Russia, Pussy Riot and the Church

 It is clear that Russia is becoming more oppressive, undemocratic, corrupt and unwilling to allow open debate. It is driven by powerful elites which have Putin at their centre. The arrest and gaoling of Pussy Riot is just the latest example of a ruling elite that will suffer no alternative voices.

Of course it’s easy for us in the West to get into Russian bashing. Memories of the cold war, and simplistic readings of the Russian opposition to American interference in Syria make it easy to make Russia the bad guys yet again. It’s not like Russia is the only country where elites rule for their own benefit, and democracy is a well-orchestrated game.

What fascinates me about the Pussy Riot case is less the big picture of political oppression than the meaning that the members of the band gave to their actions. Five members of the band staged an action on the altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. For less than a minute, the women danced, singing “Our Lady, Chase Putin Out!” and crossing themselves. They were removed and arrested 10 days later and charged with “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.”

What is clear from their statements in court is that these people were not attacking religion as such, nor trying to stir up religious hatred. They used this action to confront the way in which the Russian Orthodox Church had allowed itself to be part of the political strategy of Vladimir Putin and his re-election as President. They used punk rock, and a performance in an most unexpected space to challenge the way that space had been co-opted by Empire.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church is Kirill Gundyayev, a former KGB colleague of Putin’s. The band members claim that Putin has used the Church, and this Cathedral to support his power. He has offered to return to the church some of the spiritual values and power it lost in Soviet times, to help it reclaim its history. During the Soviet era the Church was an oppositional culture, but under the new head of the Church now confronts the evils of contemporary culture and its desire for diversity and tolerance.

At least that is what band member Yekaterina Samutsevich claimed, and in terms of the point I want to make, that is what is important. To quote Ms Samutsevich, “In our performance we dared, without the Patriarch’s blessing, to unite the visual imagery of Orthodox culture with that of protest culture, thus suggesting that Orthodox culture belongs not only to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch, and Putin, but that it could also ally itself with civic religion and the spirit of protest in Russia” (speech to the Court at her trial).

I think what they did was a wonderful use of theatre to challenge the way the church allows itself to be co-opted by empire; to take the church’s own symbols and turn them back upon us for the sake of the world. And it did this in ways that speeches and reams of writing never could.

What face do we show the world?

I cannot help but be fairly outraged by the groping consensus to process asylum seekers off-shore, which essentially means bullying another country to deal with people who are our responsibility.

There are thousands of people around the world who live in the most extraordinarily dangerous places – because of war and civil strife, because other people don’t like their religion, because they are caught in drought and floor, because they are poor or because they are enslaved.

For many of these people – men, women and small children – the only way they can survive is to flee the place where they are and find refuge in another country. To live with a minimum of safety and well-being – things we take for granted – they have to leave the place of their birth and culture and move to a strange place.

Politicians talk about people ‘jumping the queue’, insisting that people who seek asylum and take risking trips by boat are pushing other people out of an orderly line. How do you take a place in a line when there is no Australian embassy in your country, and because of war and poverty you don’t have papers, and because of the threats to your life you don’t have much time to wait for the slow processing of your application – you may be dead before you get a reply.

Australia has signed a treaty with other nations. We have agreed that people may come to this country seeking asylum. We have agreed that it is our right to determine if they are genuine refugees. We have agreed to take a certain number each year.

Matthew’s gospel tells us that because king Herod was worried about threats to his throne, he set out to find and kill Jesus (2:13). The family fled to Egypt. Fortunately they didn’t have to visit the Egyptian embassy in Jerusalem, fill in papers and wait for months, because in his anger Herod slaughtered all the children two years and under who lived around Bethlehem (2:16). Joseph, Mary and Jesus became asylum seekers.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser has called the recommendations of the Houston report into the processing of asylum seekers as racist, and says it will lead to the needless punishment of some of the most vulnerable people – including children – in the world. Because the children would be held in detention overseas, the Minister for Immigration would no longer be their guardian, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child would mean nothing.

