Dale Hess Calendar - March 21 2016

Thursday 31 March, 7 pm: Palestinian Poet Rafeef Ziadeh. Rafeef has received many accolades from leading lights in the arts such as Pulitzer-prize winning author and poet Alice Walker.  In fact, British filmmaker Ken Loach has said, ‘Rafeef's poetry demands to be heard.   She is powerful, emotional and political.  Please read her work and see her perform.  You cannot then be indifferent to the Palestinian cause.’ Kaleide Theatre, RMIT, 360 Swanston Street, Melbourne CBD. Rafeef will be joined by the indomitable singer/songwriter Phil Monsour, the album's producer, and the installation video and performance artist Aseel Tayah  known for her most glorious voice. Profits from the night will be donated to  Olive Kidsto assist Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. TICKETS AND BOOKINGS:  www.trybooking.com/180790. $ 22 to $29.

Tuesday 5 April, 6 pm: Black Mist, White Rain.  Featured speakers: Sue Coleman-Haseldine and Abaac Anjain-Maddison. Sue is a Kokatha-Mula woman living in Ceduna, South Australia. She was born at the Koonibba mission near Maralinga, a site of British nuclear testing. In December 2014 she travelled to Austria to deliver a testimony on the impacts of nuclear testing on Aboriginal land and people to 158 governments at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. Abacca was born on Rongelap, an island that will remain uninhabitable for generations due to radioactive contamination caused by nuclear testing conducted in the Pacific. For many people in Australia and the Pacific, nuclear weapons are not a distant, abstract threat, but a lived reality – a persistent source of pain and suffering, of contamination and dislocation. Indigenous communities bear the brunt of this ongoing scourge. Venue: Drill Hall, 26 Therry Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000.  The event is free but with limited space, so please register to ensure you get a seat. Book here. More information: www.icanw.org/au/bmwr. Contact Details: Gem Romuld - gem@icanw.org - 0421 955 066.

Thursday 7 April, 6 pm -  8.30 pm: Public Lecture: will terrorism and the ‘war on terror’ ever end? Prof. Joseph Camilleri will present a special lecture. The United States launched the war on terror at 9.30pm on September 11th 2001. Since then, over 61,000 terrorist attacks have killed more than 140,000 people. Many more have died in the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya. Many millions have had to flee their homes. Is there an end in sight to this mayhem?  Venue: St Michael's on Collins

120 Collins Street – Melbourne.

Bookings: http://stmichaels.org.au/event/joseph-camilleri-lecture

Sunday 10 April, 12.30 pm – 6 pm: Interfaith Film Festival. Different Books, Common Word - 1h (Muslim / Christian); Solomon & Gaenor [M]-  1h 42m (Jewish / Christian) ; Arranged [PG] - 1h 33 m (Muslim / Jewish). Cost $15 to cover expenses |  Further donations to JCMA welcome Light refreshments will be provided. Venue: AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY  115 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy 3065 Christ Lecture Theatre (5); Mercy Lecture Theatre (6). Paid Parking available on Young Street.  RSVP by Monday 4 April 2016:  Eventbrite Bookings (preferred):  http://bit.ly/1JX9tSE; T: 03 9287 5590; M: 0400 211 221; Email:womenconference@jcma.org.au.

Monday 11 April; Sunday and Monday, 24 April and 25 April; Sunday 1 May: Ecological Literacy. Ecological literacy was initially used by David W. Orr and physicist Fritjof Capra in the 1990s, to understand the Earth as a living system whose well-being was dependent on our thinking in terms of the interdependence of all living systems. In his Web of Life Capra writes of the emergence of a new paradigm challenging the old mechanistic and linear view of the universe and challenging notions of continuous growth and development and with it consumerism and commodification as the “normal”. Ecological literacy is about using this interdependent view of the world to help address the complex dilemmas around the destructive impact that humans have had on the world bringing us to what is often called the Anthropocene… And together we'll draw on the experiences and wisdom of all participants, and the 'natural world' around us. Cost $800. Further details: info@oases.edu.au.

