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Imposed Regime Change Is Not The Answer

http://newmatilda.com/2012/02/15/imposed-regime-change-not-answer

Imposed Regime Change Is Not The Answer

There was a fundamental problem with the Arab League’s UN Security Council proposal that the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, step down: it was not borne out of its own Observer Mission report.

The proposal was tabled by the only Arab state in the UNSC, Morocco, and also asks for a national unity government within two months. Such proposals suggest that there is growing faith in the opposition parties and less faith in the Syrian president.

While imposed regime change fits neatly into the Arab Spring narrative, the gap between the Observer Mission report and the failed UNSC resolution is as wide as the Arabian Gulf.

The Observer Mission covered the period from 24 December to 18 January, and their report is available online in English for anyone with a serious interest in the facts. The mission comprised 166 individuals from 13 Arab countries, including civilian and military experts, NGOs and human rights organisations. The observers were divided into 15 groups covering 20 cities, giving daily reports to their 24-hour operations room in Damascus.

Clause 13 paints a dark picture of the city of Homs, reporting: “an escalation in violence perpetuated by armed groups in the city… instances of kidnapping … sabotage of Government and civilian facilities … food was in short supply owing to the blockade imposed by armed groups”.

Clause 26 extends this to Dera’a, where the Mission observed “armed groups committing acts of violence against Government forces, resulting in death and injury among their ranks … armed groups were using flares and armour-piercing projectiles … Government forces responded to attacks against their personnel with force.”

Clause 27 covers Hama and Idlib, where the observers witnessed “acts of violence being committed against Government forces and civilians … bombing of a civilian bus … bombing of a train carrying diesel oil … a police bus blown up … small bridges were also bombed”.

The report notes media exaggeration of numbers of people killed. Moreover, the total number reported to the western media does not discern between pro and anti government fatalities, so it has been wrongly assumed that the Syrian Government is the killing machine.

Clause 35 confirms that the Government had honoured its commitment to grant amnesty for crimes perpetuated from 15 March 2011 by “periodically releasing detainees”.

Clause 44 reports that a “French journalist was killed by opposition mortar shells”, although the opposition condemned and blamed the government.

Clause 54 notes legitimate concerns by the observers regarding their own safety given “the unavailability of armoured vehicles and protection vests”, and that 22 left the mission prematurely.

Clause 71 expresses concern regarding an “armed entity that is not mentioned in the protocol”, and also regarding the “excessive use of force by the Syrian Government forces in response to protests … demanding the fall of the regime”.

Clause 74 confirms that “the citizens believe the crisis should be resolved peacefully through Arab mediation alone, without international intervention”.

With this body of evidence from the authorised personnel, based on first hand and eyewitness accounts, the Qatar-led call for the president to step down is not only illogical but shows gross misreading of the situation. President Assad is a product of the ruling Baath Party, not the other way around. Rallies in Syria are testament to his personal popularity, and any forced ousting by the sponsored opposition militia will unleash a civil war.

Russia and China have been accused of abusing their veto power as permanent members of the UNSC in pursuit of a selfish national agenda rather than global humanitarian agenda, as was intended by the United Nations.

Where were these noisy critics when the United States threatened to abuse its veto power to support Israel in blocking the Palestinian bid for statehood status last year?

Two wrongs never made a right, and Assad has failed to win any friends with his litany of conspiracy theories and excuses for failing to implement civil reforms in a timely manner.

Sanctions are ineffective for an Arab republic that is highly self-sufficient.

Suspension from the Arab League is ineffective when most of the Gulf states are Sunni monarchies who scoff at the Syrian Alawite elite as un-Islamic. It is also highly hypocritical to be judged by these states whose respective human rights record with women, Christians and minorities is conveniently ignored.

The Observer Mission expresses repeated concerns over the “armed entities” who provoke the Syrian Government who in turn use excessive force.

The circuit breaker is surely border control to stop the flow of armour, mercenaries and extremist clerics, followed by a timetable for implementing all the enacted reforms such as multi-party elections.

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Pay rise good for workers and men

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/pay-rise-good-for-workers-and-men/2444471.aspx

Pay rise good for workers and men
Published in Canberra Times

6 Feb 2012

Fair Work Australia’s decision to incrementally increase the pays of community sector employees over the next eight years is not just good news for women. It is good news for men.

