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The sign of Jonah – who defines wrong?

First published: Sight Magazine, 9 Jan 2026

Read Jonah 4: 1-11

On the surface, the four chapters of Jonah read like a children’s comic book about a disobedient prophet swallowed by an obedient fish. It inspired the 1881 iconic tale of Pinocchio and Geppetto – trapped inside Monstro the whale for three nights.

But beneath the surface, the Jonah story raises a modern mirror that reflects a moral question. Not the question provoked by the 1981 classic book ‘When bad things happen to good people’. But the opposite: why does God allow good things to happen to ‘bad people’?

Jonah knew all about “bad people”. The Ninevites of the Assyrian Empire worshipped pagan gods, including Dagon, who was depicted as half-fish. Jonah knew that the Assyrians were cruel conquerors who were notorious for their terror tactics.

About 20 years after Jonah’s death, the Assyrians captured the Northern Kingdom of Israel (circa 722 BC) and exiled the ‘ten lost tribes’.

Jesus knew that the Pharisees, like Jonah, despised Ninevites as “bad people”. The Pharisees asked Jesus for “a sign”, checking if he was exorcising demons as the “Son of David” or the “prince of demons” (Matthew 12:23-24).

But Jesus “knew their thoughts” (Matthew 12:25) and rebuked them with a bitter pill to swallow: “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign!”. He evokes the wicked Ninevites who “repented at the preaching of Jonah” and will “condemn…this generation…at the judgement…” because “now something greater than Jonah is here”. (Matthew 12:41). Even Jonah, who was far from great, opened the eyes of the Ninevites, while the Pharisees remained blind to the signs that Messiah was standing before them.

Like the Pharisees, Jonah found his mission was too bitter to swallow, until God “provided” a big fish to swallow him and gave him another chance to obey God’s instructions: “Go to…Ninevah and proclaim….Forty more days and Ninevah will be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4).

Ironically, Mosul (Iraq) now stands on the ruins of Nineveh. Imagine being a ‘missionary’ sent to preach in ISIS-occupied Mosul a decade ago with this dangerous proclamation. Would we flee in the opposite direction, like Jonah? Would we be angry if God saw their change of heart and spared them, despite all their ‘terror tactics’?

Perhaps Jonah hoped that Nineveh “overthrown” would parallel “the Lord rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah” (Genesis 19:24). Perhaps this is why his proclamation was a condemnation, not an ultimatum with an “unless” clause.

Then comes the twist: the “proclamation” from Ninevah’s king for all people and animals to fast, wear sackcloth, give up ‘their evil ways’ and “call urgently on God [to]…turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish” (Jonah 3:7-9).

When God relented, the “fierce anger” welled up in Jonah who saw this as “very wrong”: good things should not happen to bad people – this not what they deserve. This mission was supposed to end with God’s punishment, not God’s mercy: “That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God…who relents from sending calamity” (Jonah 4:2).

To Jonah, this mission was a waste because Ninevah was not reduced to waste.

So why did the Ninevites relent so quickly to warnings from a strange prophet of a foreign god who was “vomited” from a huge fish (Jonah 2:10)? How “fishy” would he have appeared after three days and nights ‘in the belly of the fish’? (Jonah 1:17)?

Is it a coincidence that the superstitious Ninevites worshipped and feared a half-fish deity? Perhaps this is a poignant reminder that ‘my ways are higher than your ways’ (Isaiah 55:9).

Is it a coincidence that the fish theme characterises many of Jesus’ miracles among His “fishers of men”?

Is it a coincidence that the Greek acronym for ‘Jesus Christ, son of God, Saviour’ spells Ichthys and means fish?

Is it a coincidence that the fish became the secret symbol among persecuted Christians in the first three centuries?

So how does God enlighten Jonah, who was so distraught that he “wanted to die” (Jonah 4:8)? God “provided a leafy plant” that shaded Jonah’s weary head “to ease his discomfort”. Overnight, “God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered.”

While Jonah did not give life to that tree, he was “so angry” that the hundreds of shady leaves were stolen from him. Yet God gave life to the 120,000 Ninevites, and rejoiced that they had “turned from their evil ways”.

Jonah sought justice, but God provided mercy.

For God, perhaps there are no bad and undeserving people. He is patient and keeps “providing” second chances.

For us, perhaps Jonah’s sign reminds us not to play God with our definitions of justice, wrong, good and bad.

