Jim Wallis on Iraq

From the beginning Jim Wallis has consistently opposed the Bush administration’s Iraq policy from an evangelical Christian perspective, swimming against the right wing fundamentalist tide. In Three Ways to ‘Stop the Course’ in Iraq he has much to say that is worth reading.

…There are no more enthusiastic and self-confident pep talks from the White House now. There is only a totally failed strategy, an insurgency fueled by an occupation, and a civil war that has put young Americans in the crossfire of religious and political hatred. And there is only death, for Americans and for Iraqis. American deaths now number nearly 3,000, and the killing of Iraqis seems to get worse by the week. We must also deal with how American morality has been destroyed by this war; its collateral damage now includes our international standing and respect. And let’s be clear: according to The New York Times, a National Intelligence Estimate warned that the war in Iraq has increased, not lessened, the threat from terrorism. My children and yours are far less safe, not more, because of Iraq.

Watched Blade Runner (Director’s Cut) last night

I mentioned in May the HSC unit In the Wild which pairs Blade Runner with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. One problem I had coaching students doing this unit was my not having a copy of the movie, but yesterday (after a vain series of searches for the past two years) I managed to get one from Hum in Oxford Street for only $14.95. I had seen the original and inferior commercial release many years ago at the Valhalla Cinema in Glebe and frankly had no idea what was gong on, aside from being overwhelmed by the spectacle. Last night’s viewing made much more sense.

Earlier in the week I had seen the DVD (Surry Hills Library this time) of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and was surprised at just how close it is to being a silent movie, aside from the music track. Today the famous “Star Gate sequence” near the end looks uncomfortably like a display on Windows Media Player; it was so revolutionary at the time. Still, given 2001 is pushing forty years old now, it is an amazing piece of work.

Lunch with Malcolm (updated), and the unique Christianity of norrie mAy-welby

AIDS connects these items: Lord Malcolm is in the final stages of it*, and norrie has worked with agencies involved in AIDS work, as well as for the The Gender Centre.

I admit I was a bit shocked when I collected Malcolm from the hospice at lunch time today. He has given up smoking because, he tells me, had he continued to do so he would have been dead in a few days. His treatment at the moment is entirely palliative, and some of the more frightening manifestations of HIV in the central nervous system have been occurring. Nonetheless, we walked down Oxford Street and had a really nice lunch at a new Asian place (The Snake Bean) and a few beers at The Shift where The Empress, just back from Hong Kong, joined us. Malcolm paid me in advance for his Keating the Musical ticket — just in case, I suspect.

Encounter on Intelligent Design

Last Sunday’s Encounter now has a transcript available: Intelligent Design. Or you can listen. “This Encounter surveys not so much the origins or the politics of Intelligent Design as responses to it - and you’ll hear a fascinating range from across Australian Christianity and Islam.” Participants represent a range of religious views from ones I would embrace to others, Christian and Muslim, which get totally lost in fundamentalist circularity. Most of Genesis, as far as I am concerned, is myth and legend, of interest as poetry and story and as expression of faith, but of no great use in settling questions either on the origins of the universe or even on the ancient history of the area between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean. Creation is a mystery seekers for God have speculated on, but God, who doesn’t write books, hasn’t deigned to tell us much about it. Probably we wouldn’t understand if he/she did.

MyScribbles in Bamian

The picture on the right is Ahmad Shuja standing where the great Buddha statue once could be seen in Afghanistan. His latest post, Greetings from Bamian, tells us what he is doing there. My first thought was that this can’t be the safest of journeys for an Afghan teenager, but he assures us “Bamian is the safest of all provinces in Afghanistan. And if all goes well, I will hopefully be back home [in Pakistan] in after a week.” Let’s hope he will be.

I note Ahmad is a Hazara. In a Diary-X entry for 30 August 2004 (saved to disk!) I wrote:

# Been reading a really good book: The Kite Runner by Afghan-American Khaled Hosseini is beautifully written and should have been compulsory reading during the “children overboard”/Tampa affair - except it couldn’t have been, having been published in 2003. But a wonderful corrective to demonisation it remains, as well as an indictment of both the Taliban and the preceding communists. One is also left in no doubt about the difficulties of the Hazara people of Afghanistan, though I suppose it is kind of comforting to know racism is not just a European phenomenon…

I wonder if Ahmad has read it. He probably has. If so, I wonder what he thinks of it.

