Christians Against Terrorism walk free and acquitted!

Free at last. Ruddock’s rotten rules couldn’t hold them. Read all about it here.Congratulations one and all. Miss Eagle is glad that your ordeal is over. God go with you into a new day!

Non-violence: a canonized cause?

Non-violence is not an airy-fairy ideal. It is and has been practised by real people. Undoubtedly, at great cost - at times - to the significant individuals struggling against violence in a non-violent way in significant causes. Pop over to Ponder This and see this wordless comment on the practitioners of non-violence.

Rodney Olsen interviews Jarrod McKenna: peace, non-violence and no more war

Friends of this blog will have seen posts speaking of peaceworker Jarrod McKenna. Jarrod is particularly involved with working for the liberation of the people of West Papua. Miss Eagle has been contacted by Rodney Olsen of 98.5 Sonshine FM in Western Australia.

Rodney has interviewed Jarrod and, knowing Miss E's interest, wanted to let her know how to access the interview. You, dear Reader,can hear an extended version of Rodney and Jarrod's chat by clicking here. If you'd like to save the mp3 and listen later just right click here and choose where you'd like to save the file.

Rodney says he and Jarrod covered a lot of ground and tried to look at some of the big questions. They explored whether Christianity really promotes non-violence in all situations. If we believe that to be the case how do we the reconcile that with the religious right's belief that George W. Bush is carrying out God's will by taking his nation to war?

Rodney reckons it is worth your while, dear Reader, to take time out to listen to Jarrod. Jarrod will challenge you and give you plenty to think through, he says.

Friends, Peace and Pine Gap

Miss Eagle has to-day received this letter and these photographs from Dale Hess.

______________
Friends,

I have just received these photos of the Quaker Meeting held at Pine Gap. To learn what is happening at the trial of the Pine Gap 4, click on: http://www.pinegapontrial.blogspot.com/

Best regards,
Dale
______________

From: Jessica Morrison
Sent: Monday, 11 June 2007 9:32 PM
To: Hess Dale
Subject: Quaker Meeting at the Gates of Pine Gap - was it the first?

Dear Dale

I thought Friends may be interested in this,

Jessica
________________________
On Saturday 9th June, 25 people attended a Quaker meeting for worship 20 kms outside Alice Springs. The venue was the front gates of Pine Gap, a US/Australian Joint Defence Facility (also known as a US spy base), and the site of many protests.

While this was the first meeting for worship, this group of activists were able to grasp the process quickly (apart from sitting still for so long!).

Ministry included:

• Hindu mantras;the query relating to seeds of conflict in ourselves;
• stories of civil disobedience by Quakers;
• that prophets went into the desert to find God and
• that we go into the desert to find the truth about our country;
• the nature of silence; and
• the experience to attend the base in listening, rather than broadcasting of our opinions.

We finished with the laying of a peace sign of flowers and holding hands.

The Alternative Anzac Commemoration

I am indebted to Dale Hess (once again) for forwarding the following material from New Zealand. If you wish to receive a pdf booklet of the commemoration, please email Miss Eagle off the sidebar.

Away from all the official ceremonies, fly-bys and flag raising, five families commemorated ANZAC Day in their own way today.

The friends and neighbours gathered to remember New Zealanders and others who sacrificed their lives for the sake of peace and freedom.

Some of the people remembered include:
Te Whiti o Rongomai

the prophet of Parihaka who refused, along with his followers, to retaliate against the violence of the colonial government bent on annexing Taranaki land for settlers.
Archibald Baxter

one of 14 pacifists in World War I who was shipped to France, sent to the frontline, tied to a pole in front of the enemy, starved, beaten and left for dead for refusing to bear arms in support of the British Empire.
Ormond Burton

a decorated World War I veteran who publicly denounced New Zealand involvement in World War II, was imprisoned with hard labour and thrown out of the Methodist Church for refusing to preach against conscription.
Archibald Barrington

the founder of the Riverside community near Motueka who toured the country opposing New Zealand participation in World War II and was arrested in Gisborne for speaking out against the war.

Ann Newlands

representative of New Zealand and a key figure in the drafting and passage of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Rod Donald

environmentalist and Member of Parliament.
Moana Cole

Catholic Worker peace activist who broke into a US Air Force base in 1991, sabotaged a B-52 bomber en route to indiscriminately bomb civilians in Iraq and was jailed for a year.
Pauline Tangiora

the kuia from Mahia who went as a human shield Iraq and has campaigned tirelessly for peace in the Pacific and Aotearoa.
Dr Malcolm Kendall-Smith

the New Zealand born doctor who refused to undertake a second tour of duty in Iraq with the British RAF as he considered the occupation is illegal and was found guilty last year on five counts of disobeying orders.
After reading James K. Baxter’s poem ‘To My Father’, the families wrote their own peace poems and drew pictures.

Nine year old Hugo Robinson wrote this poem:

Peace and love
are like a flying dove;
No time for war
you just have to soar;
A tui flies
through the skies;
Open free
unlike you and me;
War, revolution
is not the solution.