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Jesus executed the law, not the adulterous woman

Published as Open Book Column in Sight Magazine, 7 November 2025

Read John 8:1-11 (NIV)

Why would teachers of the law dare to test the writer of the law?

The spectacular story of Jesus sparing the adulterous woman reveals what happens when cold stones meet a sacred heart.

We don’t need to be lawyers to grasp the genius of the ultimate judge. We need to apply ‘spot the difference’ to see what the trappers maliciously omitted when applying the ‘letter of the law’.

As a comparison with our court trials, let’s use ‘prosecutors’ when referring to the “teachers of the law and the Pharisees”.

They framed a lose-lose situation: if Jesus sanctions the execution, they incriminate him for violating Roman law and report Him to the authorities, as Jews “have no right to execute anyone” (John 18:31). If Jesus forbids the stoning, He is a heretic for violating Mosaic Law.

The temple courts were an apt public setting for this exhibition.

Exhibit A: the woman who was “caught in the act of adultery”. But “caught” means there were witnesses.

The prosecutors would be acutely aware of the letter of the law.

Exhibit B: “One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime…A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses” (Deuteronomy 19:15). Yet Jesus does not demand that the witnesses step forward.

Next, the prosectors cite the Law of Moses that “commanded us to stone such women”. But this omits the other half of the command…

Exhibit C: ‘Both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death’ (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22). Yet Jesus does not demand that the conspicuously missing man steps forward.

Mosaic law is very prescriptive about who must cast the first stone…

Exhibit D: “The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death” (Deuteronomy 17:6-7). The trap is now disintegrating – how will the execution ‘legally’ commence without witnesses?

But the law is a double-edged sword, which is a problem for pedantic prosecutors.

Exhibit E: “If the witness proves to be a liar…then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party” (Deuteronomy 19:18-19). So the witnesses should step forward and cast the first stone. Unless there were ‘false witnesses’ who risked exposure and stoning.

Despite all these opportunities for Jesus to highlight the prosecution’s omissions and anomalies in their malicious manipulation of Mosaic law, he remained silent. Instead, He “bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger”.

Perhaps the spectacle of Jesus writing with His finger would have evoked the origin of Mosaic Law…

Exhibit F: “When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant law, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18).

Perhaps this is why Jesus wrote in silence: the same finger that inscribed the Ten Commandments may have now inscribed all the laws (exhibits) that the prosecutors were violating.
Against this rich tapestry of Biblical text and ‘exhibits’, Jesus utters His only ‘defence’ to the prosecutors: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her”.

Without sin? Without witnesses? Without the adulterer?

Surely, the older Pharisees knew their Hebrew Bible: “There is no-one on Earth who…never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

Jesus did not wait for the first stone, but “again He stooped down and wrote on the ground”.

St Jerome suggested that Jesus wrote the names and sins of the accusers, to fulfil a prophecy…

Exhibit G: “All who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust” (Jeremiah 17:13). Surely, the learned prosecutors would be familiar with this Biblical imagery.

Whether Jesus inscribed Mosaic Law of their sins, the finger-pointing was now backfiring and shaming them.

Those who “kept on questioning him” suddenly fell silent, their stones fell to the ground, and their trap fell to pieces.

When “only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there”, He alone qualified as “without sin”, but He refused to condemn her.

Perhaps all our sins are temporarily inscribed in dust but can be blown away by the breath of God when He sees our repentant heart.

The mother of Jesus is also believed to be “without sin” and born through Immaculate Conception. When Mary was betrothed to Joseph, she became pregnant “before they came together” (Matthew 1:18). This could have been perceived as adultery with fatal consequences. Like Jesus, Joseph was “faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace” (Matthew 1:19).

Like his foster father, Jesus spared the woman from death.

Instead of executing the woman, Jesus executed the letter of the law.

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Beware Australia’s real ‘illegals’

http://bit.ly/17QYaGP

The Advertiser, 8 November 2013

PICTURE this scenario at an Australian international airport arrivals terminal: “
Excuse me, sir. We are the Federal Police. You are under arrest.”
“Are you serious? What for?”
“Participating in illegal military activities while in Syria.”
“I was on a humanitarian mission!”
“You will need to prove it.”

But this scene will not play itself out in reality while politicians drag their feet in a legal quagmire.
The Abbott Government is renowned for its simple and clear statements, especially pertaining to border protection.