When I completed a post graduate Bachelor of Social Work at the University of Melbourne, 95 per cent of the students were female. After working in the profession for seven years, a number of factors compelled me to leave. It was grossly underpaid for the over 60 hours per week that were worked, often without lunch breaks. The very nature of the caring profession attracts people who are not clock-watchers.

Those of us who were multilingual were too often misused opportunistically as interpreters instead of getting the ”real” professionals. Instead, we could have been consulted on cultural practices and beliefs. The men in this profession were often the primary breadwinners of their families and could not afford a reliable car or to buy their own home. The fact that more women are now the primary breadwinners compounds the standard of living issue.

The profession suffered a hangover from its original days as church volunteers or religious vocations where benevolent work was done for altruistic rather than financial fulfilment. Past attempts at seeking fair remuneration and treating this work as a livelihood were silenced and smeared as immorally capitalising on the misfortunes of the have-nots.

“Community work” was meted out as part of a suite of penalties by magistrates in lieu of fines or imprisonment. It was humiliating and ironic that one man’s profession is another man’s punishment!

When comparing the salary entitlement for a social worker compared with my fellow graduates who had also completed at least four years of study, mine was at least 30 per cent lower than those who entered male-dominated professions such as accounting, ostensibly because of the dominant gender of the profession.

The demands on male social workers were high given their shortage and the need for gender-sensitive services, especially those servicing specific cultural communities. It is this last point that may be overlooked in the ”victory for women” euphoria. Indeed, the traditional disparity between female- and male-dominated professions is discriminatory.

I acutely recall that men in this profession could not make ends meet, so they ambitiously sought senior management roles or jumped ship to another profession, like me. Either way, our society was losing trained men who were valuable for face-to-face work with male clients.

These men are as precious and sought-after as male teachers in schools. As a social worker, I was inundated with referrals to counsel men who were violent, homeless, alcoholic, depressed, abusive, suicidal, unemployed, immigrant, refugee, imprisoned, etc. Or simply men who preferred to confide in their ”fellow man”, just as women may prefer a female doctor. Some men were reluctant to ”open up” to women, while others found the entire concept of social work foreign. I could not keep up with the waiting list and when I announced my resignation, my colleagues and clients were devastated.

It was not financially viable to maintain this lowly paid job and establish a family. Something had to give, or I needed a second job, which would consume what little was left of family time.

With this news of greater pay parity, men may be more likely to stay in this profession and treat it as a sustainable career. The pay parity is not only an overdue relief for men in this profession, but indeed men in society in need. With census data showing that more of us are living alone and living longer, with family support networks fragmenting, we clearly need to care for those who will be caring for us.

Joseph Wakim is a Sydney writer and a former social worker.

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Treasure the moments you capture

TREASURE THE MOMENTS YOU CAPTURE
Brisbane Courier Mail
17 January 2012

Has the rise of the digital age seen the fall of the printed photo?

We can now snap away with our mobile phones, save on virtual photo albums, upload to Facebook, share instantly and globally, zoom and crop, even Photoshop.

The digital revolution has literally put all this power in the palm of our hands.

And there are many virtues to these virtual albums. They save paper, save ink, save space, save money and save time.

Some photos are permanently saved on websites in cyberspace, and unlike printed photos, their original quality never diminishes.
Gone are the days of my weekly visits to the corner chemist who would take my roll of film and print every
photo, only some of which would make it into the family photo albums.

Gone are the days of sitting in physical photo shops trying to edit and print enlargements to be framed, so that the photos are looking at me rather than me looking for them.

But there is a down side to uploading.

With almost annual upgrades to mobile phones, many photos and videos are being deleted to ‘save space’ or not transferred to a new SIM card. If they were not shared, those magical moments are gone forever.

When I was a social worker, photo albums were a pivotal prompt in marriage counselling and preventing youth suicide. Photos tended to be taken on happy occasions and provide undeniable evidence of ostensibly happy days. Of course, such smiling faces could also mask an inner disquiet and could compound the pain of ‘what went wrong?’ But these
albums helped save marriages, fanning the embers left by the original flames of love, so that they can shine through the overshadowing dark clouds.

The therapeutic power of photo albums and family videos was evident when I became widowed and I would wake up to the sound of my children laughing (not crying) as they replayed family videos and remembered their mother’s life (not death). So much so that I have transferred all videos to DVDs before their original quality erodes any further.