Others created t-shirt slogans, pictures and designs such as:
‘Drop aid, not bombs’
‘We shall remember, we shall not cease’
‘War does not breed peace, guns do not breed security’

And another poem:

My name is peace
My name is life
My name is choice
My name is mine
My time was then
My time is now
My child, my love, my future
My name is peace.

The commemoration concluded with a rendition of ‘Maori Battalion Marches Off to War’ interspersed with ‘Gonna lay down my sword and shield, down by the riverside…’

Organisers of the commemoration are expecting even larger crowds next year and are also hoping to produce a booklet of Alternative ANZACs for other groups to use.

For more information contact: Manu Caddie – ph 0274202957 / manu@ahi.co.nz

Howard the Sycophant talks about Honour!!!

In the middle of all his political woes, Howard is digging Australia further into the falsity of Coaliting of the Willing aspirations for Iraq. Honour, he says.

Bah, humbug, Howard! How dare you wrap up the mountainous death toll of Iraqis in what you chose to call honour. There has been little honour in the defence of US policy by the Australian government.

You, John Howard, have taken Australia and Australians into a war which is not in their national interests. You, John Howard, have taken Australians into a lock step position on flawed and failed US foreign policy in relation to Israel and the Middle East.

Australians did not want participation in the war in Iraq without UN involvement. They do not want it to-day. This was clear in polls and the hundreds of thousands of Australians who voted with their feet in peace marches.

You, John Howard, ignored your own people. You took the side of the US against us and our best interests. You, John Howard, are a war monger. Not a peace maker.

Peace is not in you, John Howard.

You, John Howard, do well as a sycophant.

You, John Howard, cannot and will not make peace.

Jarrod McKenna: a peacemake in your community

Jarrod McKenna, trainer and board member of Pace e Bene Australia, has been awarded the 2006 Donald Groom Fellowship, a Quaker grant that enables individuals working on projects for nonviolent social change.

Jarrod's initative, called "Empowering Peacemakers in Your Community" (EPYC), introduces young people to the traditions, theory, practice and spirituality of nonviolent social transformation. EPYC works to inspire and empower young people through workshops and seminars, facilitation of student-led and run activist groups within schools, and involve students in community run groups that promote nonviolence.

Jarrod's believes that EPYC does more than train students in transformational nonviolence. He says "EPYC's vision is to inspire, invite and equip a generation to receive and participate in God's vision of a world transformed by love….As I sometimes put it in shorthand, my work is about equipping a generation to 'walk out' now, what God wills the world to be ultimately."

World Vision CEO Tim Costello recently said: "Around the world there is an emerging generation of young leaders who are rediscovering the radical implications of Jesus' message of the 'kingdom' and are letting their lives speak of these alternatives to the cycles of violence, poverty and environmental destruction. Jarrod McKenna is one such young leader Australia has to offer, and the EPYC program promises to empower many more."

As part of the award, Jarrod had the opportunity to speak at the annual gathering of Quakers in Australia in January. Jarrod has been a key member of Pace e Bene Australia, which formed in 2005 and leads trainings across the country, using Engage, From Violence to Wholeness, and Traveling with the Turtle. Pace e Bene congratulates Jarrod for the recognition he has received for his work for peace! Read more about Jarrod's work with EPYCVisit Pace e Bene Australia's website

The Spirit of Anzac in the struggle for Peace

It is ANZAC Day tomorrow. Now Miss Eagle has seen more Anzac Days than she cares to acknowledge. She has done Dawn Services, Parades, Church Parades with the ultimate being back in 2001 when Miss Eagle and her sister did the Dawn Service at the War Memorial in Canberra.

This year I am not feeling up to any of this.

Miss Eagle's family have done their bit - Gallipoli, France, Malaya, Borneo, MacArthur's return to the Phillilpines, Coastwatching in New Guinea, Occupation Troops in Japan, Korea. As well, there is Uncle Jack - the war historian. No males went to Vietnam but Miss Eagle thought long and hard about war in this period and became a pacifist. Miss Eagle is not anti-Defence Forces and, if she was to become the Benevolent Dictator of Australia (BDA for short), there would still be an Army, Navy, and Air Force - if only to help out in cyclones and floods. As BDA, Miss Eagle supports policing type military actions such as East Timor and Cambodia and various UN Peacekeeping missions.

But Miss Eagle is feeling war-weary.

She believes in the solemnity and sacredness of Anzac Day: remembering the fallen and those who have gone before and honouring their service to the Nation. What wearies Miss Eagle is that we do not seem to learn. Australia is still going off to battles that are initiated by others and serves a foreign purpose more than Australia's own. In short, when are we going to turn the commemorative ideal around that focuses on fishing the bodies out of the water and, in addition, focus on stopping the bodies going in.

Miss Eagle does not want to politicise the Spirit of Anzac - but when can we have a national day in which we work towards Peace, highlight Peace and Peaceworkers, and seek to understand, strategise for and glorify Peace? When?