PEACE

The University of New England offers an online course called Peace Studies. Title of units include

PEAC100 Introduction to Peace Studies
PEAC102 Environmental Peace
PEAC303 Active Resistance: Contemporary Nonviolence
PEAC304 Environmental Security
PEAC328 Peacemaking

Today, on ABC , I watched the documentary 'How sweet the sound' about the life of folk singer Joan Beaz, She was a great advocate for peace. She used her music and her fame to promote Nonviolence.

She was jailed because she encouraged young American's, drafted into the Army for the Vietnam war, to reject their governments call to arms. She has since lent her music to numerous human rights causes.

The current protests in Egypt are violent. We live in a very violent world. As another great musican said can't we 'Just give peace a chance?' The link below is Lennon singing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSCLtT42sGU

Insiders and Outsiders

Aboriginal Flag 1971 - http://www.flagaustnat.asn.au/aboriginalflag.php

Australia Day is coming around again. To most people it is an enjoyable public holiday with the opportunity to enjoy the sun and a few drinks. Some of us think otherwise.

Michael Brull on the ABC program The Drum stated why he won’t be celebrating Australia Day. He covers the issue from many angles. My major concern is that January 26^th 1788 began the colonisation of Australia. Two hundred and thirteen years later the Indigenous people of this country are the most disadvantaged group in modern Australia. Should they celebrate?

I will not be displaying the Australian Flag with a British flag in the corner. I am putting up the Aboriginal Flag to acknowledge the injustice.

Not everyone agrees that the arrival of the modern settlers in Australia is cause for unreserved celebration. The country's original inhabitants, the Aborigines, suffered great hardships as a result of the new arrivals.

The Aboriginal flag was recognised under Federal legislation, as was the Torres Strait Islanders' flag, in July 1995. The Aboriginal flag was first displayed on 12th July 1971, National Aborigines' Day, at Victoria Square in Adelaide. It was also used at the 'Tent Embassy' in Canberra in 1972.

Designed by Indigenous Elder Harold Thomas in 1971, this flag symbolises Aboriginal identity. Yellow represents the sun (giver of life) and yellow ochre. Red represents the red earth (the relationship to the land) and the red ochre used in ceremonies. Black represents the Aboriginal people.

Shame and Change

Making sense of the world becomes harder for me the older I become. Many of the assumptions I had made about the world have been proved wrong. After embracing feminism in my thirties I was often heard to say 'all men are bastards' , In my fifties I have been fortunate enough to meet many many good men. Watching television last night my male companion condemned the program's narrator for using the term Man power instead of Labour power, it had not registered with my sensibilities.

My assumptions about the ALP (Australian Labor Party) also took a battering in the same program, SBS television's Immigration Nation : The secret history of us.
http://www.sbs.com.au/immigrationnation/

The Labor politician Arthur Calwell's racist behaviour and use of propaganda was shameful.
(Arthur Augustus Calwell (28 August 1896 – 8 July 1973) Australian politician, was a member of the Australian House of Representatives for 32 years from 1940 to 1972, Immigration Minister in the government of Ben Chifley from 1945 to 1949 and Leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1960 to 1967)

It is important to find out the truth even if it leads to disillusionment. I have found ageing brings disappointment . However mistakes must be acknowledged with the hope that change is possible. 2011 is very different to my childhood in the 1960's , women and migrants do get a better deal, however there are still many inequalities to be remedied.

Extremes

The University of Melbourne have a useful function on their website; find an expert http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/researcher/person67077.html

I found Professor David Karoly, he is internationally recognised as an expert on Climate Change. In the spirit of examining the other side of the argument, not a conspiracy theory, I am providing this quote from Nobel prize-winning climate scientist David Karoly via the ABC.

We have very variable climate in Australia. What we are seeing… is a change in the pattern of these extremes. There are more hot and more wet extremes in northern Australia and more hot and more dry extremes in southern Australia. That pattern is exactly what we would expect from climate change driven by more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

NASA’s annual climate report called 2010 as the hottest year on record. Only one year in the whole of the 20th century, 1998, was hotter than any year in the 21st. Global warming is heating up the ocean. The Bureau of Meteorology’s (BOM’s) annual Australian Climate Statement released on January 5 showed that 2010 sea temperatures in the Asia-Pacific region were the highest on record. More evaporation from warming oceans means higher levels of precipitation in the atmosphere. Such dramatic shifts in climate fundamentals mean that all “natural” weather events are now in some way influenced by human induced climate change.

Yes Australia has always been a land of droughts and flooding rains, however there is an explanation why these events are getting more extreme. Do academic qualifications mean nothing, why don’t we consider the views of our leading scientists?

WHERE WE GET OUR VALUES FROM

I was thinking about the people who has been in my life for as long as I can remember, a continuous influence . The first memory of my cousin Marlene was when we ran away from home together. I was about four and she was almost seven. We left a note and a dish with flowers for our mothers to find. We walked to the vacant block of land and played in the tadpole pond. Arriving home before we were missed did not diminish the pride in our short lived bravery.

Our bravery was tested again on December 19^th 1965, when Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker escaped from Pentridge Prison , a prison guard was killed. My family were staying with my cousins family . Marlene and I shared a bedroom, I have a strong memory of laying in bed convinced the escaped criminals could come through the window at any moment. Capture was quick and Ronald Ryan became well known for being the last man to be hanged in Victoria. http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/ergo/ronald_ryan

I now feel sympathy for Ryan and great disdain for the Victorian Premier Henry Bolte who was determined to hang a man many people believe was innocent of murder. If this episode in my childhood had only been informed by the fear generated watching the six o’clock ‘horror movie’ news, I may have taken a different view . The response of my parents to the situation informed my adult view. They were horrified about the hanging of Ronald Ryan. Looking back I now wonder was it a purely moral stance or was it because Henry Bolte was a Liberal Party leader and our household were stalwart Labor voters.

I also wonder if having an older adventurous cousin gave me the confidence to go into the world with just a little more aplomb than may have been the case .