With the recent passing of my father after a decade of Alzheimers, the recent memory of watching a mountain man slowly regress to a dependent infant was overwhelming. But our family grief was again buoyed by the therapeutic power of photos and videos – the way he deserved to be remembered.

Without these vivid reminders, only this shrinking candle would be etched in the memory of his children,
grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

At times of funerals, photo albums and family videos are dusted off like some vintage wine, instantly increasing in value and attracting centre stage like some precious jewel to be preserved and protected.

With other major milestone events such as birthdays and anniversaries, slide shows of the happiest memories continue to be the life of the party.

While the nostalgic gathering around tangible photo albums may be replaced with two-dimensional images on screens, we need to be careful that all the clicks are not habitually deleted with each upgrade. While the focus has shifted to sharing them with others, we need to remember that we are bottling a spirit that we may one day need to drink.

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Finding peace amid sensory overload

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/wakim-finding-peace-amid-sensory-overload/story-e6freai3-1226226136202

The Advertiser
December 20, 2011

My induction as a Twitterer evoked religious parallels. We become followers of those seeking to maximise their following, and their tweets follow us.

MULTI-TASKING is no longer the dominion of one gender or one generation. Like many screen-agers, my children boast about this “multi-tasking”, juggling multiple screens.

They can send and receive with great dexterity – texting on a mobile phone, while completing a school project on the computer screen, while glancing at the TV screen in the background.

A computer may freeze when too many programs are operating concurrently, or if it is being driven too fast.

But we expect our God-made brains to evolve faster than our man-made technology.

This mismatch was identified last century by scientific genius Albert Einstein when he declared that “it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”.

Our real world mimics the virtual world, as our eyes scroll like a mouse, minimising and maximising the multiple screens that surround us.

This multi-focal lifestyle has also become hazardous for parents, who feel hypocritical criticising their children.

Even on a beautiful day, we wind up our car windows so that we can hear the cell phone, the Navigator and the sound system.

Like our children, we see the world through windows, so we cannot hear the bird tweets or smell the roses, literally and metaphorically.

It begs bigger questions: When was the last time that we totally focused on one task? Where does this tunnel of windows lead? What does this bombardment of external stimulation block out?

There does not appear to be any spiritual enlightenment at the end of this endless tunnel. Yet all things spiritual need us to “be still” and focus on our internal light.

I pretend this stillness happens before I sleep, but the phone and laptop screens even follow me there as my “second brain” never sleeps. Even as I sleep, I am still not still, but “on call”.

My recent induction as a Twitterer evoked religious parallels – we become followers of those seeking to maximise their following, and their tweets can follow us everywhere we go.

As we become saturated with these snappy screen messages, we may inadvertently be clicking “unfollow” to the eternal voice which transcends technology and whispers to our soul. Ironically, Christian followers of the holy spirit would know that during the baptism of Jesus, it was also depicted as a bird.

Have we become sheep and allowed the tweets of the blue bird to drown out this white dove?

Technology is not the inherent problem, as it can be used or abused.

Clergy have embraced Facebook and Twitter to send spiritual messages to their flock once a day rather than a homily once a week.

In order to “be still”, we need to shut down many screens and windows. Paradoxically, high-speed signals to our sensors from these inter-connected technologies may insulate us from the inner peace that comes with stillness.

Without trivialising the debilitation of MS, I worry that this spiritual disconnect will lead to multiple screen-osis of our central spiritual system, as the accumulated and chronic status of sensory overload precludes us from the state of stillness.

We can choose to un-busy ourselves so that next time we are asked how we are, the answer is: “At peace”.

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A little extra Christmas care

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3744040.html

A little extra Christmas care
Joseph Wakim and Judy Saba

As families congregate around carols and trees, and the aerial view of society resembles many rotating wheels, those who have fallen off the wheels become the loneliest dots.

Thankfully, there are many benevolent services for homeless people. I sang carols for a Christmas lunch for homeless people last year. It was heartening to see the aloneness broken and these dots inter-connect to form circles.

But one can be lonely without being alone. And this dark pain can be overshadowed by the fairy lights and tinsel. The annual celebration of the holy birth at the nativity could also be the time of pondering the end of a life.

Suicidal Christmas may seem like an oxymoron, but for those involved in its prevention, it is a fatal combination.

