Human Rights
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Klaus Neumann. Stepping up to the plate.
Angela Merkel said last week ‘There will be no tolerance towards those who question the dignity of others.’ Prime minister Tony Abbott is in favour of increasing the number of Syrian and Iraqi refugees allowed to resettle permanently in Australia. But when he announced on Sunday that Australia would “step up to the plate,” he Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. The challenge of people movements.
Great as the gesture of Pope Francis is to mobilize parishes in Europe to accommodate the influx of tens of thousands of asylum seekers from the Middle East (they call them migrants), the problem is more complex than offering immediate support to needy people. The Pope knows that. He’s said so many times. The Pope Continue reading »
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A Clash between Church and State in Australia?
The recent appearance by retired Bishop Geoffrey Robinson at the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has raised the possibility of a clash between Australia and the Vatican along similar lines to what occurred in Ireland in 2011 after the publication of the Murphy Commission’s Cloyne Report. Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The death of Aylan Kurdi may not have been in vain.
In the last week our media has been extensively covering the plight of Syrian and Iraqi refugees fleeing into Europe. Their reception has been mixed but the governments of Germany and Austria, and their people, have been extending help and kindness. I have posted three blogs in recent days on these issues: Mother Merkel and Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan. Bishop Geoffrey Robinson at the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The royal commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues to fill us with dread that we have not yet adequately identified why the incidence of abuse reported in our institutions is higher than in other churches. The divisions amongst our bishops, previously unreported and unknown previously to many of the faithful, are disheartening. Continue reading »
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Sydney’s Holroyd High School and asylum seeker children.
Refugees and their children face many difficulties in settling in Australia. But the evidence shows that after this settling in period, refugees and their children outperform Australian-born people in many areas. We see the results for refugee children in university-entrance exams and in university performance. One remarkable example is the experience of refugee and asylum Continue reading »
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Irfan Ahmad. As Morsi faces the gallows, where are the defenders of democracy?
In mid-June, an Egyptian court upheld the death sentence against the country’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi, whom the military deposed in July 2013. Death sentences against Morsi and 105 others were confirmed after Egypt’s grand mufti gave his approval. Many Islamic scholars (ulema) in the past spoke truth to power, for which they Continue reading »
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Peter Day. “Sally’s worth it.”
Harry Anslinger’s dream to rid the world of drugs was given legs in 1930 when he was appointed the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department‘s Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He was a brilliant bureaucrat with a grand vision underpinned by prohibition; a man who single-handedly turned a marginalised, underfunded Bureau into an uncompromising and Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. Four preconditions for supporting marriage equality.
A committed Catholic gay man, whose integrity I admire and whose hurt from ongoing homophobia I feel, recently asked me to sign a letter to Prime Minister Tony Abbott urging that Coalition members be granted a conscience vote and that the Commonwealth Marriage Act be amended promptly to include same sex marriage. He assured me that Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Don’t tamper with citizenship.
The Australian Government has presented new legislation that would enable the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection to revoke Australian citizenship for dual nationals who might have been involved in terrorism activities. There would be no judicial review. As a result of an apparent disagreement in Cabinet, the government has deferred a decision on how Continue reading »
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Andrew Pridham. Adam Goodes and Rosa Parks.
Before last weekend’s match between the Sydney Swans and the Adelaide Crows, the Chairman of the Sydney Swans, Andrew Pridham, gave a very challenging speech about Adam Goodes and racism in Australia. He said that recent events are a seminal moment in our history. He commented that Adam Goodes ‘has shaken the nation’s conscience‘. He Continue reading »
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Marcus Woolombi Waters. We all know and admire the Haka … so why not one of our own?
The first I heard of the Adam Goodes Bumala-y Yuurrama-y (war dance) I was in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I had been watching my son play rugby. It was a carnival (under 12s) and they had just lost the grand final. After leading for the entire game, players and parents alike watched helplessly as the opposing team Continue reading »
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Tim Soutphommasane. Adam Goodes has made some people feel uncomfortable.
Racism comes in many forms: overt and covert, crude and subtle. The harms of racism also come in many forms. We know from a large body of research that racism can lead to stress, negative emotions, psychological damage, even physiological effects. We don’t always focus, however, on racism’s impact on our civic health. What I Continue reading »
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Walter Hamilton. Magna Carta and universality.
Current Affairs. Eight hundred years ago, this month, King John reluctantly signed Magna Carta, a form of peace treaty forced on him by rebellious barons. It is considered to have marked the beginning of the end of the age of despotism. Some also see Magna Carta as the extension into politics of Christianity’s leveling theology: Continue reading »
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Nikki Marczak. History repeats for Christian Assyrians
Current Affairs As ISIL continues its brutal rampage across Iraq and Syria, a recent United Nations report found that ethnic and religious minorities are facing crimes against humanity, and even genocide. For Christian Assyrians, these atrocities evoke terrible memories of the genocide their ancestors endured under the Ottoman Government (‘the Young Turks’), known by the Continue reading »
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Robert Manne. Human Rights Commission and Gillian Triggs.
