Date: 2009-04-27 17:50:36
ANZAC Day. What does that phrase conjure up for you? War veterans on walking sticks, offering to the world their complex emotions in the proud vessel of the procession? Or one of the many attempts to capture the ambivalence of it all, like the play The One Day of the Year (Alan Seymour, 1960), which was a set text in my school days?
Rev. Dr. Greg Elsdon (St Paul’s City Ministry, South Australia) recounts how on a recent visit to Gallipoli he was amazed that the site was “so small. So intimate. So ordinary.” He goes on to describe his struggle with his impressions of that place: “Six months later I am still trying to find words capable of conveying the feelings that overwhelmed me as I took in the sights and sounds and smells of this infamous Peninsula: sadness, anger, resentment, grief – but predominantly deep sadness of a kind I had never before experienced. The utter waste of war. The utter waste and futility.”
As you read this, there will be thousands of Sri Lankans still desperate to escape from the hell of their entrapment in the small piece of country targeted by the Sri Lankan government as the last Tamil stronghold. Two articles are devoted to that conflict today, and please give generously to the crisis appeal of act for peace.
You might also like to take note of what an Australian company is said to be doing in Malawi, far from public attention in our own country. In addition, South Africa draws attention to itself in two very different articles. Meanwhile a Uniting Church media release emphasizes the need for compassion in the current debate on asylum-seekers.
We bring you a lovely account of activities of the Border Council of Churches (on the border to New South Wales) and a new newsletter from Tanya Richards, Project Officer with act for peace in QCT.
Let us pray fervently this week for all those suffering in wars – the ones in the limelight and those that are still simmering softly in the background.
Glenine Hamlyn
Through its long-term partners in Sri Lanka, act for peace is assisting the many people displaced by the current conflict. You can help!
Shanta Fernando is the representative of justice and peace programmes at the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka - and for four weeks now a prisoner of the Sri Lankan Police, with no reason given.
An Australian company operating a uranium mine in Malawi may have reneged on its pledge to protect the environment, Malawi's Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace says.
White farmers in South Africa are the main devotees of an evangelist who preaches male headship in the household.
“We are mindful that the right to vote has a painful history : we had to fight to attain this right.” In South Africa churches and civil society are pleased with the smooth running of the election.
Sharing meals, worshipping together, caring jointly for the disadvantaged – these are the hallmarks of ecumenism for the Border Council of Churches.
“Asylum seekers … come because they are desperate for a safe place,” says Rev. Elenie Poulos, Director of UnitingJustice Australia.
Remember Oikotree? Sign up to a petition run by Oikotree ahead of the global climate conference in December.
Check out the act for peace info page on our website and click to sign up for their newsletter at the conclusion of the article.