It is a time when one can hear one’s own heartbeat pounding in one’s head, and the ears ringing like sirens, and one’s life flash past, while the rest of the world seems so caught up in expressions of love that they are oblivious to these ticking time bombs.

And when it tragically happens, there is gnashing of teeth, and a slow motion rewind for all the clues that were missed before the blame game creates lifelong ripple effects.

When I worked as a street worker with runaway children, I convinced myself that so long as the children experienced unconditional love, at least from me, then they were immune from suicide. But I was wrong.

Feeling loved by others was like a hug – a temporary bandaid that was effective only while you were together. But the bleeding wound was the lack of self-love. That hole in the heart cannot be healed by outsiders.

At funerals, loved ones agonise to find peace by trying to answer one question – why?

The countdown to Christmas is a critical time to reach out to the lonely hearts, even in our own families and social networks. As we accelerate towards our self-imposed deadlines, we may speed past some subtle cries for help.

Subtle means that they are not moods posted on Facebook, or angry threats of suicide.

Depending on the culture and customs, we can all be prone to misinterpret and miss these alarm bells.

A person who suddenly decides to visit relatives and thank them for nostalgic childhood memories may be applauded with ‘he is finally learning to show respect for his elders – isn’t this wonderful?’. But he was actually preparing his farewells.

A person who stops going out with friends at night and instead withdraws to his bedroom may be applauded with ‘finally he has outgrown that dangerous stage and stopped wasting money with late nights – isn’t it wonderful that he now stays at home with his family?’. But he has actually started to close in on himself.

A person who starts to give away personal and favourite belongings to others may be applauded with ‘he takes after his father – isn’t this wonderful that he has become so generous?’ But he was actually parting from all worldly possessions.

A person who declares his unconditional love may be applauded with ‘he will grow up to be a fine man who is not afraid to express emotions’. But he was actually saying goodbye.

With Year 12 results announced, and anniversaries of many natural disasters last year, this is a time when self-love may be tested.

This Christmas, we can all give the gift of saving a life, by giving presence rather than presents. The Friends of Friends Mentor project in Sydney is one program that offers volunteers who regularly call and check on vulnerable youth with whom they are partnered. After years of success and suicide prevention, the beneficiaries have now become mentors. All the training in the world cannot surpass the power of just being a friend. No simplistic tick-box checklists apply. Just making the person believe that they are worthy of this time, and worthy of self-love.

If we join the dots and see what shape they form, we may see that some have trapped themselves into an inescapable circle where they are cutting out oxygen, light and hope. Through the power of presence, we can help.
Joseph Wakim is a freelance writer and former Multicultural Affairs Commissioner. Judy Saba is a cross-cultural psychologist.

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Lesson in Sage lines borrowed by Kennedy


http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/lesson-in-sage-lines-borrowed-by-kennedy-20111228-1pcvm.html

Lesson in sage lines borrowed by Kennedy
December 29, 2011

Sydney Morning Herald

A Lebanese-American poet wrote wise words for Arab states, writes Joseph Wakim.

‘A sk not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

These words were made famous by United States President John F. Kennedy in his 1961 inauguration speech. He should have said, ”In the words of Kahlil Gibran … ”, referring to the Lebanese-American poet and artist who lived from 1883 to 1931.

But Gibran never intended these words to be addressed by a president to his people. He was writing an open letter, in Arabic, to Lebanese parliamentarians in 1925, during the fall of the Ottoman Empire. His letter was titled ”The New Frontier”, which gives a completely different meaning and context. ”Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?” he wrote. ”If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.”

JFK even used the new frontier idea in his convention acceptance speech, a few months earlier, and later made it a theme of his administration, saying: ”We stand today on the edge of a new frontier – the frontier of the 1960s, the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, the frontier of unfilled hopes and unfilled threats.”

As we reflect on the year of the Arab Spring, Gibran’s words apply to aspiring Arab leaders today in precisely the way he intended nearly a century ago.

Gibran’s letter could pertain easily to this year’s bloody revolutions that have been led by the younger generation and claimed many martyrs. He wrote: ”In the fields of the Middle East, which has been a large burial ground, stand the youth of Spring calling the occupants of the sepulchres to rise and march toward the new frontiers … There is on the horizon of the Middle East a new awakening; it is growing and expanding.”