Current Affairs The Australian government and The Australian are at it again, attacking Gillian Triggs. I re-post below an article by Robert Manne from earlier this year. John Menadue Readers of John Menadue’s blog will be aware that a vile attack is at present being launched against both the Human Rights Commission and its President, Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. ‘Amplifying That Still Small Voice’. Book Launch.
‘Amplifying That Still Small Voice’ A collection of essays by Frank Brennan SJ Book Launch. Dates and times of the 2015 Book launches of Fr Frank Brennan’s latest book, ‘Amplifying That Still, Small Voice’: 1. Tuesday 2 June North Sydney Catholic Parish Hall, 7.30 pm. 2. Wednesday 3 June Hobart Town Hall, 6.15 pm. 3. Friday Continue reading »
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Peter Day. It’s hard being a Catholic today.
The gut-wrenching accounts coming out of Ballarat this past couple of weeks are enough to bring a man to his knees: stories of young people crippled by sexual abuse; stories of utter betrayal; stories we would rather not hear – stories we must hear. It is hard being a Catholic today. It is hard being Continue reading »
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James Hogan. An Unspeakable Wrongness
And so, it has come to pass. With a dreadful inevitability, Indonesian Law has taken its course, and the sentences passed so long ago on Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran have been carried into execution. Some will wonder at our capacity to mourn these men and their fellows when we struggle to find compassion for Continue reading »
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Judith Crispin. Anzac day, the Armenian Genocide and destruction of cultural heritage in the Caucasus.
“Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. Still seeking a way of stopping the boats decently
This is part of the Gasson Lecture which I delivered at Boston College today: I return to Australia accepting that my political leaders will always maintain a commitment to stopping the boats, no matter what political party they represent; but I return insisting that there is a need for international co-operation to determine how decently Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. An inconvenient centenary Turkey prefers to ignore.
The Gallipoli battle aside, you can be sure that Turkey will not be commemorating the centenary of another major event in its history this month. A few hours before Australian, New Zealand and other allied forces landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, what has become widely known as the Armenian genocide got Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan. Cunneen v ICAC
Margaret Cunneen is a high profile public prosecutor. The NSW Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) wanted to investigate her for corrupt behaviour, but not in relation to anything she did as a prosecutor. They wanted to investigate her behaviour as a private citizen, she being the mother of a boy whose girlfriend was involved in Continue reading »
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Fiona McGaughey, Mary Anne Kenny. Lashing out at the UN is not the act of a good international citizen.
The United Nations has again criticised Australia’s human rights record in relation to its treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. A report by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Méndez, has raised a number of concerns. These include: Australia’s policy in relation to the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island breaches Articles 1 Continue reading »
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Vicken Babkenian. Gallipoli’s inconvenient ‘other side’.
Leading up to the Gallipoli centenary, a growing trend emerged in Australia of presenting the ‘other side’ of the story. From popular books, official histories, films and academic conferences, the ‘Turkish’ perspective of Gallipoli became widely told.[1] According to this perspective, as illustrated in a recent article by Dr Jennifer Lawless, the allied landing at Continue reading »
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Peter Day. Mum and Dad, or Mum and Mum, or Dad and Dad?
Human sexuality is a complex and fragile thing – far greyer than black or white. It is best tended to by gentle, wise, and humble hands. Alas, there hasn’t been much gentleness or wisdom surrounding the same sex marriage debate, let alone same sex attraction in general. Witness the recent furore over an alleged homophobic Continue reading »
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Defence and Security, Human Rights, Immigration, refugees, Indigenous affairs, Politics, Tributes, World Affairs
Tributes to Malcolm Fraser.
See below, tributes from Fred Chaney and Robert Manne on Malcolm Fraser’s achievements in public life. John Mendue. Fred Chaney in The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/20/malcolm-fraser-a-leader-who-believed-there-is-a-moral-compass-in-our-nations-life Robert Manne in The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/20/frasers-great-conservative-achievement-cementing-whitlams-progress-on-race Continue reading »
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Laurie Patton. The ‘metadata’ Bill.
The House of Representatives has passed, with amendments, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014. The Bill requires telcos and Internet Service Providers to store certain information (called “metadata”) for a period of two years. Metadata is essentially the information that reveals the parties to phone and email communications and other things Continue reading »
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Amanda Tattersall. Community organising aims to win back civil society’s rightful place.
In the wake of the Second World War, Karl Polanyi wrote that the public arena is made up of three interconnected sectors: the market, government and civil society. He argued that democracy thrives when these three are in balance. If only that were the case today. Since the late 1980s, the global influence of the Continue reading »
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Michael Gracey. Risks of Closing Remote Aboriginal Communities.
Forced dislocation from traditional homelands in the late 1960s and early 1970s made many Aboriginal families and groups move, for the first time, to small towns in the north and north-west of WA. This drift to strange environments with access to alcohol and living close to people from different backgrounds, languages and alien beliefs and Continue reading »