The incarnation of the ‘‘stop the boats’’ war-cry was to launch Operation Sovereign Borders, deploy a three-star general and render the seafaring asylum seekers ‘‘illegal arrivals’’.

So what is the incarnation of its “baddies versus baddies’’ banner overarching Syria?

Why have we not seen the Government launch Operation Foreign Fighters, deploy a three-star general and render the returning mercenaries ‘‘illegal combatants’’?

In his book Foreign Fighters: Transnational Identity in Civil Conflicts, Dr David Malet from Melbourne University claims that the 200 Australians participating in the Syrian war outnumber all other Westerners.

He contends that “the biggest danger is that they return home as recruiters” and are hailed as “heroes in their local communities”.

Surely, this must render them more dangerous than the ‘‘illegal arrivals’’ who are desperately seeking life for their beloved families, not martyrdom for their ‘‘brothers in arms’’ and a ‘‘ticket to paradise’’? Already four Australians are known to have been killed in Syria since the uprising began.

It was rich of former foreign minister Bob Carr to urge his successor to revisit the idea of legally blocking these Australian citizens from returning home from the Syria war zones. He had his chance.

What has been the result of his strategy of intelligence gathering and merely monitoring their recruitment activities after their return? The number of fighters swelled from single to double to triple digits.

While our intelligence agencies need to keep their confidential information and control orders out of the public domain in case the radicalised recruiters go underground, the public deserve more than blanket response of ‘‘trust us – we are doing much more than you think’’.

Regardless of reality, there is a prevailing perception that Australian jihadists come and go with impunity.
Community advocates sounded the alarm when there were two high-profile Australian fatalities in the battle zone in 2013. The alarm was amplified with when this figure subsequently increased.

The government’s “‘wait and see’’ strategy revealed a gaping loophole and made a mockery of our federal laws.

Those opposing the Syrian government did not want their sons to slip down this hole, as virtually all embraced Australia to flee from war. Those supporting the Syrian government also opposed this loophole because of their general concern over foreign mercenaries and terrorists allied with al Nusra and al-Qa’ida.

When David Hicks was participating in paramilitary training in Afghanistan in 2001, the US Military Commission charged him with “providing material support for terrorism” and he was detained in Guantanamo Bay until 2007. But when other Australians participate in military activities in the plethora of pro and anti-government ‘‘brigades’’, they return home to a hero’s welcome.

The current law is articulated by the Department of Foreign Affairs travel advice: “It is illegal under Australian law for Australian citizens, including dual citizens, to provide any kind of support to any armed group in Syria.

“This includes engaging in fighting for either side, funding, training or recruiting someone to fight.”. . . Australians who commit these offences while overseas may be prosecuted in Australia”.

Breaches may incur heavy fines and a maximum 10 years’ imprisonment. So why has there not been a single arrest, prosecution of or conviction reported to the Australian public since the alarm bells were sounded?

Too many of these Australians publicly claim to be offering humanitarian aid to the Syrian refugee epidemic, but their Facebook photos show them posing proudly with guns.
If the problem is loopholes within the current Australian law, then it is incumbent upon the Attorney-General George Brandis to update the national security laws. , just as the anti-terrorism laws were updated with 54 new Bills under the Howard government. The real ‘‘illegals’’ are arriving in planes, not boats.

Joseph Wakim is the founder of the Australian Arabic Council and author of Sorry We Have No Space.

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Prisoner X exposes double standards


http://bit.ly/132TaN7

ON LINE opinion – Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate
Posted Wednesday, 20 February 2013

Prisoner X exposes double standards

Imagine if Prisoner X was an Australian dual citizen who was recruited and incarcerated by the Syrian Mukhabarat rather than the Israeli Mossad. Would our Zionist leaders remain silent as they are now, or demand the loyalty of Syrian dual citizens? Should those driven by their ideology be labeled as fanatical terrorists or noble nationalists, or should this depend on whether they are Arabs or Jews?

Local Arab leaders are no strangers to having their loyalty questioned after two ‘Gulf Wars’, even if they are Australian rather than dual citizens.

I have publicly urged the Australian government to interrogate Australian citizens who visit the war zones of Syria, especially those who claim to be on a humanitarian mission but are then posted and boasted on the social boast as military martyrs sacrificing for their ‘brothers in arms’. Any military, para-military or intelligence service outside Australian defense and security forces should be deemed suspicious.

