Aborigines Claim for Citizen Rights (1938) proclaimed by Australian actor, Uncle Jack Charles

On the 80th anniversary of the 'Day of Mourning' 

Uncle Jack Charles performs an adaptation of the 

'Aborigines Claim for Citizen Rights!' (1938). 

#AlwaysWillBe

To-morrow January 27 - International Holocaust Remembrance Day

To-morrow, 27 January, is 

International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

From The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews

January 25, 2018

Dear Friend of Israel,

As World War II neared its end, the battle-hardened soldiers who liberated Nazi concentrations camps could not believe what they saw.

Years later, one Russian soldier described his entry into Auschwitz, the notorious death camp in Poland: "When I saw the people, it was skin and bones . . . . They couldn't even turn their heads; they stood like dead people . . . I was shocked, devastated.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower, General of the U.S. Army, was likewise appalled. “I have never felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality,” he wrote. “I have never at any other time experienced an equal sense of shock.”

Last year I visited Auschwitz, which has been preserved as a memorial to those murdered. As I toured the camp, I thought of the countless people who suffered and died there . . . and of the thousands of Holocaust survivors that The Fellowship assists every day.

It was clearer than ever to me after that visit that we have a sacred obligation both to the dead and to the living.

We must remember the dead. We must tell the story of their suffering, as painful as it may be, both to honor their memory and to help ensure that such horrors will never occur again.

And we must act – and act quickly – to help the living. Tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors in Israel and the former Soviet Union today live in unspeakable poverty and isolation. We must ease their suffering, so that they can live the rest of their lives with a measure of comfort and dignity.

In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 – the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz – as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s an appropriate gesture, but what a sad irony that throughout its existence the U.N. has consistently shown a harsh bias against Israel, the state that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust.

And yet, on January 27 I will choose to think not of the folly of the U.N., but of the millions of innocents murdered by the Nazis. And I will think of those who survived and are still struggling both with bitter memories and crippling poverty, and redouble The Fellowship’s efforts to help them.

As we move forward, let our watchwords be: We remember. We act. Not just on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but every day, let us pledge also to act to help those who survived – and who are crying out for our help.

With prayers for shalom, peace,

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
Founder and President

WE REMEMBER. WE ACT.™

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we pledge to remember the 6,000,000 victims. But we cannot forget about those who survived the Holocaust. Over 150,000 Jewish survivors live in poverty. Sadly, 40 die every day, alone and forgotten. It won’t be long before none of them are left. We must help them now while there is still time.  Learn how

Buddhist Myanmar and the Muslim Rohingyas

Some thoughts from The Editor of Beside The Creek on which readers might ponder as they read this article:

Firstly, so many Westerners have romantic ideas about Buddhism as a peaceful religion and lifestyle.  So what do such people make of what is happening in Myanmar?   Christianity professes peace too and we know that it has had difficulty in bearing witness to this attribute.  So what do we think when Buddhism is acting in a violent way to a whole class of people on the basis of their religion? Is this in the same category as Nazi Germany and the Jews?

Secondly, what is the role - from an objective viewpoint - of the role of Aung San Suu Kyi in what is happening in Myanmar.  Aung San Suu Kyi is a feted woman who has lived a life of privilege.  True, she has had her enemies and difficulties.  However, in no way can we see that she has suffered in the way the Rohingyas have suffered and are suffering. She has not been the victim of genocide as the Rohingyas have been and continue to be. Powerful people around the world are on her side. It is difficult to say who or what is on the side of the Rohingyas that will free them from their suffering and allow them to return to their homeland. 

Reworking the Colonial-Era “Indian Peril”: Myanmar’s State-directed Persecution of Rohingyas and Other Muslims

FEATURED RESEARCH PAPER, 22 Jan 2018

Maung Zarni & Natalie Brinham - TRANSCEND Media Service

“It would be best if they were not here. I do not want to see them in this country. Since the dawn of history Indians have been the leaders of attacks against the Burmans on behalf of the white faces.”

