Film night to raise funds for TEAR’s Pakistan Flood Relief fund

OSAMA - Inspired by a true story, this film which centres on three generations of women, deeply affected by the advent of the Taliban's rule in their land. "Osama," is a Golden Globe award winning film. It was the first feature film to be made in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Some review comments: “a powerful film”…. “ offers valuable insights into a foreign culture that few of us have more than a cursory knowledge about” …. “great films like Osama, thoughtfully considered, give us the ability to withhold blanket judgments and come that much closer to the truth”
· Note: The film is rated M. It is not suitable for children under 15 years of age.

Picture from here

· John Tresidder is TEAR’s Pakistan coordinator. He will have been back from Pakistan from less than one week. He will give an up-to-date description of the post-flood situation in Pakistan, how TEAR is involved in the re-development of communities and how future funds will be spent.

· Pakistan Christian Fellowship has kindly offered to supply supper for the evening, so there will be plenty of tasty snacks to enjoy during the evening.
· Suggested donation: $15 (all funds go to TEARs Pakistan and North India Flood Appeal)

WHO: 

ETAG (Eastern TEAR Action Group) are organising the night.

WHERE:
Blackburn South. 

Because this is being held at a private address, 

Miss Eagle is not including this in the post. 

If you are keen to come and need more information,

 please email misseaglesnetwork(at)gmail(dot)com. 

WHEN:

Saturday 20 November, 7:30pm – 10pm

WHY: 

“In the past I have witnessed many natural disasters around the world, but nothing like this”

(UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon). 

In the worst flooding in 80 years, up to 2.6 million people in Pakistan have been made homeless. The waters have swept through 124 districts and have led to the widespread loss of houses, crops and livestock, as well as civil infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water and irrigation systems and schools. While the world’s media has largely moved on from the situation in Pakistan, the reality of re-building from one of the worst natural disasters in history continue for millions of people. This night will help raise much needed funds as well as provide an opportunity to hear an on-ground account of the current situation.

NOTE: 

BYO Bean bag or comfy cushion (not essential but will help with seating arrangements!)   

Further reading:

Pakistan floods and the timber mafia

Pakistan  flood damage 9.7 billion dollars: World Bank, ADB

Will the Pakistan floods strike again

Pakistan's floods are not just a natural disaster

Pakistan's floods: is the worst still to come?

International Union  for the Conservation of Nature Pakistan   

Related articles

• How the floods have destroyed trust in the Pakistan ruling class (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
• Pakistan PM urges donors for patience on reforms (reuters.com)
• US Allocates USD500M from Pakistan Aid Law for Reconstruction Efforts (devex.com)
• China vows support for Pakistan's post-flood reconstruction (topinews.com)

Australia's answer for those seeking asylum:

the Christmas Island Detention Centre

in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia.

Photo from here.

Australia is once again facing an immigration crisis. We are a sparsely populated country of 23 million people but we are facing a crisis: a crisis of attitude, a crisis of memory. 


Over at God's Politics, the blog of Jim Wallis and friends, there is a significant post by the Rev Anne Dunlap. While I would like you to visit Jim's blog, I have taken the great liberty of snitching the post in its entirety here - and hoping that Jim and Anne don't mind.


Australia, under the Howard Government and now the Rudd Government, is giving every indication of ignorance and forgetfulness of the Abrahamic traditions of the majority of its immigrant population. As Paul Howes remarked yesterday, the language has become low rent. Both Howard and Rudd - in particular, Rudd - profess Christian beliefs.  Both are Anglicans.  Each of them, in the lead up to the 2007 Federal election, courted the Christian vote in a manner never seen in Australia before - and certainly never from the Australian Labor Party.  Australians, particularly politicians, don't usually wear their religion on their sleeve - until these early days of the 21st century.

While they and we forget our God-reminded ethics, 

the Christian vote is not worth two-bob. 

It seems to me that most lucid and outspoken - gently outspoken - Christian voice in Australia is that of the beloved Bishop Pat Power.

++++++++++++++

‘You Shall Not Oppress an Immigrant’

by Anne Dunlap 10-16-2009

These remarks were presented on October 13, 2009 at a press conference in Aurora, CO urging Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) to take a public stand in favor of comprehensive immigration reform. The event was one of hundreds of actions across the country taking place that day as part of the Reform Immigration For America campaign and in support of Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s (D-IL) presentation of principles for immigration reform. Aurora recently won an award for being an “All-America City,” and has an ICE detention facility.

Good afternoon.
I’m Rev. Anne Dunlap. I’m honored to be here in support of comprehensive immigration reform on this day of national action. I am the pastor of Comunidad Liberación/Liberation Community UCC here in Aurora, a faith community made up of immigrants whose points of entry range from Plymouth Rock in the east to the Sonoran Desert in the west. Each week when we gather together for worship we pray for a change in the heart of this country, that there would be immigration reform that assures that all people are treated with respect and dignity.