This does not mean that we should treat such citizens like the US Military Commission treated David Hicks who was charged with ‘providing material support for terrorism’. But it does mean that we cannot turn a blind eye to the human traffic and ‘rites of passage’ between Australia and Israel. Prisoner X now has a name – Ben Zygier, and this illicit recruitment of Australian citizens has a name – exploitation.

The indoctrination of Australian dual citizens into Israeli identity is nothing new. The aptly named Birthright Israel Foundation offers a free ten day educational tour of Israel for 18 to 26 year olds who are first time visitors. Its local representative is the Zionist Federation of Australia which has facilitated over 3300 Australian visits.

Their itinerary is founded on the ‘birthright of all young Jews to visit their ancestral homeland [to]…build a certain future for the Jewish people’. It has no place for education about uncertain future of the Palestinian people. Nor are visitors educated about the contradiction within their definition as both Zionist and ‘democratic’ given the many exclusive rights reserved for its Jewish citizens.

By their own admission, ‘more than 60,000 young Israelis, many of whom are active IDF soldiers, have traveled with the participants’.

The active conscription into the IDF deserves sharper focus in the light of their recent plan to ‘counter the steady decline in the number of conscripts since 2005’. This has been attributed to the drop in immigration by Diaspora Jews or Aliyah. According to Haaretz news, their recruitment drive targets a 15 percent increase from abroad such as Australia, plus a lethal combination of ultra-Orthodox youth and Arab Israelis.

We already had a wake-up call two years ago in Feb 2010 when a Hamas militant Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was assassinated in Dubai by Mossad agents with a forged Australian passport. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith warned the Israeli ambassador that this was not the ‘act of a friend’, and then expelled a Mossad agent.

This incident taught us that an ‘Australian passport allows Israeli spies to travel throughout the Middle East without attracting suspicion’. But during his recent interview with ABC radio, the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia Philip Chester vehemently denied that ‘when we send Australians to live in Israel …there’s an industry that exists of harvesting …passports in any … illegal way.’

The unanswered questions about Prisoner X go beyond the peculiarities of Ben Zygier. They go to the heart of the taboo question on dual citizenship that the Zionist President evaded: ‘At what point does loyalty to Israel become disloyalty to Australia?’

Just because Australia and Israel are allies in the Middle East does not mean that there will never be a conflict of interest. The ‘anti terrorist’ ends does not justify illegal means. What about differences in the United Nations such as Israel voting against the recent vote to upgrade Palestinian status whereas Australia abstained? What about the fact that Zionist recruitments into IDF are essentially a one state solution to ethnically cleanse the land of their ‘birthright’, whereas Australia supports a two state solution?

Our dual citizenship laws need to be clear about this loyalty question. Australians fighting for the ‘Free Syrian Army’ or answering fatwas for a holy war from muftis in Saudi Arabia should be interrogated, but we have no t heard of one arrest or criminal charge. And would Australian Syrians who are recruited to fight with the national army be just as culpable or is that different? How is it different to an Australian Israeli ‘serving’ in the occupied West Bank?

The Department of Foreign Affairs ‘Dual nationals ‘web page merely warns about the ‘liability for military service’ as a possible obligation, and the risk of imprisonment for defaulters. But this needs much greater elaboration, especially for countries which Australia regards as enemies.
Ironically, there has been gnashing of teeth over this one soul that we have never seen over the thousands of Palestinian men, women and children who are imprisoned, tortured and killed by the same Israeli apparatus.

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Shootings spike needs a face off

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/print.asp?article=14674

ON LINE opinion – Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate

Shootings spike needs a face-off

By Joseph Wakim

Posted Tuesday, 12 February 2013

Our current political debate about shootings has taken aim at the supply chain, but we should be disarming the demand.

The new federal offence of ‘aggravated trafficking’ would prosecute anyone smuggling more than 50 firearms within a six month period. But NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell insists that this firearm smuggling threshold should be halved, in the light of the recent spike of gun fatalities in Sydney’s West.

A voice at arm’s length to the crime culture has warned about a troubling trend to ‘fix’ disputes by hiding behind weapons. NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas identified this demand for long range weapons: ‘it seems to be more acceptable now for people to get a weapon and go out and shoot them instead of having a physical altercation’.