The literary genius, famous for his timeless masterpiece The Prophet, was ironically prophetic about the young majority expelling the old guard, also writing: ”In the Middle East, there are two processions: one procession is of old people waling with bent backs, supported with bent canes … the other is a procession of young men, running as if on winged feet.”

This accurately depicts the generational divide of the Arab Spring. The youth who have led the uprisings are the majority of the citizens. In the region, 63 per cent of the population is under 29, and 30 per cent is between the ages of 15 and 29. As for their rulers and regimes, many like Egypt’s Mubarak and Libya’s Gaddafi were not their parent’s generation, but their grandparent’s generation.

One of the resonating legacies of Gibran was a spiritual revolution for universal human rights to emancipate women, build bridges of understanding between religions, close the gap between rich and poor and curb all forms of exclusivism. Such themes were manifest in the placards of the protesters who sought their rights.

Gibran was a Christian who embraced Islam, an easterner who lived in the West, and therefore a living example of the spiritual revolutionary. With elections in Tunisia and Egypt, the candidates are being asked what they can do for their country.

This is a great time to focus on the visions of this great revolutionary of the Arab world. Syrian American film producer Malek Akkad, son of the late Moustapha Akkad, is preparing for the world’s first Hollywood movie about Gibran.

By coincidence, Lebanese Australian filmmaker Glen Kalem is also ready to produce the world’s first feature length documentary on Gibran, after 14 years of retracing his footsteps across four continents.

Gibran’s spiritual revolution is deeply rooted in the Arab culture and transcends the three monotheistic faiths, as he promotes the unity of being. The concept of a united unarmed uprising cannot be dismissed as Arab jealousy of modern Western democracies.

The armed tribal battles in Arab history have overshadowed the centuries of mass movements and sacrificial martyrs for human rights, long before Facebook aided protests.

The visions of Gibran have inspired a bastion of democracy and the Arab Spring. But his spiritual revolution grew from inner peace. If the newly elected Arab leaders emerge as conciliatory rather than power hungry, then Gibran’s message would have been heard: ”The wisdom of the many is your shield against tyranny. For when we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.”

If JFK was inspired by Gibran for his successful political platform 50 years ago, surely we can all gain insights from Gibran by reading ”The New Frontier”. Elections and democracy do not necessarily lead to peace and rights.

Posted on

Finding Peace amid sensory overload

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/wakim-finding-peace-amid-sensory-overload/story-e6freai3-1226226136202

The Advertiser, 20 December 2011

My induction as a Twitterer evoked religious parallels. We become followers of those seeking to maximise their following, and their tweets follow us.

MULTI-TASKING is no longer the dominion of one gender or one generation. Like many screen-agers, my children boast about this “multi-tasking”, juggling multiple screens.

They can send and receive with great dexterity – texting on a mobile phone, while completing a school project on the computer screen, while glancing at the TV screen in the background.

A computer may freeze when too many programs are operating concurrently, or if it is being driven too fast.
But we expect our God-made brains to evolve faster than our man-made technology.

This mismatch was identified last century by scientific genius Albert Einstein when he declared that “it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”.

Our real world mimics the virtual world, as our eyes scroll like a mouse, minimising and maximising the multiple screens that surround us.

This multi-focal lifestyle has also become hazardous for parents, who feel hypocritical criticising their children.
Even on a beautiful day, we wind up our car windows so that we can hear the cell phone, the Navigator and the sound system.

Like our children, we see the world through windows, so we cannot hear the bird tweets or smell the roses, literally and metaphorically.

It begs bigger questions: When was the last time that we totally focused on one task? Where does this tunnel of windows lead? What does this bombardment of external stimulation block out?

There does not appear to be any spiritual enlightenment at the end of this endless tunnel. Yet all things spiritual need us to “be still” and focus on our internal light.

I pretend this stillness happens before I sleep, but the phone and laptop screens even follow me there as my “second brain” never sleeps. Even as I sleep, I am still not still, but “on call”.

My recent induction as a Twitterer evoked religious parallels – we become followers of those seeking to maximise their following, and their tweets can follow us everywhere we go.

As we become saturated with these snappy screen messages, we may inadvertently be clicking “unfollow” to the eternal voice which transcends technology and whispers to our soul.

Ironically, Christian followers of the holy spirit would know that during the baptism of Jesus, it was also depicted as a bird.

Have we become sheep and allowed the tweets of the blue bird to drown out this white dove?