— Saithan (Burmese writer), New Light of Burma, 6th June 1937¹

“(Buddhist) Brother, you might already have heard of the news about the Buddhist mob in Rakhine lynching a group of Rohingyas in broad day light. Even in Yangon if you are a Muslim and say something wrong or behave slightly irritated at a teashop or a bus stop the Buddhists would howl “you mother-fucking Kalar (nigger), how dare you say something or behave like that.” If you go to certain neighbourhoods and run into a group of drunkards they recognize your Indian features and beat you up. So, I too fear for my life living in this country of ours. I was born here. And this is the only country I know I belong. Burmese is my mother tongue. Out of fear and despair, I have looked at different possibilities of going to work in Malaysia or trying visa lottery to USA. But the truth is I don’t really have any prospect for leaving my birthplace. I am stuck here.”

— A Burmese Muslim resident, 7 July 2017²

Read the long version here ... remembering that this is a long history 

Sitting by the river: one Friend's spiritual and healing practice

Mississippi River near Fridley, Minn. (c) Gabriel Vanslette/Wikimedia

Life Saving Quaker Practice

Michael Bischoff January 1, 2018

Michael Bischoff lives in Minneapolis, Minn.

This article is from Friends Journal

Although I’ve participated in Quaker worship for 25 years, it took a diagnosis of brain cancer for me to take on a wholehearted commitment to daily waiting worship.

I was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most aggressive kind of brain cancer, in 2015. After a year of surgeries, chemo, radiation, and experimental treatments, I completed all of the available medical treatment in 2016. My prognosis was still not good. Average survival after this diagnosis is a year and a half. I knew that I wanted to continue some kind of treatment.

I live close to the Mississippi River, and before that time, I had occasionally gone to the river to pray. When my medical treatment ended, I decided to make daily Quaker worship next to the river my ongoing treatment. For the past year, I’ve been sitting silently next to the river every day, with the intention of listening for and following the Spirit’s movements. I see the trees, birds, and river next to me as fellow worshippers in community with me. I take this treatment as seriously as I took chemo and radiation.

Like in meeting for worship, most thoughts that arise during my treatment are from a shallow place in my busy mind and not something with spiritual power. The river keeps inviting me to place those in the river and let them pass.

When messages with spiritual power do arise, I jot them down and ask if the message is just for me, for another particular person, or for a group. Occasionally, the messages turn into an article, like this. Mostly, though, I sit and watch the river go past.

Many messages have become letters of gratitude or reconciliation to people in my life—such as acknowledging what I learned of God’s love from my pre-school teacher, or apologizing for my misuse of power in a past job. Some messages lead to conversations. Many days, like in meeting, there aren’t any messages, just sitting in waiting worship. Other days, a great blue heron will have a message delivered through a graceful flight above the water in front of me. Sometimes a turtle walks slowly across my path, eldering me in the ways of patience and persistence. The 100-year-old cottonwood trees around me season what I think is ministry, helping me test if it is a message with weight, or one to return to the river.

Research is increasingly showing the health benefits of being in beautiful natural places, especially in contemplative ways. Even more than the health benefits, my commitment to the river continues to grow because of how I experience it opening me more fully to the sacred river that is the foundation of our worship.  

I’m now six months past the average survival for my diagnosis, and one year into my daily worship at the river.  I don’t assume my worship at the river will cure me, but I continue to trust that this treatment is an essential part of my healing.  When I now sit in worship with other humans, I feel my friends at the river holding us in the sunlight, grounding us in generative soil, and cleansing us in the watershed.

Ballarat Interfaith Network : Ballarat Council : World Interfaith Harmony Week Event

Australia Day - the great divide?

In Australia, we are moving towards Australia Day on 26 January.  

In my lifetime, this day has gone from barely or spasmodically celebrated to become a matter of great controversy.  It has become, it seems, symbolic of settler relationships with First Nations peoples.  Settler relationships have been murderous in some places and peaceful co-existence in others. In the colonization of Australia, history reveals some very unattractive and venal settlers.  Included among these are some very distinguished citizens. I choose not to name the ones I know because their descendants are still very distinguished citizens. 