Luke Bretherton has recently suggested that the debate between open and closed borders is an unhelpful one. One open under-values a sense of place, and the other over-values the nation as a closed political community. He argues, rather, that we should see borders neither as filters nor fences but as the face we turn to the world which tells them what sort of country we are. (Luke Bretherton, Filters, fences or faces? Asylum seekers and the moral status of borders. http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/06/3535073.htm)

I think the present debate and decision shows a very poor face to the world, and does not speak well of who we are as a nation. It creates false crises for political purposes and because politicians actually will not show moral leadership. When Fraser was PM  246,000 refugees came into Australia. Our current humanitarian intake is 13,750 a year.

Constitutions and Interventions

Last night I attended a forum at the ABC in Sydney: “A Constitution for all Australians – where to next for Indigenous recognition?” It was sponsored by the National Archives of Australia, because 9 July is the anniversary of Queen Victoria’s signing of the Australian Constitution.

The speakers were Professor Mick Dodson AM (ANU), Professor Megan Davis (UNSW), Ms. Alison Page, and Professor Father Frank Brennan AO (ACU). It was an interesting discussion as these four people talked about the work of the Expert Panel on the inclusion of Indigenous people in the Australian Constitution, and what Aboriginal people hope for at this time.

It is clear that Constitutional change will have an important impact on the way First Peoples see themselves and their place in Australian society, which will impact on health and well-being. It is change that is supported by a majority of people, particularly when it comes to recognition of Aboriginal people and the ending of discrimination.

The Federal Government has been slow to respond to the recommendations of the Panel, which is disappointing. There is significant support for Constitutional change, and as Ms. Page said, this is a wave that people need to catch and ride.

Please encourage people to find out about the panel’s recommendations, and encourage your local Federal member to seek a response from the Government.

You can hear the Forum on ABC Radio National, Bright Ideas, Monday 9 July.

On the way to Sydney I read the latest edition of National Indigenous Times. There on the front page was Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra promising that the next step in the protest of Aboriginal people against the Northern Territory Intervention would be an appeal to the High Court. In a disgraceful moment in our history the Government passed its legislation this week to continue this racist intervention, against the wishes of the First Peoples. The High Court may be the next place to act.

This morning I attended a NAIDOC celebration, and was reminded of the courage of those who started and supported the tent Embassy in Canberra, and the impact this had on the struggle for land rights and other issues.

We still have a long way to go to achieve justice for First Peoples, and to build an inclusive and reconciled community. There is a lot to be learned and a lot to do.

Security and secrecy

In a world where truth is not respected, and violence is a common weapon in social, political, economic and ideological conflict, security and secrecy is a tricky business.

Those who are responsible for security need to be able to keep information secret. It is not always possible to explain why decisions are made, often because to explain and justify the decision would be to put sources at risk.

But there is a real risk in this need for secrecy, a danger that secrecy become the cloak to hide that which should be shared. Secrecy can be a form of self-protection and a way to avoid accountability and appropriate scrutiny.

Security agencies are as likely to be ideologically driven as any other body, and to be shaped by personal interests (including the desire for promotion or to protect personal agendas) as any other organization. For example, there is significant evidence that ASIO offers quite biased assessments of the Palestinian community and the place of Israel in the world.

And what happens when ASIO decides that people are a security risk. Just a couple of weeks ago Ranjini was living a fairly normal life in Australia. She had fled from Sri Lanka, was found to be a refugee, married, had children, was newly pregnant, and settled into a new life in Melbourne.

And then without warning, she and her two sons are whisked away to the Villawood detention centre in Sydney because ASIO decided she was a security threat. She cannot defend herself because no-one will tell her what she is accused of. Along with her boys she faces indefinite detention and separation from her husband.

No-one wants to jeopardize national security, but there has to be a way by which one trustworthy person can review such cases in ways that protect intelligence sources and the rights of individuals. The last Labor Conference asked for such a mechanism, but the government will do nothing. “Legal complexity” is the excuse, although the real reason is more like people whose lives depend on secrets hate allowing others to check what they claim to know. This is about power and control.

