Dancing with Speeches #22 Noel Pearson

It is National Reconciliation Week and this week’s dance is with Noel Pearson’s Eulogy for former Australian PM Gough Whitlam.

Reconciliation Week and my attention always turns to those who know what it is to turn around, not turn away. Whitlam continues to inspire me by his sheer audacity and speed of reform and at his funeral Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson took our breaths away with his eulogy. Pearson gave a litany of reform born from Whitlam and stated eloquently that reform always trumps management.  There is no reconciliation without action.  Action that is pointed and unlocks possibilities, builds equity and shines a light on the assumptions on why reform is necessary.

This is the kind of reconciliation I want: acts of restoration, accountability that brings together what was broken and torn apart and in the healing what is made new is more beautiful than what it was before it was broken.

The Japanese art of kintsukuroi where the broken vase is melded together with threads of gold and silver to be more beautiful is the gift of reconciliation complete. No denying of the broken pieces in the first place and deep recognition that healing happens in the crucible of heat and flame where the craftsmen and women are required to apply their science and their art to bring together the pieces. This is re-form. The form has been restored and it is made new. It is not just a case of managing and handling all the pieces so that they fit together again. It is a recognition of where the edges are; and instead of hiding them with some invisible glue, making those edges glow and shine and enabling them to be the strength to binds and make whole.

The alchemy of bringing together the elements is the gift of the artisan. The reformer works with their hands and their words are their tools. There are no mechanics although moving bits start to emerge as a movement is built. There are high quality ingredients and fidelity to integrity, for without these, there is no authenticity – only management.

Yes Noel, I agree “Reform trumps management” so let us re-form and with the artisans of democracy bring about justice and equity so reconciliation makes us all whole.

PS

I have written about kintsukuroi previously:

Good Friday 2014

November 2014 : Made by Disappointment

Dancing with Speeches #21 Nelson Mandela

In 1994 Nelson Mandela stood in front of his nation in Cape Town and delivered his first speech as President of the Republic of South Africa. From this platform he looked over Table Bay and could see Robben Island where he had been imprisoned and he talked about democracy founded on the majority principle.

We speak as fellow citizens to heal the wounds of the past with the intent of constructing a new order based on justice for all.

Rising up to rise others up along the way, to unify a nation divide, to set prisoners free, to invest in democracy as the primary tool of liberation from division and hatred is noble. It is a quest that starts with resistance, that experiences repression, violence, imprisonment, often creating with martyrs sacrificed along the way leads to building a movement that has a life of its own.  Finding a way home to justice and equity where those previously disenfranchised are restored, made whole and opportunities appear not as a privilege but a right, requires a collective consciousness but more importantly a collective compassion to transcend old wounds to bring spectacular healing powers to policy and programs, to hearts and minds.

As South Africa transitioned to democracy, unfurled a new flag they embedded an old song ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika‘ into the national anthem. It was composed in 1897 as a hymn with lyrics from the five most widely spoken of South Africa‘s eleven official languages – Xhosa (first stanza, first two lines), Zulu (first stanza, last two lines), Sesotho (second stanza), Afrikaans (third stanza), and English (final stanza).  The hymn, a promise, a prayer  is a call to action, a call to be blessed.  The blessing: to be saved from war and suffering, and to hear the crags echoing the landscape. Surely these are the blessings that come when we turn our attention to the highest forms of democracy? How do we hear from the crags, those rugged outcrops among the cliffs? The wail of the wind, the natural power of the flowers pushing through to bloom, the migratory birds nesting from predators, are these not the blessings from the refuges created by the crags?  Or are they places of exile, holding the freedom fighters till they can come down to the plain?  The land and the sea are both blessing and blessed.

Constructing an order where justice is the foundation was the challenge of South Africa and having their first democratic elections in 1994 to elect Mandela was hard fought and looking out over Robben Island on his inauguration day was great staging. There is always imprisonment before liberation, captives need to be set free.  Being locked up internally before the blessed release of forgiveness is true for us as individuals as it is for a nation.

As my country prepares for another national election, our own Robben Island where we detain those seeking freedom from persecution is invisible from our coastline. Manus and Nauru are a long way off our shores.  The freedom fighters of South Africa looked to their own people for a solution and found a political one through the African National Congress and a world wide wave of disapproval to apartheid that eventually brought democracy.  The clumsy efforts of our world to bring democracy to war torn lands creating a refugee movement unprecedented for more than two generations means people are finding their way to far flung places like Australia and yet we are not fully embracing that offering asylum could be part of our contribution to bring democracy too. Who knows ?  We may well be incubating a future Nelson Mandela for Syria, Sudan, Sri Lanka from in the safety of our land.

