February 7, 2009 is now referred to as Black Saturday because of the bushfires which gripped Victoria. They were Australia's worst natural disaster. The Age has to-day issued on line a collection of four videos updating the re-emergence of Marysville. To see them, please go here. For photos, please go here.
Probably the longest internet relationship I have is with a man called Steve Hayes, in South Africa. The internet relationship began on an email list Steve ran - beginning in the last century long before blogging was ever thought of. These days Steve runs Google Groups instead of email lists and blogs on a couple of sites as well. So it is to Steve that I owe my beginning knowledge of the Doctrine of Discovery.Episcopal Church repudiates Doctrine of Discovery
Urges US adoption of UN Declaration
By Gale Courey Toensing
Story Published: Jul 26, 2009
Story Updated: Jul 27, 2009
ANAHEIM, Calif. – In a first-of-its-kind action in the Christian world, the
national Episcopal Church has passed a landmark resolution repudiating the
Doctrine of Discovery and urging the U.S. government to endorse the U.N.
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Organizers of the bill hope it will lead to the overturning of a 19th century
U.S. Supreme Court ruling and Congress’ assumption of plenary power over
Indian nations they say are illegitimate and immoral, and continue to strip
American Indian nations of their inherent sovereignty.
The resolution, called “Repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery,” was passed
unanimously by the Episcopal House of Bishops and by an overwhelming majority
of the House of Delegates during the church’s 76th General Convention July 8
–
17 in Anaheim.
“It’s a historic event,” said Steven Newcomb, Shawnee/Lenape. Newcomb is the
indigenous law research coordinator for the Sycuan Education Department,
co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, and a columnist
for Indian Country Today. Newcomb’s work on the Doctrine of Discovery in his
many essays and his 2008 book “Pagans in the Promise Land” is the spark that
ignited individuals in the Episcopal Church to pursue the resolution.
Newcomb expressed his “deep appreciation” for John Dieffenbacher-Krall,
Brenda Hamilton, and John Chaffee “who powerfully advocated for passage of
the adopted resolution.
“Through the official action of an important religious institution in the
United States, the document raises the visibility of the Doctrine of
Christian Discovery, while providing a means of educating people about that
doctrine and its continuing effects on indigenous nations and peoples. The
resolution is also important because of its focus on and endorsement of the
U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
The resolution is also timely: The U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
has called for a study of the Doctrine of Discovery and its historic and
continuing effects on indigenous people to be completed by the forum’s
convening in 2010.
“The Episcopalian Church’s resolution will no doubt factor into that study,”
Newcomb said.
The Doctrine of Discovery was a principle of international law developed in a
series of 15th century papal bulls and 16th century charters by European
monarchs. It was essentially a racist philosophy that gave white Christian
Europeans the green light to go forth and claim the lands and resources of
non-Christian peoples and kill or enslave them – if other Christian Europeans
had not already done so.
The doctrine institutionalized the competition between European countries in
their ever-expanding quest for colonies, resources and markets, and
sanctioned the genocide of indigenous people in the “New World.”
The resolution renounces the doctrine “as fundamentally opposed to the Gospel
of Jesus Christ and our understanding of the inherent rights that individuals
and peoples have received from God,” and promises to share the document with
its churches, governments within its boundaries, and the U.N.
It resolves to eliminate the doctrine within the church’s contemporary
politics, programs and structures, and urges the U.S. government to do the
same. It asks Queen Elizabeth to publicly repudiate the Doctrine of
Discovery, and encourages all Episcopal churches to support indigenous
peoples in their ongoing efforts for their inherent sovereignty and
fundamental human rights as peoples to be respected.
Johnson v. M’Intosh, an 1823 U.S. Supreme Court case, held that because of
the Doctrine of Discovery American Indians have a mere right of occupancy to
their lands. The ruling is foundational to federal Indian law.
Dieffenbacher-Krall, the executive director of the Maine Indian Tribal State
Commission and originator of the resolution movement, said the ultimate goal
is to overturn Johnson v. M’Intosh, and dismantle Congress’ claim to plenary
power over Indian nations.
“This is illegitimate, this is immoral, this is evil. U.S. law shouldn’t be
based on this. I want to see an all out effort to overturn Johnson v.
M’Intosh just as the NAACP legal defense fund and many civil rights activists
worked strategically to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson,” he said, referring to
the 1896 Supreme Court ruling that upheld a “separate but equal” decision by
a lower court that allowed Louisiana to operate separate railroad cars for
African-Americans. The high court decision provided cover for southern states
to impose racist Jim Crow laws for more than five decades until segregation
was tossed out in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education.
A longtime social justice activist, Dieffenbacher-Krall said his growing
awareness and understanding of the doctrine’s history made action
irresistible.
