The USA and Australia - prioritising or excluding Syrian refugees ... or could we just select for need and urgency?

Thanks to Advocacy @ St Paul's for this post.

Here in Australia we have some who want to priotise Christians.

There are those who say that Christians should not be prioritised.

Can't we just say that we will prioritise according to 

need and urgency?

And here is a comment upon the irrationality of the American decision:

Something Christian Millennials “Don’t get”

I should probably be working on one of my three term papers right now, but something is on my mind. Also, this one is just for the Christians. If you’re not a Christian, go ahead and read it, but it’s not really directed at you.

As I am writing this, 17 state governors have declared that they will not accept any Syrian refugees. I’ve seen a lot of praise over this, largely coming from Christians.

I understand the fear. Really, I do. It is, I admit, quite plausible, as we have seen from Paris, that ISIS operatives can and will sneak in with the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from certain death or worse. However, there is a holocaust going on, and speaking for myself and I am sure many others, we cannot understand the coldness toward refugees coming from other Christians. If you will please stick with me for a few paragraphs, I will explain why we just don’t “get it.”

I was raised in a small-town Baptist church. I was taken there Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday nights. I don’t care how much you like to goof off, if you spend that much time in a church, you’re going to pick up on major themes whether you want to or not.

One of those major themes is that we should be courageous. Another is that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. Another is that life is eternal.

These themes are all over the Bible. “Be strong and courageous,” God told Joshua. “Perhaps you are here for such a time as this,” Esther’s uncle said. “Do not fear those who can kill the body,” Jesus said. Jesus also told a story that would be, on the danger scale, the equivalent of a Native American carrying a bloodied and beaten white man into an Old West town saloon for help in the pioneer days. (The Good Samaritan)

And the stories didn’t just include Bible stories. Just about every evangelical (especially Baptists) know and praise the Jim Elliots of the world and their wives. If you don’t know, Jim Elliot was a missionary to somewhere in the Amazon. He and several others were killed by the natives. Later, their wives evangelized the same people who killed their husbands!

We were taught to admire people like that. The idea that nothing, and I mean absolutely NOTHING in this world is more important than expanding the Kingdom of God — not even my own life — has been drilled into me since I was a small child. And, you know what? I believe it’s the truth still!

Am I not supposed to actually believe all that stuff?  I find myself today witnessing some Christians who seem to want to be as not like Jim Elliot as possible. I do not understand this. This is what I do not “get.”

For years and years and years it has been nearly impossible to get missionaries (even sneakily) into parts of the Middle East. It’s so dangerous, some, assuming they can even get in, are likely to be killed so quickly they can’t do much evangelizing. And now, hundreds of thousands of beaten, hurting, orphaned, widowed (google “pure and undefiled religion") and broken people are trying to come to US.

Is it possible that a small percentage of them want to kill us? — Let me counter that question with another question:

Does it matter? 

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a post Columbine, post 9/11 world that we youngsters think this way, but refugees or no refugees, some folk are getting murdered in the United States today. Refugees or no refugees, there will be another school shooting somewhere. Refugees or no refugees, terrorists will find a way. Life is terminal. You WILL die.

I find it astonishing that many people want America to be recognized as a Christian nation. God forbid!

“Dear Syrian refugees,

We, the Christian nation of America, do not want you. There are some bad eggs mixed in with y’all. We’ve seen the photo of the little boy who washed up on shore. We’ve heard from Christine Caine and the A21 people who talk about how desperate the situation is. But we also have some news sources that told us that it’s all men and the women and children aren’t even there! Whew! You almost had us fooled! Have a nice life in that land of opportunity you just floated to, the bankrupt and socially troubled country of Greece. We’ll send some food over for a while. Please, steer clear of the human traffickers and report all suspicious activity to the police.

God Bless.”

Maybe I’m just wound up. I suppose it’s possible to be too wound up or emotionally stirred at something like this. But if you want to curb my youthful enthusiasm, here’s all you need to do:

Open up a Bible and make a convincing argument that Jesus wants us all to be safe more than he wants us to reach the lost and help the hurting. I was taught, after all, that Jesus trumps all — even those teaching me that Jesus trumps all. Am I supposed to believe that or not?