The journey to freedom Mandela took throughout his life, is not so different to those who seek asylum. Refugees are exiles and the anguish they have being estranged from their homeland, the fear of being returned, the lack of protection offered. He too was exiled, estranged and hidden from view. I will leave it to one of South Africa’s poet laureate’s to remind us to make a bonfire to the maps that no longer serve us and to give dignity to each person.  Without dignity the citizen experience cannot emerge and democracy is compromised.

Anguish Longer Than Sorrow

by Keorapetse Kgostitsile

If destroying all the maps known
would erase all the boundaries
from the face of this earth
I would say let us
make a bonfire
to reclaim and sing
the human person

Refugee is an ominous load
even for a child to carry
for some children
words like home
could not carry any possible meaning
but
displaced
border
refugee
must carry dimensions of brutality and terror
past the most hideous nightmare
anyone could experience or imagine

Empty their young eyes
deprived of a vision of any future
they should have been entitled to
since they did not choose to be born
where and when they were
Empty their young bellies
extended and rounded by malnutrition
and growling like the well-fed dogs of some
with pretensions to concerns about human rights
violations

Can you see them now
stumble from nowhere
to no
where
between
nothing
and
nothing

Consider
the premature daily death of their young dreams
what staggering memories frighten and abort
the hope that should have been
an indelible inscription in their young eyes

Perhaps
I should just borrow
the rememberer’s voice again
while I can and say:
to have a home is not a favour.

Credit http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/let-them-stay-australian-hospital-refuse-release-baby-unsafe-nauru-refugee-detention-centre-1543771

Dancing with Speeches #20 Wilberforce

Williiam Wilberforce rose to his feet in 1789 to make his speech on 12 May on the abolition of slavery in the House of Commons to try and convince the rest of his parliamentary colleagues that the time had come to end the practice of transporation, in chains, across an ocean and to declare sympathy is the great source of humanity.

Perhaps you saw the movie Amazing Grace, it was the very last movie my father saw before he died. He loved the screen, and throughout my life,we saw a lot of movies together.  We didn’t actually see this one together, but we talked about it in one of the last long conversations we had. A story that captured all the great themes – redemption, tenacity, justice, power, fear, joy.  The making of a movement and the movement making leaders.  Quoting statistics and telling the personal stories of the oppressed and the oppressor, Wilberforce brought together the reality of how we are all enslaved by acts of barbarity, and without the end of trading in tyranny.

Slavery has not ended, and in our century and it is estimated 21 to 36 million are enslaved worldwide, generating $150 billion each year in illicit profits for traffickers.

Labor Slavery. About 78 percent toil in forced labor slavery in industries where manual labor is needed—such as farming, ranching, logging, mining, fishing, and brick making—and in service industries working as dish washers, janitors, gardeners, and maids.

Sex Slavery. About 22 percent are trapped in forced prostitution sex slavery.

Child Slavery. About 26 percent of today’s slaves are children.

Source: http://www.freetheslaves.net/about-slavery/slavery-today/

We are also trading in slavery when we join in the economy, get to know where your goods come from and you too can free yourself from the slave logistics chain (see www.freetheslaves.net/ for guidance).  In Wilberforce’s time sugar became a symbol of disconnecting from the slave trade and like all great symbols it helped to galvanise a movement and enabled people to participate in the campaign by politely refusing sugar in their tea and brought the conversation to the kitchen table.  All great movements have ways of bringing the big issues into the realm of the domestic.  I don’t like outsourcing my politics to politicians, the ideas and issues are too big for just the elites in the houses of parliaments, although it is crucial the legislators are there to turn the electorates views into law.  It is up to us who have issues of import to bring them to the kitchen tables and to find ways to take our moral, economic and social views to the masses. I have a sticker on my car, of an issue that is important to me (refugees), and I am handing out the stickers to friends, family, associates and others in my wake as one little piece of building this big conversation.  There is plenty of money to be made in this trade. Our government (Australia) is spending a fortune in this business. Detaining a single asylum seeker on Manus or Nauru costs $400,000 per year. Detention in Australia costs $239,000 per year.  I share  Wilberforce’s shudder. We now have 30,000 people in Australia unable to get visas after we promised them protection, and asylum seekers in Manus no longer detained, but unable to leave – effectively marooned. Just who are the pirates this time?

There is no business in abuse and Wilberforce invited us to benevolence – to do good. The opposite of benevolence is spite – intentional, ugly and designed to hurt. Isn’t it time to turn towards the light?