It is this worrying trend to confront enemies from way beyond arm’s length that needs to be arrested.
When one sends a message through bullets in the anonymity of darkness, it is loud but it is not clear.
There is no face to face contact, no reading of non verbal cues such as tone or pitch, no opportunity to clarify misunderstandings, no context to the conversation, and no exposure to the human consequences on the victims and their family. All these human dynamics and cues are blocked out in the blackness.

The trend raised by Commissioner Kaldas evokes the old adage that it is harder to stab a man than it is to shoot him. The ‘physical altercation’ requires you to be up close and personal, to see the reaction as the knife enters, to see the pain in their eyes, to see the window to their soul and to see your victim as a fellow human. It is no wonder that the trend is to attack from a distance.

But this trend is not peculiar to thugs and was not born in a vacuum. The trend to hide behind shields and indeed shield ourselves from the human consequences is a huge temptation for a generation of screen-agers who ‘think with their thumbs’ as they send messages through a plethora of social media platforms such as Facebook, SMS messaging and Instagram.

The more they become well versed and reliant on the social media as their primary source of communication, the more averse they are to face to face communication. The more they rely on digital communication, which is fundamentally zeros and ones, the more they are prone to ‘non-verbal’ Asperger symptoms.

When relationships turn nasty, the (anti) social networks can be transformed into barricades and battle trenches. The ‘SEND’ button is transformed into a rocket launcher in a computer game where the targets are either not human or dehumanized. The message is transformed into a missile. They fail to face their ‘friend’ as they give a modern meaning to ‘behind their back’.

The dehumanisation and consequential disconnect increases the propensity for angry individuals who hide behind the send button to later hide behind triggers.

Ironically, the message intended by the drive by shootings is ‘I have the power to terrorise you’, but the action is everything but courageous. The faceless and nameless cowards may intend to silence their targets with fear and fire. But inevitably the result is spiralling counter attacks within a criminal culture that lacks social skills to strip off the armour and physically face the foe. Contrary to the glorified and sexed up dramatisations we see in the popular culture such as the Underbelly genre, such figures should be depicted as cowards to prevent copycat behaviour.

The demand for stocking up on weapons rather than stocking up on social skills poses urgent moral challenges if we are to curb the spike of shootings. The antidote to an over-exposure to hiding behind screens and using pseudonyms may be relearning the art of non-verbal communication, reading body language and listening skills.

It is ironic that the Simon and Garfunkel classic Sound of Silence was written 50 years ago in the aftermath of the John F Kennedy shooting, and it features the prophetic lyrics that characterise a mob mentality – ‘People hearing without listening’.

The computer screens and windscreens can create a culture of cowards who need to be taught something so fundamental to humans – face to face communication. Even in my workplace, people can be so aggressive on email, so gentle over the phone, and so shy over a coffee, as if they are out of their comfort zone.

It is time to arrest this anti-social trend because we can now see the context and the continuum from the toxic Send button to the tragic trigger.

Joseph Wakim founded the Australian Arabic Council and is a former multicultural affairs commissioner.

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Syrians deserve a third way

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14500
http://bit.ly/YqHou9
Published in ON LINE opinion
Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate

Syrians deserve a third way
Posted Friday, 21 December 2012

‘All we are saying is give peace a chance’ was the theme of the anti Vietnam war movement in 1969, thanks to the guiding star of John Lennon. And it may as well be the theme of the anti war movement in Syria today, thanks to the guiding star of a Melkite nun Mother Agnes Miriam. This star of hope is rising in the night sky and wise people of all creeds seek its solace.

This fearless woman has indiscriminately nursed and sheltered many wounded civilians and foreign mercenaries near her Homs monastery ironically named ‘St James the Mutilated’. She has even negotiated with the government to release dissidents. This optimistic soul retains her faith that the uniting spirit of reconciliation will prevail against the dividing forces of revolution.

The reconciliation or Mussalaha movement paths a third way – a way towards peace. Not the status quo of the authoritarian regime where dissonant voices were crushed. Not a bloody revolution that is fuelled and financed from foreign powers. But a third way – evolution that is driven by the will of the Syrian citizens in their own time and in their own way. Driven by their love of re-building their secular society, not ripping it apart along sectarian battle lines. It is this majority of ordinary peace loving people who have been forgotten when the conflict is crudely portrayed as ‘Assad versus rebels’.