Update 30 November

Some very interesting material has appeared on the comments on Ahmad’s entry.

David Humphries work in progress

Some may remember that back in September I had dinner in the studio of artist David Humphries whom I had not seen for over thirty years. We had been teaching colleagues in Wollongong at one time. Soon after that dinner I had suggested to Dorothy McRae-McMahon at church that she should interview him for the church/local paper The South Sydney Herald. She has done so and the interview should come out next week.

I had an email from David today. He has been working on a commission in Tamworth.

To fisk or not to fisk?

To “pilger” has somewhat different connotations, if a similar genesis. Both words derive from the names of prominent journalists.The verb “to fisk” is defined as “To deconstruct an article on a point by point basis in a highly critical manner. Derived from the name of journalist Robert Fisk, a frequent target of such critical articles in the blogosphere.” I actually have considerable respect for Robert Fisk; even if he is not always absolutely correct with his facts or interpretations, he is usually nearer the mark and far more interesting than his critics. I first encountered the term “fisking” on Bruce’s and Arthur’s sites, where you may sometimes see the technique deployed and whose links take you to more information about the practice. It is Arthur’s response to being travestied (definitely not “fisked” in any sense) on another blog that has led me to think about this topic. I love the pic there.

I am old-fashioned enough to hesitate about adopting the term myself when “critique” and “deconstruction” — the latter in its popular rather than Derridean sense — already exist, but I have no objection to the practice so long as it is used for substantial critique and not just to break butterflies on wheels or to score personal points. A danger (drawing here on a reader-response perspective) is that fisking can very easily turn personal, or be seen as personal, and the fisker is always in danger of being seen as (or even being) a superior and somewhat supercilious pedant. It is all a matter of focus and tone, I suppose. Certainly I have seen many worthwhile examples of the practice, and Arthur’s original “fisking” of a rather muddled effusion on gay issues, which led to accusations of “jealousy”, was not a bad example of the art. I said as much at the time. The long-delayed response on Seeking Utopia was itself infantile**; ironic, as that seems to have been the charge against Arthur.

Compass on ABC tonight: Gay Muslims

This very interesting Channel Four program was shown on Compass tonight. Go there for details and some interesting links. Much was familiar because all the Abrahamic faiths share much on this issue. In all the Abrahamic faiths there is a range of views and practices, and Islam is no exception.

Muslim ex-gay conservative arguments (very familiar in other circles too) are presented here and here. You can at least glean from these much about the documentary if you missed it. On the other side of the issue, there is a Muslim gay support site Al-Fatiha and also Queer Jihad, a collocation that may surprise some: “Queer Jihad strongly condemns all forms of terrorism, including prejudice and discrimination.”

Have I met gay Muslims? A few, in person, and some online.

One some of you will have heard of, but I have never met, is David Graham’s partner Sherif Kanawati:

Back at church today

I missed a few Sundays lately for one reason or another. Today I went along again.

Today’s “reflection” (”sermon”) by Vlad Korotkov at South Sydney Uniting Church introduced me to a thinker I had never heard of before, not all that surprising as the number of thinkers in that category is probably legion: Slavoj Zizek. Being Russian and pomo, Vlad frequently expands our horizons, while managing to deliver a message the humblest can find something in as well.

Aussie art movie Erskineville Kings (1999)

I caught up with Erskineville Kings last night on DVD, thanks to Surry Hills Library. Great music soundtrack, and relentless background noise so well rendered by my new TV that for a while I thought my neighbours were up to something! Hugh Jackman really is good as Wace, one of two brothers caught up in the detritus of their sometimes violent father’s death by euthanasia (see a key bit of dialogue here) and their mother’s earlier desertion.

SAS man shoots down presidents and prime ministers…

Not literally, of course; but with the Iraq War now having gone past World War II (US version, that is) in length, and with yesterday in Iraq being even more tragic than the previous day, it was quite amazing to see on the front page of Rupert Murdoch’s Australian Wrong war, wrong time and Iraq a moral blunder, says war hero.