“It’s not like I had a St. Paul on the road to Damascus moment, but sometime
in the winter, spring or summer of 2006, I really became aware of the
Doctrine of Discovery in connection to Congress’ claim of plenary power over
American Indian nations.
“So where’s the social justice behind Congress saying, ‘We’ll just do
whatever we want with the Maliseets or Navajo or Hopi because we’re the U.S.
and you’re not?’ I felt that because I have an uncommon knowledge for a white
person about some of this stuff that I might have a role to play working in
my church to make people aware of this.”
Working with the Wabanaki tribes in Maine, reading Newcomb’s articles and
later contacting him helped strengthen Dieffenbacher-Krall’s determination to
act, and in October 2007, Maine’s Episcopal Church responded by passing a
resolution calling on Queen Elizabeth and the Archbishop of Canterbury to
rescind the 1496 charter given to John Cabot and his sons to go forth and
claim possession of all the lands in the “New World” that weren’t already
claimed by Spain and Portugal.
Dieffenbacher-Krall also worked with Chaffee, a professor of Chinese history
at Binghamton University and member of the Episcopalian diocese in Central
New York, to pass its own similar resolution in November 2008, and with
Hamilton, a Maine social worker, who worked with Chaffee to shepherd the
national church’s resolution through the process in Anaheim.
Chaffee crafted the resolution that was adopted at the general convention.
The resolution has “a substantial practical value,” Chaffee said, because it
could potentially “provide important legal ammunition in terms of pending and
future legal cases that might be brought by Native Americans. I’m very happy
to be just a small part of that whole process.”
Hamilton was honored to be able to participate. In an e-mail update to her
colleagues during the convention, she wrote, “My testimony rebutted the
comment I have often heard about this issue, ‘What, are we trying to rewrite
history?’ I said that to stand in any of the colonial churches of New England
was a reminder that those churches stood on a history of the Doctrine of
Discovery and genocide, thus there needed to be recognition of that both by
the Episcopal Church and its colonial forbears in the Church of England.”
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/51572857.html
Comment by Steve Hayes:
Before reading this article I had never heard of this "Doctrine of
Discovery", and I wonder how many other people have heard of it, apart from
fundis in the history of US Law (the "doctrine" was apparently formulated by
the US Supreme Court in 1823)
I queried it in a blog post at:
http://su.pr/217muL
which led to some interesting and enlightening comments from Steven
Newcomb.
It appears, from his explanation, that though the US Constitution prohibits
Congress from making laws concerning an establishment of religion, there is
no such restriction on the US Supreme Court, which has effectively
"established a religion" through formulating the Doctrine of Discovery.
--
Steve Hayes
E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
Can't usually afford the theatre or the ballet as much as I might wish to go. But afford it or not as soon as the National Ballet of China's performance of Raise the Red Lantern was advertised, out came the credit card and the ticket was booked. Raise the Red Lantern, the movie directed by Zhang Yimou, is a production of exquisite beauty and high drama. The ballet story, needless to say is much abridged, but the central story line of "fourth wife" and what happened to her is retained in all its startling clarity.
Increase public funding of political parties.
Parties have become reliant on big donors to fund their campaigns and operation. If we are to eliminate the influence of corporate donations on politics, more public funding will have to be provided to parties. Depending on the system used and the level of funding, this is estimated to cost in the vicinity of $30 million dollars. This may sound like a lot, but international studies have shown that public funding has a positive effect on political competitiveness and decision-making. Given that the policies and private contracts our politicians oversee add up to tens of billions of dollars, we think paying a little more to make sure those decisions are free from undue influence is a good investment.
From time to time I give myself a good talking to. Usually, this relates to me reminding myself that in Israel there are people who think as I do about the way Israelis are treating the Palestinian people with regard to the wall, the eviction from homes, the fact that everyone living in Israel (including Jewish people) is not being treated equally.
Barb Shaw was not in the Federal Court in Melbourne yesterday. Her voice was not heard in the words of legal argument of the judge and the barristers. But her battling spirit was there; the battle of an individual against coercive government power; the battle of one person representing the battle of many.
Peter Gray SC appeared for the majority of the housing associations which manage the Town Camps in Alice Springs. Not all housing associations were respondents because there were housing associations without an interest in this matter.
Meanwhile, back in the every day world of ensuring we have a drop to drink, keep up with Steve on his journey up the Goulburn River, part of the Murray Darling system. Look out for him, look up his itinerary, and - people of Melbourne be ready to give Steve a great welcome when he turns up here.
Dear Networkers, I feel that we - the ordinary citizen taxpayers of Australia - are like the people above. We are beggars, mendicants seeking the crumbs from government tables as the lobbyists and developers and large corporations stream on in to privilege.
I am not trying to be party political on this. However, I do wish to single out Hawker Britton because I want you, dear Networkers, to be aware of them. Another time, another place and another brand of government and I would be talking about Jackson Wells Morris.