It’s not like I’m declaring all of us must quit our jobs and go. But not only will we not go, we don’t even want them to come to us? I am genuinely confused. Somebody help me out here.

Remembering - the war to end all wars : the Charter of Rights at Bakery Hill, the first document of participatory democracy in Australia

Cross posted with permission  from Advocacy @ St Paul's

To-night at 6.30pm at St Paul's Anglican Church, 3-5 Humffray Street, Bakery Hill, Ballarat, Advocacy@ St Paul's is joining with the Ballarat Trades & Labour Council to celebrate the Charter of Rights, drafted by the English chartist John Basson Humffray who was a leading figure in the events leading up to and surrounding the Eureka Rebellion. Members of the modern-day Ballarat Reform League are interested too.  The site on which St Paul's is located is believed to be the site of the "Monster Meeting" of 10,000 miners who gathered to hear the Charter of Rights.  Hedley Thomson, Chair of Advocacy @ St Paul's, will read the Charter of Rights. Brett Edgington, Secretary of the Ballarat Trades & Labour Council, will speak.  The Charter of Rights is Australia's first document relating to the concept of participatory democracy.

To-day is not only the anniversary of the Charter of Rights. It is Remembrance Day, the day when we commemorate "the war to end all wars".  Below is a letter written earlier this year by Hedley Thomson with reference to the idea of 'nation building' in which he references the events of Eureka. If you want to let us know that you are coming, please go here.

14^th May 2015

The Editor

‘Ballarat Courier’

PO Box 21

Ballarat, 3353

Dear sir,

In the lead up to the 100^th Anniversary of the Gallipoli landing, the ‘nation building’ significance of the event was often mentioned. This assertion needs to be challenged. Aside from the disaster that was Gallipoli, for three quarters of a century prior, European settlers had a clear-eyed view that the Australian landmass would one day comprise one nation. For example:

1840s – colonial governments agreed that there should be one railway gauge to facilitate trade and transport throughout what would one day be a single nation. The fact that the one gauge objective was not achieved was to do with subsequent technical decisions, not a change of vision.

• 1854 – the Eureka rising – no civil war was required to affirm the commitment to establishing a parliamentary democracy; the death of two-dozen people was enough. What’s more, Eureka was a multi-cultural event at a time when Australia was the most multi cultural ‘nation’ on Earth.

• 1860s onwards - the Australian Constitution was developed over 40 years by the ‘founding fathers’, including Ballarat’s own Alfred Deakin. Here was true leadership, providing us with a parliamentary and electoral system with a sensible pragmatic structure to ensure representative democratic government.

• 1880s – the works of Henry Lawson and other writers, with their strong references to a sense of being Australian, independent of spirit, the mother country left behind.

• 1901 – Federation – the culmination of the past 60 years’ work.

On the basis of this history of Australia, it is arguable that our ‘nation’ was more independent, self-supporting and self-assured then than we are now! 

Hedley Thomson

In or near #Bendigo? Please support the #LoveMakesAWay protesters in the cause of refugees next week.

Cross-posted from Advocacy @ St Paul's

Advocacy has posted previously on the protest actions of the #LoveMakesAWay movement.

Next week the #Bendigo protesters who did a sit-in in the office of Senator Bridget McKenzie will appear in court in Bendigo.  Please come and show your support for #LoveMakesAWay and the protesters.  Details are below.  You will find Dave's Facebook site here. Advocacy @ St Paul's will be there.

Below: Dave Fagg of the Seeds community is arrested. More pictures here.

The plight of the garment workers of Rana Plaza : Australian responsibility : lots of links for information & aid

24/09 2015
Following the ABCTV Four Corners program last night, I am re-publishing a former post on the fire at Rana Plaza and the garment workers' plight. The original post has quite a collection of links, particularly to labour rights organisations. I have now added a further myriad of links from the ABC Four Corners site. The post has now become quite encyclopaedic with regard to the links. There is no excuse now for being uninformed; for not writing that letter; for not donating or not attending that benefit. Most of all there is no excuse for not encouraging people - in whatever industry - to join their union. Labour rights on the factory floor and humane intervention by governments is what prevents such events as the garment factory fire which has killed, maimed, and defrauded so many. Please act now!