During the latest Friends of Syria summit in Marrakesh, Morocco on 13 December, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was endorsed by 90 of the 114 countries attending as the ‘legitimate voice of the Syrian people’. Foreign Minister Bob Carr was swift in following suit: ‘Australia joins the United States, the UK, France and many others in acknowledging the Syrian opposition and further delegitimizing the Assad regime’ so that we can support ‘adherence to democratic principles [by] … a credible alternative for Syria once a political transition occurs’.

How can the forcible overthrow of a sovereign government by foreign forces (via their rebels, jihadists and mercenaries) lay the foundations for a new Syrian democracy? With a presidential election scheduled for 2014, how can outsiders pre-empt the outcome on behalf of the exiled minority when there are 23 million citizens in Syria? How can we turn a blind eye to the lethal cocktail of Coalition agendas that include fatwas to replace the secular society with a sectarian caliphate: ‘Christians to Beirut and Alawites to their graves’?.

The Syrian National Council has been allocated 22 of the 60 seats in this new ‘government in waiting’. Its newly appointed chairman George Sabra wasted no time in declaring the SNC’s new direction: ‘Quite clearly, we want weapons’.

If the current regime is heavy handed and murderous, then the second way of an armed revolution is just as violent. Titles such as revolutionary, forces and weapons do not spell less bloodshed. Cynically assuming that we suffer from collective amnesia, the US-Saudi led sponsors of this revolution are repeating similar tactics to those deployed in the overthrow of the other Baathist secular state: Iraq.

Ten years ago, lies about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and al Qaeda connections were propagated by the US-UK alliance to justify the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Earlier this month, we again witnessed ‘leaks’ from the US Pentagon about Syrian ‘chemical weapons’. On cue, US defence Secretary Leon Panetta beat the drums of war that ‘there will be consequences…[if] the regime might very well consider the use of chemical weapons…on their own people’.

We have heard such scaremongering as a pretext for war all before, and we know that the consequences unleashed a civil war inside Iraq with no end in sight. So alarm bells should point us to a healthy scepticism: where is the evidence to support this serious claim? Why are foreign jihadists and mercenaries deceitfully included as ‘their own people’?

Hence the second way of revolution is a vicious cycle of war and propaganda that is hell bent on assuming power and serving the sponsors, with very little reference to serving the Syrian citizens.
The third way of reconciliation has no place for weapons, as the theatre of war is replaced by a round table where citizens talk to each other, not about each other. The enemy is rehumanised rather than dehumanised. This Mussalaha movement is not romantic. It is real ‘reconciliation from below’ starting from families, clans and civil society who are ‘tired of the conflict’.

It was born within civil society in Homs in June around the monastery of Mother Agnes. Another inter denominational meeting in Deir Ezzor culminated in the participants rejecting ‘sectarian violence and sectarian denominational strife, as preconceived ideological and political opposition are urgently required.’

Even the Syrian government embraced the concept and appointed a Minister for National Reconciliation, Ali Haidar, who assembled a Mussalaha committee to ‘unite the children of Syria in love and reconciliation’. He pledged that his ministry would be ‘the dwelling of all Syrians, without exception’. He attended another Reconciliation forum in Homs on 14 October where multi-faith leaders sort to ‘restore a ‘city free of weapons and gunmen’. While it is easy to dismiss this as tokenistic and ‘too little too late’, this door has always been open to unarmed dialogue, whereas such reconciliation is invisible on the National Coalition agenda.

In October, Mother Agnes visited Australia as part of her international mission to promote this movement. Contrary to the popular narrative that exiles are fleeing from the Syrian army, she is fleeing from the rebels. The ten point plan that she presented to Australian politicians during her visit is pro negotiation, anti war and anti propaganda. She warned of the fate of the Christians in Syria if a sectarian regime was installed, especially the Christians of Antioch which is the oldest church in the world. There are branches of this grass roots multi faith Mussalaha movement globally, including Australia.

Of course such grass roots initiatives go largely unnoticed because they present a challenging counter narrative.

Although the uprising in Syria may have started in Dara’a as a popular movement in March 2011, that was quickly hijacked by militants and jihadists with a different agenda. The new popular movement is Mussalaha.

It is time for a counter revolution that puts people first.
Joseph Wakim founded the Australian Arabic Council and is a former multicultural affairs commissioner.