Tuesday, 12 April, 6 pm – 9 pm: Nuclear In/Justice. The Anti-Nuclear and Clean Energy Collectivepresents a new experiential workshop exploring the nuclear industry in a fun and participative way. We will go on a journey of movement and theatre to understand our role in the nuclear machine and work towards nuclear guardianship. Union House - Melbourne University, Parkville Campus, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia. Google map and directions. This is a free event. RSVP’s essential. Contact: Jemila Rushton:jemila.rushton@gmail.com. 

 

Wednesday 13  April, 6.45 pm: Rare screening of On the Waterfront.  Transparency International Australia’s Victorian Chapter presents a screening of the film On the Waterfront. Set against the Waterfront Crime Commission (1953), this film has everything: the mob, murder, corruption, social justice and a love story. See a young Marlon Brando struggle with the difficulty of making moral choices in an uncertain modern world. The film endures as a powerful observation of both society and humanity, resonating for audiences as much today as when it was made in 1954. It swept the Academy Awards in the year of its release. An introduction to the film will be made by Phil Newman (CEO of Transparency International Australia) and Tricia Caswell (former union leader & ACTU Executive Member). Phil will highlight TI Australia's work and Tricia will reflect on her experience in the union movement. Book your ticket here. Pls help us make this inaugural film night a success by inviting your friends by forwarding this email, or posting info on to your Facebook, Linkedin or other social media sites. Where: ACMI Cinema 1, Federation Square.Cost: $20 ($15 concession)

Monday 25 April – Friday 29 April: Living the Peace Testimony with Greg Rolles. Explore the connections between war, militarism, climate change, colonisation of Indigenous peoples, racism – and your own urges to help bring peace. 

Silver Wattle Quaker Centre, 

1063 Lake Road, Bungendore, NSW. 

Telephone:02 6238 0588

Tuesday 26 April, 6.30 pm – 10 pm: Remembrance and Resilience: 30 Years after Chernobyl. TheAnti-Nuclear and Clean Energy Collective and the Medical Association for the Prevention of War (MAPW) present a night of short films and talks to remember the Chernobyl disaster and to celebrate the ongoing resistance to the nuclear industry. Joining us will be a special guest speaker, Bill Williams from MAPW. Films to be confirmed. Venue: Loop Project Space and Bar, 23 Meyers Place, Melbourne, VIC 3000

Google map and directions. Contact: ace@foe.org.au. $10/$15 solidarity.

Sunday 22 May, 6 pm: An Evening with Edward Snowden. The Castan Centre for Human Rights Law is proud to be supporting Edward Snowden's first ever (virtual) speaking tour in Australia, presented by Think, Inc. Join us to hear Snowden comment on the dangers of Australia's growing governmental surveillance, the tumultuous relationship between individualism and 'national security', and on the actions that polarised him as a paladin for the public and a public enemy to politicians. (Appearing via a video link). The Plenary – Melbourne Convention Centre, 1 Convention Centre Place, Melbourne. For tickets click here.

Friday 10 June – Monday 13 June: Indigenous Spirituality and Culture with Karen Kime. Journey into Aboriginal ways of teaching country, kinship and cross-cultural issues in work and community. The workshop will also include examples of other indigenous people. Silver Wattle Quaker Centre, 1063 Lake Road, Bungendore, NSW. Telephone:02 6238 0588

Monday 11 July; Sunday and Monday, 31 July and 1 August; Saturday 10 September: Recreating our Organisations. We live in a world of organisations, educational, familial, work…each with its own culture and processes and each creating its own set of experiences for those who interact with it. Whilst we cannot escape from the reality of organizations in our lives, we can learn to better understand, work with and change (for the better) the organizations in which we play a part…In this unit then our central question addresses the possibilities of recreating or re-imagining the way we organise that would create more soulful, meaningful, value based,  collaborative and generative organisations that are relevant for 21st century sustainable and socially just organisations. Cost $800. Further details: info@oases.edu.au.