We have all heard about the Bangladesh factory fire of 24 April, 2013 which killed 400 people.  This is nothing new. Bangladesh (and those international retailers who commission goods from factories there) have form.  The picture above is from a 2012 fire which killed 112 people.  For information about the prosecution of the factory owner, please go here.

Michele O'Neil of the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia reports:

Kmart, Target, Big W and Cotton On have all not signed on to the global agreement and those companies have no excuse not to be part of this. This is an effective way of actually dealing with a huge tragedy.

It is clear that only consumer activism, complaints, and demands for retailers to supply clear labelling and listing of supply chains will change anything and keep our retailing corporations honest, active and responsive to human rights. I have linked below contact forms and pages for the three major retailers mentioned on The World Today by Michele O'Neil.

Kmart contact form
BigW contact page
Cotton On contact form

Bangladesh has the lowest minimum wage in the world at $38 month.  Cambodia has the second lowest minimum wage in the world at $66 a month, so reports CorpWatch.  And, Australian consumers, if you are tempted to say that costs of living are cheaper in both countries then that doesn't wash.  These are people whose incomes barely put food in their mouths.  Their incomes don't buy four bedroom houses with bathroom, ensuite and plasma TV.  

The fact is that Australian greed, First World greed, 

is exploiting Third World need.

As Alecia Simmonds says - 

Western consumers must take some responsibility 

for the Bangladesh factory deaths.

One thing you can do that is only a Like away:

Facebook site for

The Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity

I have written to-day to Kelvin Thomson, Parliamentary Secretary for Trade as follows:

Dear Kelvin Thomson,

I write to express my concerns about the recent Bangladesh factory fire which has horrified the world.

It is clear that watchfulness on the part of the consuming public is the only way to keep governments, manufacturers and retailers open and honest about their supply chains and the way workers are treated and how and how much they are paid.

I write to ask you, as Minister for Trade, what the Australian Government - and in particular the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade - is doing to assist in:

1. Making Australian businesses compile supply chain details in relation to the products they sell and supply them on request to their customers.
2. Advising Australian businesses in relation to their responsibilities in relation to human rights when sourcing goods and products from countries with low-wage, non-unionised sweatshops and deathshops.
3. Keeping watch on countries with low-wage, non-unionised sweatshops and deathshops.
4. Keeping watch on governments of countries with low-wage, non-unionised sweatshops and deathshops.
5. Developing Australian Government responses to countries and governments which allow low-wage, non-unionised sweatshops and deathshops.

I plan to follow up to-day by writing to the following retailing organisations:

Australian Retailers Association

Australian National Retailers Association

Council of Small Business Australia

Below, more links are provided to expand your knowledge on this topic.

Firstly, previous posts on The Network on the 2013 Bangladesh factory fire at Rana Plaza:

Will things really change or merely salve western middle-class consciences?

Free trade comes first in Australian politics.

Supply chains enchaining low cost labour. Consumers need to question.

###

Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity

International Labor Rights Forum - Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity

Walmart creates its own Bangladesh factory safety program

Clean Clothes Campaign

Clean Clothes site

Clean Clothes Campaign - Facebook site

Fairwear Australia
Asia Floor Wage
Living Wage as a fundamental right of Cambodian Garment Workers
Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh

ADDED - Tuesday 25 June 2013
Wondering what you can do after last night's 4 Corners program
Lots of stuff below - from writing letters, to giving money, to action
and all based on great information

AID, ADVOCACY, RESOURCES

ActionAid: The Rana Plaza

Benefit for Bangladesh | Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia

The Clean Clothes Campaign | Oxfam UK

Ethical Clothing Australia

Fair Wear

Garment Workers' Appeal | ActionAid Australia | @ActionAid_aus

International Labor Rights Forum

Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights

Oxfam Australia Campaign: Support The Bangladesh Factory Workers

Sweatshops in Bangladesh | War on Want

The Worker Rights Consortium

Australian retailers Rivers, Coles, Target, Kmart linked to Bangladesh factory worker abuse

Fashion victims with Background Information

The above link provides links under the following headings

Email addresses you can write to about their unethical behaviour:

amardirossian@ woolworths.com.au

jcoates@bigw.com.au

q@rivaus.com.au

customerservice@btr.com.au

just group@jjh.com.au

Clothing retailers respond

The following retailers respond: Coles, Forever New, KMart Australia, Big W, Mango Clothing, Cotton On, Benetton, Mango

