Humanity..

Humanity is our common lot. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, at least here on earth, in the fate assigned to us. We come of the same void, inhabit the same flesh, are dissolved in the same ashes. But ignorance infecting the human substance turns it black, and that incurable blackness, gaining possession of the soul, becomes Evil.
Hugo, V., Les Miserables p 622.

It is a striking paragraph to read, referring to ignorance as evil. If we look at James (2:15-16), and 1 John (3:16-18) we see that true love is an active love; true love sees a need a meets it.

The above quote caused me to reflect on my life, and Australia. It seems to me that we are wealthier than we have ever been before, but we are less willing to share. Australia has much it can offer those unfortunate souls who are forced to leave their home. Fate deals some people cruel blows, and we say thanks that their fate is not mine. We have no idea what it is like to flee your home. We have no idea what it is like to fear for your life. We simply don’t know. Yet it seems to me that our society takes the blessings we have as birthrights, and these blessings are not to be shared, they are to be earned.

We live in a society that largely is ignorant of those in need. It is seen in the way we dehumanise those who seek asylum on our shores. We lock them up, men, women, and children, we lock them up indefinitely. Our papers have carried stories in the past week about how locking children up impacts them, and clearly these voices are ignored.

But its also for me about the lack of leadership. The need for a bold, courageous leader, who stands against the trend and brings the offer of better times.

+++

Twenty-Second November Nineteen-Sixty-three

I realised yesterday that its 40 years since the death of President Kennedy. I’m not American, and I wasn’t alive when he was president, but I’ve always been fascinated by his Presidency, which ended with his assassination in 1963.

Now, I think if I was alive, or if Kennedy has been President in my lifetime I may have a different opinion of him. But I’ve been spending time reading his Inaugural address from 1961, and there is a lot about it that speaks to me, and speaks to, or of, our society today.

Now the trumpet summons us again--not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need--not as a call to battle, though embattled we are-- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"--a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.

To me 21st Century Australia, needs to listen to these words. We are still battling poverty, though our government denies it exists, we are still battling for the recognition of Human Rights, though our nation, and others, claim these rights can be forfeit. We fight the same apathy, we fight the same indifference. But;

the times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high--to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some twenty years ago: if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future.

Today our concern must be with that future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.

Our need is courageous leadership, a leadership that seeks to do what is right, not expedient. The voices that say the world has changed, are the voices of the past, the voices that cry the battle is new, are speaking retreat, not progress. The future is ours to seize should we take hold of the torch that has been passed to us.