 Friday 21 October – Saturday 22 October: The Justice Conference. The 2016 Justice Conference has a brilliant line up of international and Australian speakers, thinkers and practitioners. With two full days of content, including key note sessions, worship, poetry, panels, electives and glimpses of justice, there is no doubt that you will be challenged and inspired. Stay tuned for more information regarding the program as we near the conference. Venues: Melbourne Town Hall and Atheneaum Theatre. Further details:http://www.thejusticeconference.com.au/

Ecological Aspects of War - religious perspectives from Australia

Deep Green Resistance - an all encompassing way of life?

Picture above is from here

Guiding Principles of Deep Green Resistance

Statement of Principles

The soil, the air, the water, the climate, and the food we eat are created by complex communities of living creatures. The needs of those living communities are primary; individual and social morality must emerge from a humble relationship with the web of life.

Civilization, especially industrial civilization, is fundamentally destructive to life on earth. Our task is to create a life-centered resistance movement that will dismantle industrial civilization by any means necessary. Organized political resistance is the only hope for our planet.

Deep Green Resistance works to end abuse at the personal, organizational, and cultural levels. We also strive to eradicate domination and subordination from our private lives and sexual practices. Deep Green Resistance aligns itself with feminists and others who seek to eradicate all social domination and to promote solidarity between oppressed peoples.

When civilization ends, the living world will rejoice. We must be biophilic people in order to survive. Those of us who have forgotten how must learn again to live with the land and air and water and creatures around us in communities built on respect and thanksgiving. We welcome this future.

Deep Green Resistance is a radical feminist organization. Men as a class are waging a war against women. Rape, battering, incest, prostitution, pornography, poverty, and gynocide are both the main weapons in this war and the conditions that create the sex-class women. Gender is not natural, not a choice, and not a feeling: it is the structure of women’s oppression. Attempts to create more “choices” within the sex-caste system only serve to reinforce the brutal realities of male power. As radicals, we intend to dismantle gender and the entire system of patriarchy which it embodies. The freedom of women as a class cannot be separated from the resistance to the dominant culture as a whole.

 Listen to an audio version of the Statement of Principles

Code of Conduct

All societies – including the most peaceful; especially the most peaceful – have understood the necessity of codes of conduct, which are nothing more than behavioral norms.

All serious organizations have codes of conduct by which people are meant to abide. The Spanish Anarchists did. So did the IRA. The Freedom Riders had a code of conduct, as did Nat Turner’s fighters. Codes of conduct are even more important in militant resistance movements which have a history of behaving badly.

To reject the concept of a social compact is to reject all responsibility (which comes from the root “to give in return”) and ultimately all human relationships. The modern, Western, individualist, capitalist, code of conduct is that there can be no such thing as a code of conduct other than what benefits an individual the most. Our movements can’t use this as a measure of liberation or as a model for our organizations or communities. If we are to be successful in such a monumental task, we must invest time and energy in our relationships.

Agreeing to abide by a code of conduct is not limiting, it is liberating. It will ensure that all involved are in agreement on the basic protocols that will guide us in this struggle.

Civilization, especially industrial civilization, is fundamentally destructive to life on earth. Organized political resistance is the only hope for our planet. Our task is to create that resistance movement.

With this goal in mind, we agree to adhere to the following Code of Conduct in our organizing groups:

Political Action: DGR groups will only engage in aboveground, nonviolent activities. These can include legal demonstrations as well as civil disobedience.

Solidarity: Non-indigenous members of DGR remember that we are living on stolen land in the midst of an ongoing genocide. The task of the non-indigenous is to buildsolidarity with indigenous people in defending the land, preserving traditional cultures, and protecting sacred ceremonies from exploitation.