Technology is not the inherent problem, as it can be used or abused.

Clergy have embraced Facebook and Twitter to send spiritual messages to their flock once a day rather than a homily once a week.

In order to “be still”, we need to shut down many screens and windows. Paradoxically, high-speed signals to our sensors from these inter-connected technologies may insulate us from the inner peace that comes with stillness.

Without trivialising the debilitation of MS, I worry that this spiritual disconnect will lead to multiple screen-osis of our central spiritual system, as the accumulated and chronic status of sensory overload precludes us from the state of stillness.

We can choose to un-busy ourselves so that next time we are asked how we are, the answer is: “At peace”.

Posted on

Marriage remains sacred

Published in National Times, 8 December 2011

http://bit.ly/uf2mXV

Marriage remains sacred even if gays are allowed in

The empowerment of ”people of the rainbow” need not represent Armageddon for ”people of the book”.

I dreaded the vision of a rabbi, cardinal and mufti standing shoulder to shoulder to block the prospective passage of same-sex marriage laws by our federal parliament.

I dreaded even more the abandonment of the Catholic voice left to fly the monotheistic flag alone.
Theologically, Jews, Christians and Muslims share a homogenous heterosexual definition of marriage, based on their sacred scriptures and their human interpretations.

In much of the heated online chats about this issue, I sensed a vindictive tone against Christians, blamed for centuries of homophobia, blamed for condemning fellow humans to a loveless life and lonely death, blamed for blaming fellow humans for their sexual orientation, blamed for playing judgmental god but neglecting godly compassion. The temperature is so high that Christians are better off praying rather than saying, otherwise they will be spat out like popcorn in boiling oil.

For those making most noise about this issue, it is a no-brainer. It has been successfully rebranded as a question of voting yes for equality and no to discrimination. It has been couched in a string of historic human rights struggles for minorities, be they black, indigenous or disabled. There are no logical counter-arguments, and anyone who dares will risk being rendered an endangered minority.

The debate is not about what the religious institutions can and cannot do. Their status and sanctity of marriage remains sacred and untouched. They can ”value add” to the marriage certificate that is issued by the state.
In churches, synagogues and mosques, marriage is far more than a civil union. It is a holy sacrament, with a divine blessing. It is not just a vow between two but three entities, including God. Anyone who has ever attended religious wedding ceremonies will be aware that it is steeped in rich layers of tradition, rituals, symbols, liturgy and songs. These sacred aspects may explain why ”people of the book” are precious about the word marriage, and prefer that it be reserved and patented exclusively for religious ceremonies.

The religious value-adds do not render their marriages more fail-proof. Pre-marriage classes are increasingly compulsory to test the lifelong commitment ”until death do us part” before it is made.

Standing in the path of these laws on religious grounds is neither courageous nor moral. It is foolish. For a start, most of those supporting law reform are heterosexual. For those who have dared to juxtapose the law of God against the proposed law of the land, their weak arguments and ”thou shalt not” quotations have reinforced the black-and-white backwardness of ”people of the book”, rather than the universal and embracing love that emanates from the creator.

For example, Jesus literally embraced many marginalised minorities in his short life, such as prostitutes, tax collectors, Roman soldiers and lepers. How can we be so sure that he would not have embraced others of pure heart? When challenged by Pharisees about the law of Moses and ”it is written”, Jesus often redefined priorities and proclaimed new laws, such as love prevailing over the 10 commandments. How can we be so sure that he would have drawn the line in the sand about marriage?

Even Jesus respected and accepted the laws of the Roman Empire, but asked his followers to give to God what is God’s. The healthy separation of ”church” from state means that citizens have the right to obtain two marriage certificates, one from church and one from state. They can choose to observe all the sacraments of their faith, such as baptism, bar mitzvah and male circumcision, and the state does not interfere. The state can choose to expand its definition of marriage, and the clergy should not interfere. After all, it is becoming a decision of conscience.

In an age where defactos, affairs and divorces are on the rise, it is ironic that marriage is sought by those who ”bat for the other team”.

I recently saw a neighbour whose partner died. When I shared my story about my wife and being a widower, it was clear that there was no ”other team” when it came to things that mattered most. Who was I to judge or dismiss his profound pain as a fellow human being?