However, one of Australia's most distinguished citizens whose regard for Aboriginal people was at the opposite end of the spectrum is Dame Mary Gilmore. Mary's parents were a bit different from the majority. Her Scottish parents allowed her to live with local Aboriginal people.  In the book pictured above, we get some of Gilmore's insights.  For instance, she tells that Aboriginal people could count the stars in the night sky; that they used a complex form of tallying on the fingers of their hands. 

We need to remember that we have

overwhelmed but in no way extinguished

an ancient and complex culture and its nations.

And we have so much to learn.

From Faith Communities Council of Victoria - the cost of government education in Melbourne

Interfaith humour from Danny Katz

Warning: Interfaith humour that might not be everyone's cup of tea!

From Danny Katz in The Age of 20 January 2018

A man of all religions, that's what I try to be. Most of the time I'm a Hebrew fellow. I can't help it: I was born with a Semitic spirit, a passion for bagels, and a distinctive Jewish protuberance in the middle of my face, with another equally distinctive one that's nowhere near my face.

When I'm not being Hebrew, I like being Hindu. I enjoy listening to sitar ragas, I believe in the concept of karma, and I'm a big fan of that chubby blue elephant-God Ganesha, with his four to sixteen arms depending on your Hindu iconography. Personally I'm a four guy. Just looks tidier.

• SHARE ON FACEBOOK SHARE
• SHARE ON TWITTER TWEET

I refuse to cause suffering to any insect, just in case it's a reborn human soul. Photo: Rodney Start

Now and then I dabble in a bit of Christianity. I take holidays off at Christmas, gorge on chocolate eggs at Easter, and yell out the name of Jesus while in the throes of uncontrollable passion. Usually sexual. Occasionally bagel.

At the moment I'm a Buddhist. Summer is the season when we fling open our windows to welcome in the outside world, which means we also welcome in every blowfly, mosquito, bee, and moth in the greater metropolitan area, up to the Zone 2 boundaries. And here's where my Buddhism kicks in: I refuse to cause suffering or death to any insect, just in case it's a reborn human soul. Maybe a deceased grandparent or aunty who decided to pop round for a nice little visit, land in my fruit bowl, vomit on the grapes, and suck up the dregs through their spongy mouthparts.

I've got an old plastic drinking cup with the words THE BHUDIST CUP written on the side in black marker ("Buddhist" is very hard to spell without a spell-checker). At the end of each day I go around the house and gently place THE BHUDIST CUP over window-trapped insects, then I carefully slide a thin piece of cardboard under the cup (THE BHUDIST CARDBOARD - an old postcard from my friend Dennis who lives in Shepperton). Now I carry the trapped insect outside, release it into the backyard, it buzzes out a grateful thank-you, then turns around and flies straight back into the house, and I start all over again. I find the repetition very meditative. Almost enlightening.

If bigger bugs get stuck in the house, dragonflies or huge huntsmen who are strong enough to lift the edge of the THE BHUDIST CUP with their furry legs then run up my arm and king-hit me, I have to trap them under THE BHUDIST SPAGHETTI COLANDER, then slide under THE BHUDIST COPY OF ROYAL AUTO, FEB 2016.

Sometimes I need to use many religions to free a trapped creature. Yesterday an actual bird flew into the house: it was extremely distressed, flapping around in a corner, so I had to go all-out. First I trapped the bird under THE BHUDIST "AUSTRALIAN-OPEN-TENNIS OFFICIAL BEACH-TOWEL".

Then I gently wrapped the towel around the bird like a Muslim burqa. Now I picked up the flapping bird in my arms, screaming, "Oh Jesus!… Jeeez! SOMEONE COME AND HELP ME!!!! JEEEEEEZ!" My son ran over and helped me carry the towelled bird outside with our four Ganesha arms. Then we set it free and I came back in and cleaned up all the bird crap on the floor with paper-towels and chemical cleaners as the Hebrews have done since they were slaves in Egypt. See? Lots of religions can work together to save the life of a poor little bird. There's an important message here. No idea what it is. But it's got to be something.