Justice: We are enmeshed in overlapping systems of sadistic power built on stolen wealth, white privilege, misogyny, and human supremacism. As individuals, it is our responsibility to acknowledge those systems, overcome our entitlement, and make alliances with the dispossessed. Collectively, it is our task to bring those systems down.

Liberty: DGR groups have a zero-tolerance policy for abuse of anyone, human or nonhuman. Physical integrity and emotional safety are basic human rights that DGR is sworn to defend. DGR will banish any members who rape, batter, or abuse any living creature. Masculinity, with its militarized psychology and its violation imperative, has to be abandoned personally and dismantled globally.

Character: DGR is a serious undertaking that requires loyalty, commitment, integrity, and courage. Members are expected to treat everyone with respect.

Security: All DGR members are required to abide by principles of security culture and to address breaches directly. Both lax security and paranoia are dangerous to our organization. All non-political illegal activity puts everyone at risk and is inappropriate for members. DGR groups are required to educate new members on security culture.

 Listen to an audio version of the Code of Conduct
And for comment on some of the thinking of DGR
Please read the review by Ian Angus of proposed strategies of DGR

PAPAL ENCYCLICAL - PRAISE BE TO YOU - ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

Posted with permission from Advocacy

The latest papal encyclical was released to-day, 19 June 2015 AEST - 18 June in The Vatican.  The encyclical will take time to read closely and carefully, to digest it, and comment thoughtfully upon it.

Advocacy is indebted to Crux in providing the encyclical in a number of formats to make it easily accessible to people.  Advocacy has embedded the encyclical in this post where it can be read on-line or downloaded.  However, it is also available on Crux here in linked chapter by chapter outline for easy access and reading. Linked here is the encyclical as it was posted on The Vatican website.  Crux also contains recent commentary.

Comment

ABC - Australia: Key excerpts from the Pope's encyclical on the environment

The Age - Neil Ormerod: Pope Francis's views on global warming cold comfort for Canberra

The Guardian: The pope's encyclical on climate change - as it happened

The Washington Post: Ten key excerpts 

The Sydney Morning Herald:  

Papal environment encyclical a win for the Greens, challenge for Abbott

Water scarcity, water wars, and the ecology of peace

The article below is cross-posted from Advocacy @ St Paul's

Published on Monday, November 10, 2014

by

Common Dreams

Peace Ecology: Deep Solutions in an Age of Water Scarcity and War

by

Randall Amster

A key concept of what we term "peace ecology" is grounded in the notion that conflicts and crises driven by scarcity of natural resources—such as water—can also be opportunities for us to reimagine what is possible and ultimately foster mutually beneficial solutions and longer-term sustainability. (Photo: Louis Vest/flickr/cc)

The following is an excerpt of the Randall Amster's latest book, Peace Ecology, and appears on Common Dreams with the kind permission of the author and publisher. All rights reserved. Please note, book citations have been removed for online reading but a fully cited version (pdf) can be accessed here.

Mark Twain once purportedly said that “whiskey’s for drinking—water’s for fighting.” While the evidence for attributing this to Twain is shaky at best, the quote is nonetheless frequently invoked as a foregone conclusion: people will fight over water because it is scarce, essential, and invaluable for the growth and development of human societies. In reality, “water wars” are exceedingly rare, with the overwhelming majority of the world’s 263 shared river basins being subject to treaties, agreements, and other mechanisms for allocating their flow. Still, there is a deeper concern reflected in Twain’s apocryphal quote, namely that while water wars between nations may be rare, modern water utilization on the whole often reflects a collective war that humankind is waging on the environment. All too often, what are coded as “shared waters” and “peaceful resolutions” to human-human conflicts still involve deep incursions against the natural flow of surface waters, including channelizing rivers to fix national boundaries, altering the saline and sediment levels, and damming rivers for hydroelectric plants. Such outcomes are part of a larger orientation that comes to equate peace with control—especially control of nature.

