melbourne based Justice for Asylum Seeker network have fully costed models establishing that it is possible to balance security with our international human rights obligations.  Yet we continue to skirt around the edges of detention reform.

In the meantime we can, and should, celebrate improvements in the conditions for refugees and asylum seekers in Australia.  But there is still a role for the exegete in Australia and there are many questions that need to be asked and many voices that need to be heard.  At the moment, if the boats arrived again tomorrow, not much will have changed in the way we receive asylum seekers into our community.

 
Caz

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