12 July 2012 Volume: 22 Issue: 13 Interfaith Guru's 9/11 Moment Peter Kirkwood
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12 July 2012 Volume: 22 Issue: 13 Interfaith guru’s 9/11 moment Peter Kirkwood ..........................................1 International Criminal Court’s African bias Binoy Kampmark ......................................... 3 Justifying garden-variety torture Max Atkinson ...........................................5 Battle for the 21st century classroom Dean Ashenden ......................................... 10 Divorce, sexuality and the cult of self-improvement Tim Kroenert ........................................... 13 Little Adonis and the fruit box Helena Kadmos ......................................... 15 Trading fears for tears in complex asylum seeker debate Fatima Measham ........................................ 20 The epiphanies of our lives B. N. Oakman .......................................... 22 History curriculum perpetuates East Timor myths Susan Connelly ......................................... 26 Politics in the pulpit Aloysious Mowe ......................................... 28 Australia’s ad hoc refugee rescue costs many lives Tony Kevin ............................................ 30 50 years since Australia’s ‘most poisonous debate’ John Warhurst .......................................... 33 The struggle to resist linguistic empires Ellena Savage .......................................... 43 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia’s Constitution Frank Brennan .......................................... 45 Crisis of trust in the Vatican Andrew Hamilton ........................................ 49 Fatherhood philosophy gets infertility treatment Tim Kroenert ........................................... 51 Blasting Tony Windsor out of New England John Warhurst .......................................... 53 East Germany’s angel of peace Donna Mulhearn ........................................ 55 The political performer Fiona Katauskas ........................................ 57 The dubious removal of Paraguay’s former bishop president Rodrigo Acuna .......................................... 57 Peter Steele’s seven types of ingenuity Philip Harvey ........................................... 61 To exhilarate their minds Peter Steele ........................................... 63 Electricity price hike won’t give us clean energy Brian Toohey ........................................... 65 Peter Steele’s path to something better Michael Kelly ........................................... 67 Stronger futures, stolen futures John Falzon ............................................ 69 Eureka Street is published fortnightly Responsibility for editorial content is online, a minimum of 24 times per year accepted by the publisher. by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd Requests for permission to reprint Unsolicited manuscripts will not be material from the website and this edition returned. should be addressed to the Editor. PO Box 553 Tel +61 3 9427 7311 Richmond Fax +61 3 9428 4450 VIC 3121 [email protected] Australia ©2012 EurekaStreet.com.au ©2012 EurekaStreet.com.au 2 Volume 22 Issue: 13 12 July 2012 Interfaith guru’s 9/11 moment VIDEO Peter Kirkwood Many of the interviews on Eureka Street TV have featured the views and insights of interfaith activists. Usually they’ve commented on the theology or politics of interreligious dialogue. This burgeoning activity is one of the few bright spots, a sign of hope in our troubled era marked by conflict between different religious groups. This week we offer quite a different angle on interfaith collaboration, a focus on the spiritual dimension. The video features an interview with Ros Bradley who is editor of a book of prayers from all the major traditions, and excerpts from the launch of the book which took place recently in Sydney. This includes a moving segment from Gail O’Brien, wife of highly regarded Sydney-based surgeon and cancer specialist Chris O’Brien who died from a brain tumour in 2009, as she explains his contribution to the collection. The book is called A World of Prayer, and it’s published by the prestigious American company, Orbis Books. As the blurb on its inside cover explains, ‘Nearly a hundred prominent men and women from every religious tradition and region of the world share a favourite prayer and offer their own reflections on its meaning.’ The very dogged Bradley spent three years persuading and cajoling just about every major religious figure around the globe to contribute to the book. It includes such spiritual luminaries as the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Nelson Mandela, Hans Kung, John Shelby Spong and Rowan Williams. Ros Bradley was born and raised in the UK, and her parents were agnostic and very secular. Though there’s a strong Jewish heritage on one side of the family, they didn’t attend any synagogue or church, and while growing up she didn’t receive any religious instruction. Despite this, as a young adult she was drawn to religion, and in her late 20s she was baptised and confirmed as an Anglican. Shortly after she spent two years working as a volunteer teacher in Papua New Guinea. This experience in an exotic culture awakened in her an abiding interest in different cultures and belief systems. She has lived in Australia for 25 years, and was received into the Catholic Church in Sydney in 2002. She has worked in public relations and marketing for several charities including the Fred Hollows Foundation, and in world development with the Methodist Church. Bradley is a founding member of a Sydney-based interfaith initiative called Companions in Dialogue which promotes fellowship and understanding among its ©2012 EurekaStreet.com.au 1 Volume 22 Issue: 13 12 July 2012 members and holds regular public forums on a range of topics. In recent years she has become a committed member of the World Community for Christian Meditation , attending one of its groups that meets weekly at a Catholic Church in Sydney’s lower north shore. She is also a member of the council of Eremos , an organisation which explores and promotes spirituality in Australia, and of her local St Vincent de Paul chapter in Sydney. A World of Prayer is her second compilation of prayers from different religions. The first was published in 2008 and is called Mosaic: Favourite Prayers and Reflections from Inspiring Australians. ©2012 EurekaStreet.com.au 2 Volume 22 Issue: 13 12 July 2012 International Criminal Court’s African bias POLITICS Binoy Kampmark On Tuesday, the International Criminal Court formally sentenced Congolese warLord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for his use of children in the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) militia. He had deployed them in lethal operations in the eastern Ituri region in 2002—03. He was given sentences pertaining to conscripting, enlisting and using child soldiers (children here being under 15 within the meaning of the statute). It is the first sentence ever handed down by the ICC. The sentencing finalises a phase begun on 14 March, when Trial Chamber I, as it is termed, issued its judgment in the ICC’s first case — The Prosecutor vs Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, finding the defendant guilty for violating Articles 8(2)(e)(vii) (conscripting children) and 25(3)(a) (enlisting children) of the court’s governing statute. The judgment was 624 pages and dealt with instances where 129 victims (34 female and 95 male) were involved. The record of the International Criminal Court is astonishingly short for a body that has existed for ten years. The logistical difficulties of its operation are many — for one, where to place those it convicts, seeing as it has no prison cells. Agreements exist with seven countries as to where convicts might be jailed — Denmark, Serbia, Mali, Australia, Finland, Britain and Belgium. The movement in international law and the domestic legislation of many countries has been towards the ‘best interests of the child’. War is in the best interests of no one, and children are seen to be a special case in that regard. ‘The vulnerability of children means they need to be afforded particular protection,’ claimed presiding judge Adrian Fulford, who issued a separate opinion from the majority in the case. Nor was the judge thrilled by the performance of former chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Acampo, who failed to bring charges of sexual violence into the proceedings. An entire and brutal dimension of soldier violence involving children was thereby avoided. The evidence adduced at the trial was also problematic. The Chamber felt there were strong reasons to believe that those working for the prosecution had exerted improper influence on the testimonies of alleged former child soldier witnesses. Such testimony, it was argued, might be unreliable. This was made more acute by the reliance placed by the Chamber on video and documentary evidence, given the paucity of reliable witness testimony. One video proved, at least in the minds of the judges, particularly damning — showing ©2012 EurekaStreet.com.au 3 Volume 22 Issue: 13 12 July 2012 Lubanga’s visit on 12 February 2003 to a training camp at Rwampara. Among the troops Lubanga was visiting were children under the age of 15. The Lubanga case, while a landmark decision — in fact, the only decision — handed down by the ICC shows the enormous difficulties in bringing such cases before international criminal courts. When the verdict was announced, the predictable reaction among many in the Congo was that the ICC was a ‘political institution’. That is the view of such individuals as Pele Kaswara, a UPC representative who makes the relevant point that, ‘You’ll never see an