"We must recognize water as boundless... as life."

As human cultures expand, water is emerging as the central resource in local and global politics alike. Pressures to privatize and commodify water are continually being brought to bear, often under the guise of development schemes that are portrayed as linking growth with security. To ensure that water flows even in places where it is highly problematic—from Abu Dhabi to Phoenix—massive delivery infrastructures are contemplated, including energy-intensive desalination plants and circuitous concrete canals transporting water hundreds of miles across deserts. Science fiction scenarios abound, as plans are conceived to capture clouds, drag icebergs, and create mountains and lakes for delivering water supplies to thirsty nations. One of the first high-tech regional water projects, which would serve as a template for similar projects worldwide, was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) developed in the 1930s, comprised of a series of elaborate dams and hydropower generating stations. When World War II broke out, the project was reoriented toward wartime production, doubling its power generation and producing a majority of the phosphorous used by the U.S. military for bullets, bombs, and chemical weapons, as well as aluminum for aircraft. The “most significant contribution to the war” was created at a TVA-powered laboratory: the fissionable uranium-235 that was used to fuel the Manhattan Project that developed the world’s first nuclear weapon.

The TVA example is stark for its specific militarism, yet it reveals something deeper about how we tend to view water. Oftentimes the choice for transnational actors appears to be one of engaging in either water wars or joint development projects—in essence, either militarism or capitalism; a World War and/or the World Bank. If we are inclined to associate the latter with peace, then it obviously becomes preferable to the alternative, and yet deeper questions about the meaning of water remain unresolved. Water is inherently fluid, unpredictable, prone to extremes of either floods or droughts, both transient and in situ, primeval in its simplicity and purity. Water reshapes images beneath its surface and accurately reflects those above it; it is "an active agent, changing all it touches … creating new courses and possibilities yet to be appreciated by humans." As we co-evolve with all of the essential resources in our midst, we must also apprehend "the limitations of instrumental rationality in capturing the meanings of water and shortcomings of modern science in improving our understanding of its treatment in society."

Increasingly, we come to recognize that no peace between nations is possible without reconciling underlying water issues. It has been surmised that the failure to attain peace in the Middle East between Israel and its Arabic neighbors has been due in part to the concomitant failure to achieve a mutually cognizable agreement over the Jordan River and underground aquifers in the region, yielding a climate of "mistrust, fears of dependency, and perceived threats to national sovereignty." In the case of India and Pakistan, where border clashes and warlike tensions have persisted for decades, a treaty governing the Indus River basin was signed in 1960, following a World Bank proposal to divide the waters between the two countries. While the agreement may have helped forestall violent interstate conflict, it also led to "an all-out effort to build a monumental array of dams and canals"—leading one of the Pakistani (formerly Indian) engineers on the project to observe: “This was like a war. These were huge works…. Everybody was after us. They said we had sold the rivers, that we were traitors to our country”.

What we learn from these examples is that water is more than a mere resource, and that both fighting over it and dividing its spoils are equally problematic resolutions to looming global water issues. As we have seen throughout this volume, both the hardware and software of conflict must be addressed, requiring a simultaneous emphasis on peacemaking at both the human-human and human-environment interfaces. As Vandana Shiva documents, efforts to privatize water and dam rivers often result in the displacement of peoples and the despoliation of the environment—as well as an ensuing “centralization of power over water” that conjures a double meaning for the concept of "hydropower." While it may be the case that "the world is more conscious than ever of the unbreakable nexus between water and life," this realization—coupled with depletion of freshwater sources and a rising contingent of global competitors for resources—has led many to speculate that the wars of the 21st century will be fought primarily over water, not oil or other valuable resources. On the other hand, more promisingly, a spate of literature has emerged in recent years suggesting that water can be a powerful basis for transborder cooperation, collaboration, conservation—and peace.