Reports and Company Audits

How sustainable are Australian retailers' new sourcing strategies? | AMP | Jul 2012 

See Nothing, Know Nothing, Do Nothing | Inst. for Global Labour and Human Rights | May 2012 -

Chinese Sweatshop in Bangladesh | Inst. for Global Labour and Human Rights | 8 Mar 2012 

Bangladesh's ready-made garments landscape | McKinsey & Co | 2011

2011 Sustainability Report | MANGO

Ethical Code of Conduct | Forever New Clothing Pty Ltd

Labour Practices in our global supply chain | Woolworths Limited

The Cotton On Group Vendor Code of Conduct 

World News Coverage

Dreams of Bangladesh garment workers often go unrealized, or become nightmares for families | Star Tribune | Jun 2013 

LISTEN: Fashion's Victims: An Artist's Focus On Garment Workers | NPR | 19 Jun 2013

Bangladesh Factories' Safety Issues Run Deep: Survey | The Irrawaddy | 17 Jun 2013

Most US Retailers Choose Not to Sign Bangladesh Factory Accord | Voice of America | 17 Jun 2013

Uncertain future for Rana Plaza survivors | Dhaka Tribune | 11 Jun 2013

'Rana deserves life term' | The Bangladesh Chronicle | 22 May 2013

The Cost of Making Factories in Bangladesh Safer: Ten Cents | The New Yorker | 16 May 2013

LISTEN: Australian retailers snub Bangladesh factory safety accord | ABC PM | 16 May 2013

Death Mill | Foreign Policy | 9 May 2013 - How the ready-made garment industry captured the Bangladeshi state.

Bangladesh: Tragedy Shows Urgency of Worker Protections | HRW | 25 Apr 2013 

Information on Ethical Garment Manufacturing

Accredited Brands | Ethical Clothing Australia

The Culprits - Who is to Blame? | FairWear Australia

Find Ethical Australian Products | Ethical Clothing Australia 

Retailers | Ethical Clothing Australia

Supply Chains in the Clothing Industry | FairWear Australia

The Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Accord | International Labor Rights Forum | May 2012 

Videos

The full story of the Rana Plaza Factory Disaster

Counting the cost - Bangladesh: the cost of fashion - Al Jazeera

Would you still buy that dress after watching this?

The deadly cost of fashion - New York Times

Made in Bangladesh - the fifth estate

The Law, The Church, and people with disability

To: Age Discrimination <webfeedback@humanrights.gov.au>

How will the DisabilityCare Australia legislation help an elderly disabled pensioner in Victoria who is about to be evicted without reason by his landlord, the Uniting Church Property Trust, who has been abusing, discriminating and intimidating him for two... nearly three years? 

An early response will be appreciated as the VCAT hearing is next Monday.
Thanks,
xxxxxxxxxx

Add caption

Support For People With Disability Confirmed In Law Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes of the Australian Human Rights Commission today congratulated the Australian Parliament for passing the law which will enable the establishment of a National Disability Insurance Scheme in Australia.

"This is a red-letter day for Australians with disability, many of whom currently are the poorest and most marginalised people in our community," Commissioner Innes said. "I believe this is the most important reform in the disability sector in our life times."

The law was passed with cross-party support today. It will now go to the Governor-General for signature. The scheme, to be known as DisabilityCare Australia, will commence in four launch sites, in four states on 1 July this year. "The current system of services for people with disability is broken and broke," Commissioner Innes said. "This new scheme will cause transformative change in this area and in the lives of people with disability."

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Decades ago I joined my first environmental organisation. Now it's celebrating 50 years - Wildlife Preservation Society of Qld

The first environment organisation I ever joined, the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, is celebrating 50 years of activities this year.  

Networkers might be interested to join in the celebrations.  See, the document below to plan how you will join in.

When I think of what I have learned over a lifetime and reflect on what a naive, know nothing, enthusiast I was way back then!  My husband and I joined - I think perhaps it was because some of our friends did.  We were living in Toowoomba in Queensland.  