There is no accusation made against the gentlemen of the West India trade; but, by bringing forward the consideration of such a mighty object, we unite with the person of sensibility, that the measure is necessary, as founded in rectitude and universal benevolence.

William Wilberforce

Just as my Dad, found as his days got shorter there is an amazing grace to be found when you are no longer enslaved by the fear of the dark, so might we too find freedom in unlocking ourselves from what holds us back from saying no to a teaspoon of sugar, clothes made by children, or public policy that keeps those seeking asylum branded as illegal. It is hearts not boats that need to be turned around.

Dancing with Speeches #19 Dan Berrigan

Daniel Berrigan S.J died this week at age 94.  A lifelong peacemaker whose witness and actions inspired a generation.  His arrest as one of the Catonsville 9 setting alight with napalm the draft files of those conscripted by the US government to go to Viet Nam in May 1968 became a rallying cry for others in the anti-war movement. His speech to the court apologizing for burning paper and not children continues to be quoted and used by peacemakers and in resistance.

We deal in death.  Killing machines once had a human face, now appear unmarked, unmanned, an invisible thread camouflaging their true source and identity – the drone still comes from a nest of evil – as evil as any of the killing machines of the past.  The silent approach is as destructive as ever, raining down fire and fear, eliminating the ‘other’. Long before the drone leaves home, the amount of money spent on the military at the expense of health and education brings its own kind of slow death to nations.

Take heart from those who resist and speak their truth to power, who find themselves burning papers instead of children, who refuse to don a uniform of the state and instead wrap themselves in love and say the war stops here.  The Christian resister tests themselves against the standard of their man on the cross, resisting the temptation to align with the power of Caesar and instead to take instruction from the little ones, defenceless, innocent.

Does your war stop with you? Does mine stop with me?  What part can I play in the peace making?  The militarisation of our economies is not getting any less as this data shows.

Top five countries by military expenditure in 2016. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.[2]

List by the International Institute for Strategic Studies World Military Balance 2016 (for 2015)[3]

List by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 2016 Fact Sheet (for 2015)[1]

Rank Country Spending ($ Bn.)  % of GDP Per capita ($) World total 1,563.0 2.1 216 1 United States 597.5 3.3 1859 2 China 145.8 1.2 106 3 Saudi Arabia 81.8 12.9 2949 4 United Kingdom 56.2 2.0 878 5 Russia 51.6 4.1 362 6 India 47.9 1.8 35 7 France 46.8 1.9 702 8 Japan 41.4 1.0 323 9 Germany 36.6 1.1 454 10 South Korea 33.4 2.4 681 11 Brazil 24.2 1.3 119 12 Australia 22.7 1.8 1000 13 Italy 21.5 1.1 348 14 Iraq 21.1 12.7 569 15 Israel 18.5 6.2 2310 16 Canada 14.0 0.9 399 17 Algeria 10.8 6.2 274 18 Spain 10.7 0.9 223 19 Poland 10.3 2.1 267 20 Taiwan 10.2 1.9 438 Rest of World 260.5

Rank Country Spending ($ Bn.)  % of GDP World total 1,676.0 2.3 1 United States 596.0 3.9 2 China[a] 215.0 1.9 3 Saudi Arabia[b] 87.2 13.7 4 Russia[a] 66.4 5.4 5 United Kingdom 55.5 2.0 6 India 51.3 2.3 7 France 50.9 2.1 8 Japan 40.9 1.0 9 Germany[a] 39.4 1.2 10 South Korea 36.4 2.6 11 Brazil 24.6 1.4 12 Italy 23.8 1.3 13 Australia 23.6 1.9 14 United Arab Emirates[a] 22.8 5.7 15 Israel 16.1 5.4

Redemption is possible!  The goodness in the people like Daniel Berrigan and the movement around the world of those resisting war and building peace is overwhelming, their love is not measured in dollars or weapons, their love is priceless.  The liturgical dance of the courts and the treasury’s, the Generals and Prime Ministers at the altar of death will find its way home to peace only when Love makes a way and is embodied in resistance and solidarity with the littlest ones and lead by a child.

 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6

It takes a child to lead us and in our time we have the great example of Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani woman who has inspired our time with her relentless call for education of girls, girls and education, two of the best antidotes to the march of militarism and rise of terrorism. May Malala live as long a life as Dan and be a beacon and inspiration too for her generation.

Dan Berrigan in the right hand corner after being sentenced 1968.

Let us be conscripted to the movement of the heart, to sign up to peace, to tell others to put down their sword, take up the pen, open a book, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty. Long live Love. And may all lovers of life and peace live as long as Dan to continue to disturb, disrupt and resist war.

 

RIP Daniel Berrigan SJ: Master PeaceMaker