*          *           *

There are myriad lessons to be gleaned from the field of hydro-politics, which we may take as the "systematic study of conflict and cooperation between states over water resources that transcend international borders." Chief among these lessons are that water highlights our innate interdependence with one another and the environment alike, and likewise that water directly connects the economic and ecological spheres of human life. As with other environmental components, "water bodies respect no political borders," thus engendering a wider perspective that is particularly useful in light of global scarcity and the essential nature of the resource. While studies of water in relation to violent conflict have reached varied conclusions…, there is an emerging consensus that scarcity in the context of renewability coupled with the “critical need" for water can provide the impetus for cooperation—yielding "peaceful and successful conflict management schemes" even among "states with recent militarized conflicts."

If we take to heart the premise that scarcity and essentiality can promote cooperation, then the prospects for water to spur transborder peace initiatives are indeed promising. Nearly half of the earth’s land mass abuts river basins shared by more than one nation, and more than three-quarters of the available fresh water flows through an international river basin—reminding us in stark geographical terms that "a river is without a nationality." It is becoming increasingly clear that lasting peace is possible, from the Middle East to the American Southwest, "only if water is taken into account." Highlighting these themes, the United Nations declared 2013 as the "International Year of Water Cooperation" and the years from 2005-2015 as the "Water for Life Decade"—optimistically citing the operative notion that "history has often shown that the vital nature of freshwater is a powerful incentive for cooperation and dialogue, compelling stakeholders to reconcile even the most divergent views. Water more often unites than divides people and societies." In order to reach this ambitious horizon, we must strive to "build bridges between various meanings and understandings" and to enhance "the legitimacy of noninstrumental uses of water." In short, we must recognize water as boundless—as life.

If we are thus seeking the robust peace contemplated by the peace ecology perspective, then we will need to do more than sign treaties that allocate every drop of water among competing users. Control and peace are often dichotomous, at least in the context of transnational security issues and a complex geopolitical landscape where looming resource wars and ongoing processes of economic colonization continue to dominate the discourse. Physical borders between nations are increasingly militarized in the post-9/11 era, even as the barriers to so-called "free trade" and footloose capital are simultaneously relaxed. This has the effect of diminishing the potential for genuine exchange among peoples and communities on opposite sides of national borders, interrupting the natural processes of ecosystems that do not abide the largely artificial lines on maps. It also serves to exacerbate tensions among nations, leading to the creation of permanent war economies whose explicit "national security" focus is the procurement and control of dwindling resources—down to even the essentials of food, water, and energy. The zero-sum logic of scarcity and competition is palpable, and has become a central norm of international relations, even as its workings are becoming little more than a self-fulfilling downward spiral in which vast resources are expended in the attempt to secure more of them.

[A]ny exploration of processes confronting these eventualities is potentially revolutionary in its full dimensions. The set of interrelated themes brought together under the rubric of peace ecology remain grounded in the notion that the crises of scarcity and conflict are also opportunities for mutually beneficial engagement born of necessity yet aimed at longer-term sustainability. The cultivation of a sense of shared destiny and mutual necessity can bring even ardent transnational adversaries to the negotiating table, since, as Alexander Carius reminds us, "environmental problems ignore political borders." This emerging holistic perspective suggests that peoples and nations have the potential to find ways of managing ecological concerns that not only work to avoid conflicts but that can also serve to promote peaceful relations among human communities and with the environment itself.

© 2014 Randall Amster / Paradigm Books

Randall Amster, JD, PhD, is Director of the Program on Justice and Peace at Georgetown University, and serves as Executive Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Association. His recent books include Peace Ecology (Paradigm Publishers, 2014), Anarchism Today(Praeger, 2012), Lost in Space: The Criminalization, Globalization, and Urban Ecology of Homelessness; and the co-edited volumes  Exploring the Power of Nonviolence: Peace, Politics, and Practice (Syracuse University Press, 2013) and Building Cultures of Peace: Transdisciplinary Voices of Hope and Action.