The membership was small and trying to establish itself (this would have been late 60s or, more probably, the early 70s).  The bit I do remember after all the decades is that Judith Wright visited Toowoomba and I was the only one available (being a non-working mum back in those days) to look after her.  I remember going out on the edge of the Toowoomba Range where Ian Leslie (he had been at Toowoomba's Channel 10 for donkey's years and looked as if that would be where he would stay - but he went on to national fame on 60 Minutes) interviewed her.  

Toowoomba Garden Festival
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A couple of years ago, when a friend and I went to Braidwood to the Two Fires Festival, Don Henry (formerly the WPS director - see details below) was there and mentioned his days with the WPS.  As a matter of interest, he asked was anyone in the audience ever a member back then.  A few hands, including mine, went up. All rather fitting considering the connection between Judith Wright and the Festival.

Don's details taken from here.

Are we really sorry? And if we are sorry, how sorry are we. Not very, I suggest.

Koori Mail NAIDOC poster winner announced A 25-year-old Aboriginal artist from Chinchilla in Queensland has won the prestigious 2012 National NAIDOC Poster Competition, snaring a $5000 prize. Amanda Joy Tronc's artwork will adorn posters that will be distributed across the country to promote NAIDOC Week, which runs from 1-8 July. Her work titled 'Look at us now' addressed this year's NAIDOC theme, 'Spirit of the Tent Embassy: 40 years on'. "I wanted my artwork to show that it is important to understand the history behind us and that our culture is a part of our people," said Ms Tronc (pictured).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To-morrow, 26 May, is Sorry Day or - as it is now called - The National Day of Healing. There has been an apology to the Stolen Generations. There are Reconcilation Committees in all or most Local Government areas in Australia.  However, I would ask how sorry are Australians and how reconciled.  And if we say we are sorry that we do wish for reconciliation, then how sorry are we and what are we prepared to do to be reconciled?

You see in remote Aboriginal communities of Australia they do not have the same facilities and services available to them as those in mainstream communities.  You may recall that one of the things The Intervention in the Northern Territory sought to do was to put reasonably manned police stations in communities. All governments know that Aboriginal communities can have law and order problems - as do mainstream communities - but law enforcement, in many case, was not available to Aboriginal people.

There is a lot of goodwill in Australia towards Aboriginal reconcilation and inclusion but I would put in this reminder that not everyone cares, not everyone is sorry, not everyone wants to be reconciled.   Even among those who express goodwill, I am yet to hear one Australian say that they are prepared to do without a tax cut if the equivalent dollars could be spent on raising up the status and condition of Aboriginal people who are not making it mainstream society.

In short:  Are we really sorry? And if we are sorry, how sorry are we. Not very, I suggest.

Further reading:

Bringing them home

Little children are sacred

Human rights and the Northern Territory Intervention

The Northern Territory Intervention  and Human Rights: an anthropological perspective

Indigenous  policy - Federal Intervention in the NT: a reading and resource guide

White nation fantasy  and the Northern Territory 'intervention'

Faith Based Peace Witnesses: action and civil disobedience against war and in the cause of peace

The Yolgnu Nations reject the Stronger Futures Bill before the Senate.

Picture above is  from here

The Yolgnu Nations reject the Stronger Futures Bill 

(and those associated)

and call on the Senate to discard these Bills in full.

We have clearly informed you 

that we do not support the legislation.

Vigil and Vale for Terry Briscoe - another death in the wrong place and at the wrong time

This post is written in the spirit of vigil, a spirit of watchfulness and awareness.

Paddy Gibson has asked me to give attention to the death in custody of Terry Briscoe which occurred in Alice Springs.  Paddy is a researcher for Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning and Co-Editor of “Solidarity” magazine.  Paddy has covered the circumstances of Terry's departure from us here.  There is sadness in the life and the death of Terry.  There is hope expressed in the life of his cousin, Richard Morton. 

Let us all keep vigil so that these avoidable deaths can disappear from our penal institutions and law enforcement practices.  Let us all keep vigil so that there will always be - for people like Terry - another go at life, love, family and community.  Let us keep vigil so that human life and our own humanity testifies and triumphs.

Related articles

• Funeral for NT man who died in custody (news.theage.com.au)
• Police 'laughed' as Briscoe was held (news.smh.com.au)
• Call for peace at death in custody funeral (news.theage.com.au)