Like creation, none of us are born black and white. Even us people of the book should step aside for the rainbow to reign, and love to reign over fear, and leave the rest to conscience and the creator.

Joseph Wakim is a freelance writer. He is a former Victorian multicultural affairs commissioner.

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Hidden truths, contradictions in Syria’s quagmire

Published in Canberra Times, 1 December 2011

http://bit.ly/rSKVhc

When the Arab Spring becomes a dense canopy, many shady truths hide among its bushy foliage.

The Obama administration was recently caught out, tangled in the Syrian quagmire.

In August, US President Barrack Obama condemned the violence against the ‘peaceful protestors in Syria’ and this was echoed by Secretary of State Hilary when she referred to ‘slaughtering thousands of unarmed Syrian citizens, including children’.

If this principled stand was applied across all states in the Middle East, including US allies, it would have attracted integrity rather than cynicism.

However, it was contradicted earlier this month after the Syrian Interior Ministry announced an eight day amnesty for surrendering weapons as a concession to mark the Muslim feast Eid al Adha between 5 and 12 November. It invited the people ‘who carry weapons, sell, distribute, purchase or finance the purchase and who do not commit murder to hand over their weapons to the nearest police station’.

Rather than supporting the amnesty to end the bloodshed, and supporting dialogue with the anti-government protestors, the US State Department’s spokeswoman Victoria Nuland declared “I wouldn’t advise anybody to turn themselves in to regime authorities”.

Given her president’s insistence on unarmed peaceful civilians, surely her more logical response should have been ‘what weapons’? This couched admission of armed forces is as ‘knee-deep’ as the US fertilising the armed uprising.

It would have been interesting to ask Nuland and her bosses to explain the weapon sources for last weekend’s bombing of the Baath Party’s main building in Damascus.

Dr Bashar Al Assad did not initially chose to be in politics. He and his Sunni British wife were recalled from his apthamology career in London to be groomed for the Syrian presidency after his brother died Basil in an accident in 1994. But this is no excuse for several strategic blunders. His vague hour long speech to the Syrian parliament on 30 March, two weeks after the protests began, blamed international conspiracies for the uprising and blamed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for failing to implement his overdue domestic reforms. The legitimate aspirations of his own citizens were drowned out by applause, chants and standing ovations. He squandered his opportunity to prevent the cross pollination of the Arab Spring, and prevent future accusations of ‘too little to late’.

In his recent interview with London’s The Sunday Times, the president would have been wiser to detach himself from the rhetoric of the condemned and slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

It was Gaddafi who declared that ‘we will fight to the last drop of blood’, and now Assad has declared that ‘each spilt drop of blood concerns me personally’. Gaddafi vowed that ‘Tripoli would burn’, while Assad warned that Syria is a fault line in the region and ‘if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake’.

However Assad’s openness to genuine reform and an evolution rather than a revolution was evident in his declaration that the February 2012 elections would vote for a parliament to create a new constitution and this would include not only how to elect a president but indeed “if they need a president” at all. And this is where his faith in his people and putting his nation first differs dramatically from Gaddafi.

Assad cannot be blamed for treating the Arab League’s ultimatums with cynicism. If the member states, dubbed the ‘dictators club’, were genuinely concerned about ‘killing and violence against civilians’, then surely it would extend such suspensions and sanctions to US allies and oil rich states such as Yemen and Bahrain for their brutality against their own civilians.

In August, US President Obama called on his Syrian counterpart to ‘step aside’ because ‘his calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow’. But the Obama administration’s anti-Syria sanctions also ring hollow. Banning petroleum products of Syrian origin and freezing the Syrian government assets would have more impact in Russia, but very little in the USA. Unlike the Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan and Yemeni leaders who were renown for their greed and personal assets, such clench-fisted threats amount to less than a slap to Assad.

While the number of deaths since the Syrian uprising has exceeded 3000, what is hidden by the ‘book cover’ of the Arab Spring foliage is the number of soldiers and security police who have been murdered by the armed gangs.

What is also hidden is the admission by foreign funded terror groups of their violent exploits and provocations in Syria. In televised confessions on Syrian TV, terrorist Khaled Ibrahim al-Taleb confessed to committing several crimes in Homs including killing protestors in order to accuse the army soldiers of doing so. He confessed to attacking military checkpoints and abducting citizens to terrify them, and their collaboration with terrorists groups.