In the Christian faith tradition we turn to our sacred text to help us understand what kind of community our Creator calls us to be. We read, for example, that the people of Israel were immigrants in the land of Egypt. Generations earlier, they had left their homeland because of famine. They left their homeland and immigrated to Egypt in order to be able to feed their families, in order to be sure their children had a better future. But you may know the story: In Egypt they became slaves – as the text says, “The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service … [they] were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them” (Exodus 1:13-14).

The Israelites lived an oppressed and exploited life; even their children lived under the threat of death. Even the liberator, Moses, knew the pain of being a child separated from his mother when the Egyptian equivalent of ICE swept in to threaten the Israelite community.

When the Israelites were liberated from slavery, God gave them instruction in how not to become like Egypt, and one of the constant themes of that instruction is summed up in this verse from Exodus: “You shall not oppress an immigrant; you know the heart of an immigrant, for you were immigrants in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9). To not become like Egypt, they are to remember the immigrant’s heart: a heart full of strength, wanting only to work hard to assure that their families and their communities will survive hard times.

We, here and now, in a nation of immigrants, in this “All-America City,” have forgotten the heart of an immigrant. We have become Egypt in the “ruthless tasks we impose,” through policies of death, fear, and exploitation:

• policies that tear families apart, parent from hungry child, partner from frightened partner,
• policies that disappear parents, partners, and children into a detention system in which violates their rights at every turn,
• policies that depend on employers stealing wages from mothers and fathers who need that wage to feed their children,
• policies that force desperate mothers into the Arizona desert to die with their babies still suckling at their breast.

As we as a nation consider the need for comprehensive immigration reform, the faith community urges all of us today, across the country, to turn back from the ways of Egypt and remember the heart of the immigrant. It is our own heart, a heart of strength wanting only to work hard to assure our families, all our families, and our communities, all our communities, will survive hard times, with dignity honored and justice protected.

Remember the heart of the immigrant.

Thank you.

Rev. Anne Dunlap is the pastor of Comunidad Liberación/Liberation Community in Aurora, CO, a bilingual, multi-cultural base community in the Christian tradition, striving to live faithfully, to embody God’s vision of the beloved community, and to resist joyfully oppression and injustice. Comunidad is a ministry of Mayflower UCC in Englewood, CO.

Related reading:

 Protection or punishment?: The detention of asylum-seekers in Australia

 

Seeking Asylum in a Global World: A Comparative Analysis of Refugee and Asylum Seeker Citizenship Rights, Laws and Policies in Australia, Canada and New Zealand 

No work, no income, no Medicare--the Bridging Visa E regime.(asylum seekers ): An article from: People and Place 

 

Future Seekers II: Refugees and Irregular Migration in Australia 

 

Further reading:

Triumph turns to fiasco on the high seas

Sri Lankan asylum seeks 'refuse to leave boat'

 

Speaking tour - Melbourne - Ampilatwatja walk-off against NT Intervention

STOP THE INTERVENTION

Click to enlarge

Some of the activities for

Richard Downs and Harry Nelson

Richard Downs is the spokesperson for the Alyawarr people,

who have walked off their community at Ampilatwatja

against the NT Intervention and

established a protest camp

outside the boundaries of the Prescribed Area.

Harry Nelson is a senior Warlpiri elder.

His community of Yuendumu has also been at the forefront
of resistance to the Intervention,
holding off the Income Management system
for many months in 2008 and now refusing to sign long-term
leases demanded by the government.

Robbie Thorpe is a local indigenous activist.

MELBOURNE SPEAKING TOUR

Wednesday, 14 October 2009, 1pm

Joe Nap B, second floor of Union House

University of Melbourne

Thursday, 15 October 2009, 1pm

Monash University Clayton

Campus Cinema, Building 10

Friday, 16 October 2009, 10am

Protest March Against Racism

MAYSAR Youth Sport and Recreation Centre

184-186 Gertrude street, Fitzroy

Friday, 16 October 2009, 6pm.

Public meeting

MAYSAR Youth Sport and Recreation Centre

184-186 Gertrude street, Fitzroy

Resistance to Invasion:

the Aboriginal walk-off and protest against the

Northern Territory Intervention.

Speakers include:

Richard Downs, Harry Nelson

 and leading Melbourne Aboriginal activist

Robbie Thorpe.

More info. please contact:

Marisol 0413597315

Joe 0434127661

Listen to Richard Downs
speaking with Phillip Adams
on
Late Night Live

Prophets say......(1)

Empires live by numbness. . . . Governments and societies of domination go to great lengths to keep the numbness intact. [The prophet] Jesus penetrates the numbness by his compassion and . . . mak[es] visible the odd abnormality that had become business as usual. Thus compassion . . . is in fact criticism of the system, forces, and ideologies that produce the hurt." -- Walter Brueggeman, The Prophetic Imagination, p. 88-9

Compassion

Karen Armstrong speaks on Compassion here.

Help Karen Armstrong to write The Charter for Compassion