THE former SAS officer who devised and executed the Iraq war plan for Australia’s special forces says that the nation’s involvement has been a strategic and moral blunder. Peter Tinley, who was decorated for his military service in Afghanistan and Iraq, has broken ranks to condemn the Howard Government over its handling of the war and has called for an immediate withdrawal of Australian troops.

“It was a cynical use of the Australian Defence Force by the Government,” the ex-SAS operations officer told The Weekend Australian yesterday. “This war duped the Australian Defence Force and the Australian people in terms of thinking it was in some way legitimate.”

Blogs, blogging, Aussie stories

Now and again a comment comes along which really enriches a post, and that has been the case just now with my nephew Warren’s guest entry A Guringai Family’s Story. The commenter is an expatriate Australian living in Canada; his family stories appear on his site. I have given you a taste in my reply to his comment. Thanks, Cedric.

Of course there are some wonderful blogs out there, and I include in that some very unpretentious ones which are merely personal reflections, but written with a grace and honesty that make one want to know the writer. Comments too can, like Cedric’s, enrich a blog. On the other hand, they can descend even lower than talk-back radio; I am sure you know what I mean. Another thing, among many, that strikes me is that the level of discussion of things like moral or ethical issues can likewise be most uninformative — too often an often endless parade of fetishes and fixed opinions. Truly, one would be far better off reading even an introductory text such as Judith A Boss, Analyzing Moral Issues, than tracking through the half-baked nonsense that one too often finds. Indeed I wish many bloggers would read such a book; you can pick up the previous (2nd) edition cheap these days at remainder shops.

October in Iraq

On Wednesday, a UN report said Iraq’s sectarian conflict killed at least 3,709 people in October, the highest monthly death toll since the 2003 US-led invasion.

The figures, from data provided by the health ministry and morgues, compared with a previous high of 3,590 in July, which the United Nations at the time called “unprecedented.”

The report came as US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki prepared to meet in Jordan next Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the US military said three more soldiers were killed in Iraq, bringing its losses since the invasion to 2,866, according to Pentagon figures.

So ends the latest story on the subject in The Sydney Morning Herald. “Shock, Awe and Rumsfeld” are distant memories.

A savage but very funny take on the determinedly upbeat spin of our right-wing commentariat and our government may be found on Nick Possum’s page. See All hat, no cattle. Prepare yourself for some black humour.

See also: Ali Eteraz on this story.

Cultural diversity? You’re standing in it!

At 30 June 2004, 23.6 per cent of the estimated resident population of Australia were born overseas. Of those born Since 1945, more around 6.5 million people have come to Australia as new settlers. They have had a marked influence on all aspects of our society. In the 51 years of planned post-war migration, Australia has seen:

around 6.5 million migrants arrive comprising about 3.35 million males and 3.15 million females

more than 660 000 people arrive under humanitarian programmes, initially as displaced persons and more recently as refugees, and

a population rise from about 7 million to over 20 million.

The trigger for a large-scale migration programme was the end of World War II. Agreements were reached with Britain, some European countries and with the International Refugee Organisation to encourage migration, including displaced people from war-torn Europe .

About one million migrants arrived in each of the five decades following 1950:

• 1.6 million between October 1945 and 30 June 1960
• about 1.3 million in the 1960s
• about 960 000 in the 1970s
• about 1.1 million in the 1980s, and
• over 900 000 in the 1990s.

The highest number of settlers to arrive in any one year since World War II was 185 099 in 1969-70. The lowest number in any one year was 52 752 in 1975-76…

Today, nearly one in four of Australia ’s 20 million people was born overseas. 31.3 per cent were born in North-West Europe, 17.7 per cent in Southern and Eastern Europe and 12.6 per cent in South-East Asia. The top five countries of birth made up 45.5 per cent of the overseas-born population.

Loana rules!

Here I announced that I was beginning Umberto Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Yesterday I finished it, and hereby elevate it to my Best Reads of 2006 list. Go to the earlier entry for more.

The final pastiche of the Book of Revelation is simply amazing.