What is hidden in combat gear within the foliage are foreign suppliers of arms and finance, including Saudi Salafists seeking a theocracy not a democracy. What is hidden are images of the rising resolve of the silent majority Syrians to defend their country from foreign intervention.

It may be time to prune the foliage of the Arab Spring and expose those lurking parasites. They should be caught red-handed before a dark winter descends on Syria.

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The irony of boat people phobia

The irony of boat people phobia
Published in Brisbane Courier Mail, 30 July 2010

Why do politicians pursuing power prey on the most powerless people?
Asylum-seekers arriving in boats are mostly women and children, yet they have conveniently become a demonised dartboard in the current federal election. They are the balloons that must be speared before they enter our comfort circle.

Boat people are nothing new. White Australia began with boat people. Australia Day celebrates the arrival of the First Fleet, and the Sydney Opera House is inspired by this historic spectacle of white sails in the sun.

To the local people at that time, the boats carried invaders who had to be feared and resisted. It must have been a nightmare for the elders when 11 convict ships from Great Britain, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, appeared on the horizon of what is now Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788. Some of their worst fears were realised with the introduction of foreign diseases, criminals and firearms.

Fast forward to 2010 and this xenophobia about boat people invading our sacred shores continues. Ironically, the resistance is now led by
fair-skinned people against dark skinned people.

And what weapons are these invaders supposedly carrying? Difference. More dangerous than explosives because it is a moving target that cannot be contained. Hence the holding centre gives us peace of mind that their foreign poison will not leak.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott regurgitated the same old stereotypes of asylum-seekers: ‘‘We’ve got illicit drugs, we’ve got plant and animal diseases, we’ve got all sorts of other potential criminal activity’’. This is probably what an indigenous elder may have declared two centuries ago, after the convicts settled and hoisted their flags. Abbott’s idea of ‘‘turning the boats back’’ is about as likely as turning the clocks back to pre-white Australia.

Ask anyone who has ever worked with these boat people about their degree of desperation. No human being would risk the lives of their
beloved family in treacherous waters unless they were in an irreversibly life-threatening situation, with nothing more to lose.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard vows to ‘‘stop boats, not when they are on our horizons, but before they leave port’’. This may be closer to a solution if it is coupled with a strategy to redress the root causes of the desperation. That way, we would be dealing with the sources, symptoms and solutions.

It is ironic that some of these ‘‘invaders’’ are themselves fleeing from the effects of western invasion. The Iraqis are a case in point, many of
whom have found their homeland unliveable after the Coalition of the Willing (that included Australia) invaded their country to overthrow
their dictator in 2003.

So what exactly is this difference that is so threatening to Australia?

It should not be that some are Muslim as we have had Muslims in Australia since the Macassar fishermen pre the First Fleet, then as British convicts in subsequent fleets in the 1700s, then as Afghan camel drivers in the 1800s. Indeed, it was these Afghans who helped open up the
inland rail lines and telegraph lines in this vast continent that would eventually link Adelaide to Darwin. So it was beneficial to take in Muslims and animals at that time.

It should not be that they are criminals, as there is no empirical evidence for this stereotype. Unlike the convicts who were Australia’s first
boat people, many of whom committed petty crimes, there is no evidence that today’s boat people generally have a criminal record.

Yet there is abundant evidence that boat people love to give something back to Australia. Due to their deprivation, they cherish the new homeland that may be taken for granted by those of us who were born here. The Vietnamese and Iraqi refugees are testament to the aspiration to seize and celebrate their citizenship. As a Multicultural Affairs Commissioner who attended many citizenship ceremonies,
I heard the stories of many of these boat people who shed tears as they grabbed the certificate with both hands. They have become the
staunchest ambassadors of Australia’s generosity, both at home and abroad.

What is probably most threatening about their weapon of difference is that they are not so different. If we listen to their narratives, from chapter one – their love of family, their fear of persecution, their experience of war, their loss of relatives, their prayer for a safe haven – they are suddenly not so different in their aspirations, and them become us.

Beneath the grainy images of skinny, sea-sick, unshaven vagrants, they have faces, names and dreams – just like us. Of course there are bad apples in every bunch – indigenous people and boat people. But if fair-skinned politicians are going to throw darts and generalisations, it is best that they start with fair dinkum facts about the majority. Otherwise, they will drown in a tidal wave of ironies about so-called invaders.