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Christmas Recipe for Human Culture

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14493&page=0
http://bit.ly/VR7waZ

ON LINE opinion – Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate

Christmas recipe for human culture

Posted Thursday, 20 December 2012

As families prepare to congregate around the Christ child, the carols, the churches, the Christmas trees, and the Santa Claus, there is one other C word that cements them all together: culture.
Families activate traditional recipes to honour, celebrate and top up what has been handed down through generations. But there is one simple recipe that has always intrigued me when making Lebanese yoghurt: culture.

The same word used to describe the same vital process is no coincidence. This age old recipe for sustaining yoghurt culture is more than metaphorical in teaching us about preserving human culture.
The English word culture derives from the Latin word cultura which means to cultivate or till. In sociology, it means to transmit through language and ritual from one generation to the next. In science, it means to grow micro organisms such as bacteria in a nutrient medium under controlled supervised conditions. In yoghurt, the starter culture contains a variety of lactic acids producing thermophillic bacteria.

My grandparents’ generation handed down stories about Lebanese emigrants boarding ships a century ago carrying luggage with one hand and nursing a jar of yoghurt culture or rowbi with the other hand. They would seek favours from the shipping crew to refrigerate the jar so it could be preserved across the sea voyage.

The jar would be protected like a holy grail, containing the DNA of their ancestry, religiously handed down across generations. A century ago, the loss of that edible culture amounted to catastrophic severing of the ancestral culture because it was a living link to their unique family flavour. A child who had accidentally eaten the starter culture from the fridge was accused of culture-cide.

Like a chicken-egg quandary, debates abound about which came first – the culture or the yoghurt. What is not debated is that yoghurt cannot be made without some starter culture from a previous batch. Like human culture, yoghurt cannot be created from scratch – it needs a clone sample from a parent body.

Boiling the milk, whether full cream or skim, enables fermentation. Like human culture, it needs high heat to be borne out of passion and purity.

The boiled milk is then transferred to a heat proof bowl which will become its stable home environment for the duration of its batch life. The milk needs to cool to a tepid temperature. The traditional method for testing this is dipping your pinkie until you can count to ten comfortably – the only time that a human hand touches the mixture like a literal handing down anointment.

Human culture is best preserved if it is passed on in lukewarm moderation, not with hot-blooded cultural chauvinism, nor with cold-blooded cultural cringe, or cool indifference.

The refrigerated jar of culture is opened and the active living bacteria are ready to be embedded.
To prevent any culture shock, it is mixed with some of the tepid milk so it is more fluid and ready to permeate the new host body.

It is stirred in gently so that the DNA imbues its unique flavour, language and rituals.

It is essential that this new mixture can set as it only incubates in a still and warm setting. Like a newborn baby, the mixture must never be rocked or shaken. In some Christian traditions, the mixture is blessed with the sign of the cross before being covered, like tucking a baby to sleep, or preparing for a miracle as the milk transforms to yoghurt. It is covered with a woolen blanket, and kept in one stable location such as the kitchen bench. As it needs about 8 undisturbed hours to set, it is usually safest to leave it overnight so it ferments while we are sleeping.

If opened or moved during this incubation period, the mixture would neither ferment nor cement, but fragment. Like humans, if it lacks consistency as a child, the culture is harder to define.
In the morning, the blanket and lid are carefully removed. Two table spoons are removed from the heart of the yoghurt as the starter culture for the next batch so that the cycle can be repeated and regenerated perpetually. The yoghurt is then transferred to the fridge and ready for human cultural celebrations.

The yoghurt has culture, identity and a solid foundation. It can now transform from mono-cultural which is delicious, to multi-cultural where it can be enhanced with a fruit salad, olives, herbs, as a frozen dessert, as a savoury dip or mixed with a meaty main course.

The significance of yoghurt in Lebanese DNA extends beyond a staple dish in their cultural cuisine. It is the genesis of their country’s name. In many Semitic languages such as Assyrian and Hebrew, variations of the word Laban mean white, which was used to name the perennial snow capped mountain range in Lebanon, as stated over seventy times in the Old Testament. The same word Laban was adopted in Arabic to name yoghurt.

Hence we have come full circle, with some dreaming of a white Christmas, where the cultural celebration is not complete without Laban illuminating the banquet.