Pancake Day is a-coming

Shrove Tuesday is part of the Christian liturgical calendar.  

It is also known as Pancake Day. 

It is the day immediately preceding Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of Lent.

Lent is a period of prayer and fasting in the lead up to the major liturgical days 

of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  

While in many modern societies, fasting and abstinence 

does not take on the same significance as once it might have done, 

traditionally this was a period which also included abstinence from fat.

So Pancake Day was significant as the last day before the forty days of fasting. 

It is nice to see Wendouree Neighbourhood Centre

keeping the tradition going.

And as well as keeping up the spirit of the day,

it is sure to be a very pleasant social occasion.

Wendouree Neighbourhood Centre

12 – 14 Violet Grove

Wendoureee 3355

Phone: 5339 5069

Email: wncadmin@ncable.net.au

Opening hours:

Monday to Friday 9:30am – 3:30pm

(hours can vary during school holidays)

While I am sure there will be many other organisations and churches 

marking Pancake Day in Ballarat, The Editor would like to hear of them 

so that she can add them to this post.

Please email to misseaglesnetwork@gmail.com

UN World Interfaith Harmony Lecture 2018 by Emeritus Professor Desmond Cahill OAM

UN World Interfaith Harmony Lecture 2018

The University of Melbourne Chaplaincy and Religions for Peace Victoria invite you to a FREE lecture:

Appraising the Royal Commission Report into Sexual Abuse and Religious Organizations

by Emeritus Professor Desmond Cahill OAM 

Emeritus Professor Desmond Cahill OAM B.A., S.T.L., M.Ed., Ph.D, F.A.C.E.L. Consultant to the Royal Commission on Sexual Abuse and Religious Organisations 2015-2017 Chair: Religions for Peace Australia http://religionsforpeaceaustralia.org.au Educated in Australia and Italy, Desmond Cahill, Professor of Intercultural Studies at RMIT University, is one of Australia's leading social researchers. In 2006, he was made an honorary fellow of the Australian Council of Educational Leaders for his work in immigrant, cross-cultural, interfaith and international education. He currently chairs the Religions for Peace (Australia), and represents Australia on the Asian Conference of Religion and Peace (ACRP). He led Melbourne's successful bid to stage the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions, the world's largest interfaith gathering, and is now its Melbourne Program Director. A member of the Australian Partnership of Religious Organizations (APRO) and of the Victoria Police Multifaith Advisory Council, he is a Club Melbourne Ambassador as part of the “Think Melbourne, Think Victoria” strategy of the Victorian Government.

LOCATION

Laby Theatre (L108) in the Physics Building Melbourne University located near Melbourne Uni’s tram stop on Swanston Street
https://maps.unimelb.edu.au/parkville/building/192s/laby_theatre
 

CONTACT DETAILS

RSVP: Try Booking or Sue Ennis: wcrpaust@iinet.net.au 

online contact at http://religionsforpeaceaustralia.org.au/contact-us/

 

Making Waves in Melbourne ... stories, survival and strategies to end the nuclear age

Making Waves in Melbourne

Making Waves features the powerful tales of nuclear survivors from Japan and Australia, 

travelling aboard Peace Boat’s voyage to Australia from 24 January – 6 February 2018. 

The Governments of both countries have not yet signed the new nuclear weapons ban treaty. Inspiring civil society movements are demanding their leaders reject these weapons of mass destruction and abide by the new international legal norm.

Join the discussion.

Speakers include:

• Miyake Nobuo, survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
• Hasegawa Hanako and Hasegawa Kenichi, former dairy farmers evacuated from Itate village, Fukushima
• Karina Lester, Yankunytjatjara-Anangu second-generation nuclear test survivor
• Scott Ludlam, former federal Senator and ICAN Ambassador

Hosted by Peace Boat, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in partnership with the National Sustainable Living Festival.

On Thursday 1 February 2018 at 6:00pm

LOCATION

The Cube
Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Federation Square, Melbourne, VIC

CONTACT DETAILS

MAP