We need to protect human rights in a culture where the use of the words ‘security risk’ seem to wipe out the rights we claim to be trying to protect. ‘Legal complexity’ is a lousy excuse for inaction, and an abdication of responsibility by governments of their need to hold our security organization accountable.

Union membership as Christian Practice

Like a whole lot of other people I recently received a request to support a couple of house staff working for the Hyatt Hotel chain in the US. They were fired a few days after protesting against what they saw as humiliating treatment by other staff.

I occasionally talk to people who feel that they have been poorly treated in their workplace – abused, treated with disrespect, not paid proper allowances, or denied other rights. They feel powerless to defend themselves, worries that if they stand up for themselves they will be fired.

Our workplaces are marked by individual contracts, part time and casual work, and by outsourcing of jobs and labour hire companies. Workplaces are also marked by decreasing union membership, partly as a result of changes in the workplace and partly because people don’t see any immediate benefit for themselves and don’t give much weight to ideas of worker solidarity.

Christian faith isn’t simply about what we believe but the habits and patterns of our life that give expression to what we believe. It is about embodied social practices.

I think that belonging to an appropriate union or professional association is or ought to be a Christian practice. Despite all the bad publicity about corruption in unions, belonging to a trade union is a practice of solidarity, community and care for those under enormous pressure in the present workplace. Unions create another locus of power in a society which would be otherwise totally overwhelmed by big business

Listening to Indigenous voices

One of the truly destructive marks of colonialism is the undermining of leadership and authority structures as a way of destroying organised opposition. Colonial powers, including churches, privilege other voices and choose who they will listen to. Usually those voices are the more co-operative ones or the less angry ones or the voices of people trying to find a place in the new order.

The more recent equivalent is the pretence of ‘consultation.’ Government representatives fly into communities, hold brief meetings around pre-set agendas and programs, and fly out again before the last word is said. The cultural divide is so wide, and the power imbalance so massive that consultation is a sham, particularly when there is no intention to make any of the changes suggested. Decisions have already been made, driven by political assessments, and minor tweakings are the only possibility.

One of the things which the Northern Territory Emergency Response shows, though, is that people will not be silenced that easily. Those with leadership responsibilities in their community will find ways to speak. Recently there was a meeting of representatives from the people of the 8 nations in the Western, Central and East Arnhem Land areas of the Northern Territory. They gathered under Yolngu Makarr Dhuni (Yolngu Nations Assembly) to express their rejection of the Strong Futures Bill, affirm their place in the land, and call for genuine partnership and self-determination rather than this sort of top-down intervention in their lives.

For Christians this is about justice, hearing the voices of those who are marginalized, and deciding who we will sit with in our community. It is about creating spaces so that people can speak and be heard.

Another voice which is offering alternative voices to government propaganda on this issue and bilingual schooling is the website of the Northern Synod of the Uniting Church: http://www.ns.uca.org.au/  Check it out. Share information with your local Federal member.

Images of war and nationhood

How we imagine – create an image of – ourselves is crucial to the way we act. Images are often powerfully emotive and draw us towards behaviour that we would otherwise reject. The modern image of the Muslim terrorist, constantly cultivated by the political and religious right and those who benefit economically from war is one example. But so is the image of the family in the debate about gay marriage, or the colonial image of ignorant and backward Indigenous peoples when land is disputed, or the images being created at present of the ever benevolent mining industry.

The other image that was created in Australia during the Howard years, and which has gained greater traction since 9/11, is that of a nation whose foundation was forged in and continues to be protected by war. At present it is an image highlighted in Anzac celebrations but also in the voice and pain of families who have lost people at war.

I think soldiers are brave individuals doing a job that they believe is vital, and when they die it is a tragedy for them and the people that love them.

But the images being created in this country leave no room for debate and critique. Each death is not simply a personal tragedy, as it always is when people die, but a major tragedy for the nation. And to speak ill of war is somehow to denigrate people’s courage and lessen the significance of their death.