The culture not only sustains the generations. It preserves a civilisation.
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Turn the T-Way into a Truck Way

Turn the T-Way into a Truck Way

http://www.tandlnews.com.au/2012/03/29/article/Turn-the-T-Way-into-Truck-Way/WMCUXLBKVM.html

While Sydney’s monorail will be replaced by light rail, it is time to review another mode of transport.

As a manager of a national road freight company, and a parent who carpools children to school, my thoughts on traffic collide at a dangerous intersection.

On one hand, I am acutely aware of the ‘deadlines’ that truck drivers are given by the powerful retailers in the supply chains to arrive at allocated timeslots and avoid prohibitive penalties. The invidious trucks are at the mercy of the traffic laws and the retail lords.

On the other hand, I visualise an aerial view of the gridlock traffic where each truck is a bull elephant in the room, hogging up too many car spaces.

Every morning, every vehicle from motor cycles to cars to trucks share the same carriage ways, with toxic smoke bellowing out of exhaust pipes and human nostrils.

Then it dawned on me, from above. I am not referring to some divine epiphany but the beautiful T-Way, arching over the highway like a rainbow, but void of the flashing colours.

While the main roads are over-crowded, are the T-ways underutilised?

The 1998 NSW government report ‘Action for Transport 2010’ recommended seven T-Ways, which are rapid transit networks. They were considered more flexible than rail because buses can join and leave the T-Way anywhere along its route. So far, there is a 31 km link from Parramatta to Liverpool, a 17 km link from Parramatta to Rouse Hill, and a 7 km link from Blacktown to Parklea.

According to the NSW RTA web-site, the T-way benefits include links with industrial and commercial areas, reducing travel time and reducing traffic congestion.

Ironically, this mirrors the routes of many large trucks, picking up from industrial areas, delivering to commercial areas, but inevitably increasing travel time and traffic congestion for other motorists along the way.

This begs pertinent questions: Would travel time increase for the buses if the T-way were shared by large trucks? And the corollary question: would travel time decrease on main roads in these areas if the large trucks used the T-way?

We could start by piloting B-double trailers on T-ways. If it proves not to slow down the buses, then semitrailers could be considered as phase two

According to the RTA, average vehicle lengths for B-doubles are 25 meters, semi-trailers 19 meters, buses 12.5 meters and cars 4.1 meters. This means that every B-double removed from main roads equates to over 6 car spaces, which should equate to less congestion.
The NRMA’s own ‘Decongestion Strategy Report’ in May last year outlined a 10-point plan to tackle Sydney’s traffic, primarily by appointing more human resources to manage it. The majority of responses published on its own website have cynically dismissed the plan as a ‘waste of time’ as ‘none of the NRMA points go to the core of the problem’.

The NRMA proposal highlights the ‘forgotten transit lanes’ so that they permanently remain an exclusive bus zone, yet on its website readers complain that transit lanes are ‘underutilised and are empty most of the time’.

Instead, the NRMA could have recommended a review of the transit lane utilisation, and potential for further utilisation with a view to ‘decongestion’. A cost benefit analysis would reveal the threshold point at which trucks on T-ways would actually slow down the buses.

While it is recognised that buses should be prioritised because they could carry 80 customers, and public transport needs these incentives, trucks also carry the necessary daily supplies for hundreds of customers.

Traffic congestion has hit home to my family with the current M2 upgrade in the Hills area. According to the RTA report in 2010, the Hills Shire Council was ‘concerned about potential impacts …on local road congestion’. The RTA response was that ‘Traffic and transport related impacts during the construction phase of the M2 upgrade project are not expected to cause significant congestion on the local road network’.

The reality for local residents is absolute gridlock, as any eye in the sky would see between 7 and 9 AM every weekday. My own family’s travel time to school has more than doubled from 15 minutes to about 40 minutes, which has had a domino effect on bed time, wake up time, and fatigue even before we reach our destination.

The research by RTA on this occasion was clearly erroneous.

Along our route, we encounter numerous 40 km school zones where most students appear to be driven to the school by parents or buses. These safety zones are also cash cows for hidden cameras for those exceeding the speed limit during the push and shove. Like the T-Ways, it begs the questions that point to further RTA research: are the school crossings underutilised? Is there a solution above, such as overhead pedestrian bridges that would redress both child safety and traffic congestion?

My experience suggests that more creative and robust research needs to be undertaken by RTA to redress traffic congestion. Sometimes we need to think outside the grid.