Theologically there are a couple of issues. First, and mostly obvious, there is the fallacy that governments and armies give us security. There is the fallacy that if you invade another nation you build friendships and security. It’s a fallacy because when you invade a country, or when you demonise rulers, you destroy those fighting for change. Now opposition and change become treason, siding with the enemy, because everyone needs to be opposed to invaders. It’s a fallacy because civilians die in huge numbers, and that builds hatred. It is a fallacy because it fails to appreciate that security rests in God, and love of neighbour and enemy.

The second issue, though, is that war has ceased to be a tragedy or a failure. It is no longer what one does after other things have failed. War is now a first resort, and an achievement to be celebrated. War is almost permanently a crusade.

I think a challenge for the church is to help people find space to speak about war again as a tragedy and affront to God. Acknowledge the sacrifice in the midst of tragedy, honour those who die in war, but do not build an image of ourselves around war. Name war as a pain in the heart of God, and false security for the modern nation state.

Ideas versus harsh reality

I watched ‘The Help’ a week or so ago. I found it quite a powerful movie, although I appreciate why African-Americans criticize the way the black women are less at the centre of this story than they should be. It can at times be about a young, white woman’s search for salvation, rather than a struggle for justice.

I was struck, though, by how hard it is to be courageous when there is no community to help you have courage. It is hard to stand up against things like racism when all the people around you are racist, and will leave you socially isolated if you disagree. You need a community and another story to sustain any courage.

But I was also struck by what a strange and uneven contest the fight against racism can be. Racism isn’t simply a nice idea or a playing around with mental constructs about human nature. Racism is about the defence of the social and economic benefits enjoyed by a few, or a way for some people to keep themselves off the absolute bottom of the community.

Racism justifies slavery, poor pay and conditions, and leaving people with all the hard and menial tasks in a community. Racism justified high risk and poor worker protection, keeping costs down to maximize profits for a few.

The unevenness of the contest is that churches and other bodies try to explain why racism is wrong. It is a conversation about morality and values, a battle over ideas, when racism is about daily realities. It’s a contest of good ideas versus benefits, and benefits will nearly always win.

That is why people talk about trade boycotts when faced with racism and injustice. Boycotts say: actually we are going to make sure that there are less benefits to you continuing to act unjustly. We will not talk about the wrongness of racism, and then keep buying your goods that are produced in a racist economy.

That’s why the decision of the US Presbyterians to discuss disinvestment in companies that deal with Israel is important. All the talking and the moralizing, all the discussions about international law and justice, are wasted. There are benefits for Israel in denying Palestinian autonomy, destroying homes, stealing water, and taking land. While the US has clearly decided that it will prop up Israel and its racist regime forever, it is time for those working in the wider civil society to remove some of the benefits, Nice ideas and arguments will not create change, only different practices.

Israel’s Nuclear Hypocrisy

Israel’s posturing and hypocrisy over Iran’s alleged nuclear capacity is mind-boggling. Essentially Israel is saying: “How dare you want what we have, and how dare you flaunt UN requirements like we do.” The subtext is clear: we are the good guys and loyal allies of the USA, and you are part of the evil Empire.

Consider this comment from Ali Kazak, a former Palestinian ambassador:

“All Arab countries actively support the Middle East to be a nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction free zone, and all the Middle Eastern countries signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) except one, Israel, which headed in the opposite direction secretly developing and producing over 200 nuclear and neutron warheads according to US intelligence agents reported in the Washington Post on December 8, 1980, later confirmed by the Israeli technician working at Dimona nuclear plant, Mordechai Vanunu, in 1985, a figure believed to be doubled by now, and continues its refusal to comply with tens of UN resolutions calling on it to open its nuclear facilities to international inspection.

Israel says that its support for a nuclear-free Middle East is conditional on all countries in the region, including Iran, signing a peace treaty with it. But all Arab and Muslim countries have, in fact, agreed to recognise Israel and sign a peace treaty with Israel, if it recognises the inalienable and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, withdraws from the occupied Arab territories and complies with relevant UN resolutions. Israel refuses to recognise these rights, refuses the Arab peace initiative, refuses to withdraw and builds more Jewish colonies.” (‘A missing peace option,’ Kaleej Times online, 10 February 2012)

Christians find the conversation in this region to be very difficult. This is biblical land, and in amidst modern politics are claims about land and chosen people and the promises of God. Add to this the guilt around the holocaust, the narrow and anti-Palestinian media coverage, and significant racism about people and nations in the Middle East, and Christian responses are often distorted by ignorance and myth.

There is a need for a new Christian narrative for this area: there is no room for nuclear weapons in any parts of the world, and that includes Israel. The requirements of the UN need to be complied with by all countries, and not just those that the US is opposed to – the double standards that exist at present lead to hostility and suspicion and war. Israel does have a right to exist, but so do the Palestinians, and it is time for Israel’s illegal occupation to end.

Selling Child Care centres - A world bound by the bottom line

My local Council - Newcastle City Council - is exploring whether it should sell the Child Care Centres that it ‘owns.’ It seems to me to be another example of the way in which local government, which should be focused on the needs of the community and on the common good, has bought into the narrative of the bottom line, and minimal services.

Of course Councils have to be concerned about their budgets, and they have to work within the constraints imposed by the State Government around rate levels. There is no doubt that Councils are caught between the demands of citizens and stark economic realities, but the issue is the narrative or meaning story that shapes the response.

Take the Child Care Centres. Child Care Centres are one of the ways in which communities seek the care of their children, and the well-being of families. If we agree with that then we can either see this as an issue of the common good that needs to be nurtured by the community as a whole through bodies like local councils. Or we can see it is an issue for individuals, who should simply access child care through private providers, and one in which councils should not be involved.

I belong to a Christian tradition that says that the world is not simply about individual freedom and choices, or a world whose shape is dictated by economic choices in which those with more wealth have a bigger voice. There is a common good, because human beings are essentially social rather than solitary creatures. The well-being of individuals is tied to the well-being of the community. Each person is called to contribute to social conditions that allow all people to be cared for and to reach their full potential as human beings.

I think that Newcastle City Councilors need to re-think their approach to the issue of possible sale of Child Care Centres. The issue is: what can the Council do to contribute to the well-being of the community, and not simply how does it provide space of r individuals to do their thing? The issue may be how this is to be funded, but the starting issue is not about money but services. The budget is built and trimmed around the core services of the Council, many of which are simply not measurable in economic terms, rather than the other way around.

Besides, even at a straight economic level this move is foolish. The Council doesn’t own all the land, mostly the buildings. The Child Care Centres cover their own running costs. There will be little saved in operating costs. There may be a relatively small capital gain from selling the services to others, but this will make no long term difference to the Council budgets. It will simply deplete the Councils role and contribution to the common good of the community.

Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution

I think that today will go down as a significant moment in the life of this nation. At lunch time today the expert Panel appointed to advise the Government on how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people could be recognized in the Constitution delivered its report and recommendations to the Prime Minister. The report can be read at http://www.youmeunity.org.au/

In 2 Corinthians 5:18 Paul says that God has reconciled us through Christ, and has given us a ministry of reconciliation. The Basis of Union says that God’s desire for the whole creation, the end in view, is its reconciliation and renewal, and that the church’s task is to serve that end (para. 3).

This suggestion to change the Constitution is a practical step in reconciliation in Australia, one that has had the active support of the Assembly of the Uniting Church and of the Uniting Aboriginal and islander Christian Congress.

The panel consulted widely. It received 3500 submissions, and conducted more than 250 consultations with over 4600 present. It conducted a number of surveys and opinion polls, and the overwhelming evidence is that a vast majority of people supported the idea of changes to the Constitution that would recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and which would prevent discrimination on the basis of race, colour or ethnic origin.

The actual suggestions are:

·                    To repeal Section 25 of the Constitution which allows the possibility that a State Government could disqualify a particular race from voting.

·                    To repeal the current races power (Section 51 (xxvi)) and its replacement with a new power (Section 51A) which would allow laws to be made for the well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (where the present power allows laws to be made that are detrimental to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples).

·                    This new power would be preceded by a preamble containing a statement of recognition.

·                    The addition of a new power recognizing English as the official language of Australia, but honouring the languages of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as part of our national heritage.

The next step is for people to engage in extensive debate, and to encourage people to be well-informed when the referendum happens.

Anti-whaling protests and street theatre

A lot of years ago I read an interesting article that compared the life and work of Martin Luther King, jnr and Father Daniel Berrigan. King, of course, was famous for his fight against racism and his use of non-violent action, and his willingness to go to gaol in an attempt to change the system. Dan Berrigan was an active opponent of the American involvement in Vietnam and of the use of nuclear weapons. He, too, spent a lot of time in gaol as a result of his actions.

The article – which I can no longer put my fingers on – makes the point that King believed that the American system was basically OK, but that there were parts of it that needed change and individuals who needed to change. Essentially he saw sin as structural and personal, and took actions which he believed would change those parts and people that needed changing.

Berrigan, on the other hand, thought that the sin around war and nuclear weapons was not simply structural or individual, but went deep into the culture of the country. Changing a law or a part of the system or a few people was not going to change this culture. So he and his friends engaged in street theatre, in attempts to highlight the sheer craziness of things. They poured napalm – which was being dropped on Vietnam – on draft cards in an effort to show the absurdity of being charged for destroying cards when people where being burned in this way. They broke into nuclear defence facilities and painted peace slogans on bombs.

I was reminded of King and Berrigan this week when the three men in Western Australia boarded a Japanese whaling vessel. The moral outrage has been extraordinary, and the government has responded by (i) defending its failure to insist that international law is followed in regard to whaling with the usual excuse about how complex this issue is and how much needs to be done behind closed doors, (ii) working very quickly to get the men released so the issue moved from the front page of the papers, and (iii) speaking about the amount tax payers will need to pay for their return to Australia in order to get tax payer sympathy on the Government’s side.

I think we have a major clash of approaches. The government insists that, yes there are a few minor issues with whaling but if we play the game right changes can occur. I think that the three men confront us with Berrigan’s issue: is the failure to act a deeply cultural one about a game that stinks, and the only way to force change is a form of street theatre that shows the absurdity of what is going on.  

Action ficks and redemptive violence

Over the short break between Christmas and New Year I indulged in my liking of action flicks, the kind where good usually triumphs over evil and there is a fair bit of martial arts action. This time it was Nikita, and the ongoing struggle for a few people to destroy a black op program out of control.

I often wonder about my liking of this kind of film; what attracts a person opposed to war and violence to such action and violence, and the tendency for these films to explore redemptive violence.

A sense of redemptive violence sits under much of the church’s understanding of the atonement. It’s what makes it possible for the church to live in a very ambiguous place around war and support for the military, and refusal to give peace-making a priority in its life.

I think that sort of theory of the atonement provides the implicit basis for a country as overtly religious as the USA to pursue pre-emptive strikes as the foundation for its foreign policy. Evil has to be named, shamed and destroyed, and violence is OK if used by the righteous in the service of the salvation of the world.

I think it is what often makes churches ambiguous about the death penalty, and keeps us quiet about the fact that far too many people – and particularly those who are poor – are in prison. Punishment and violence!

That seems so contrary to my understanding of the cross of Jesus, an act not of violence by God but of suffering servanthood that undermines all pretensions to Empire.

And yet there is something attractive about the way violence is used to protect and destroy in the movies (and in real life). It is always a deep temptation for us in our personal lives and for our countries; much easier than peace-making, reconciliation and the need to share with others in a struggle that gives life and not death. There is this seductive sense that things get put right, and good triumphs, and all the evil is on the other side and has been dealt with. And we don’t need the one who is Emmanuel, because we have everything under control.

I’m not sure I should, but I still enjoy those movies.