David Rovics: Singing in solidarity with Palestine

Former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was among a group of activists who made international news when they were seized from their boat, the Spirit of Humanity, and imprisoned by the Israeli military on June 30.

Their crime was attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies and books to Gaza . The Palestinian territory has been reduced to destitution with most people unable to work and dependent on the meagre trickle of aid the Israeli government allows in.

Global opposition to Israel ’s actions is growing, much to the concern of Howard Kohr, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

“Incredibly, there now is even an Israel Apartheid Week conducted in cities across the globe”, Kohr told an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference on May 3, a June 29 Znet article said.

The Palestinian-initiated boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel is gathering pace. One of the most recent successes for the BDS campaign has been the non-renewal Connex’s contract to operate Melbourne trains.

Connex is an offshoot of French multinational Veolia, which is helping build light rail for illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

Such advances have the likes of Kohr very spooked.

Kohr told the AIPAC conference: “This is a conscious campaign to shift policy, to transform the way Israel is treated by its friends to a state that deserves not our support, but our contempt; not our protection, but pressured to change its essential nature.”

As part of the international campaign that is terrifying Israel’s rulers and supporters, Green Left Weekly is touring US musician David Rovics, along with Brisbane-based, Phil Monsour, across Australia through July and August for the Palestine Solidarity Tour.

The tour will raise funds for medical, educational and sporting equipment to be delivered to Palestinian refugee camps through the Australian Friends of Palestine humanitarian projects.

GLW’s Ruth Ratcliffe spoke with Rovics about music, social change and the US ’s role in the Middle East .

You’ve travelled to the Middle East and have friends and contacts throughout the region. How does this personal contact affect you when you hear of attacks such as Israel ’s December-January war on Gaza ?

It certainly makes it all much more personal and urgent when you know people there. No matter how much empathy one has for humanity in general, it's always different when the people under fire are people who you can picture in your head, communicate with regularly and can conjure up mental images and memories, smells and tastes.

As an artist, it's the personal, up-close stories that you tell. These are the stories you can put into a song that can most powerfully make sense of the bigger picture.

There has been little change in policy from the new administration of US President Barack Obama and the numbers of US troops in Afghanistan has almost doubled since Obama’s inauguration in January. How do you think US progressives can best struggle for a genuinely anti-imperialist foreign policy?

First, US progressives have to come to terms with the fact that the Democratic Party is still run by multinational corporations, get over their honeymoon with Obama and get to work.

Not that they aren’t working hard at one good thing or another, but even if those that believe Obama really wants to do radical stuff are right, Obama will need a heck of a lot more of a militant mass movement to back him up if he's got any hope of taking on the military industrial complex, the insurance industry, the oil companies, and all the other obstacles to sanity.

People need to be in the streets and in large numbers. We need a mass movement with all the trappings, and we don’t have it right now in the US.

What role do you think music could have in such a mass movement?

People are inherently musical creatures, and therefore mass movements are inherently musical.

Little sects of activists, though well-meaning, in the absence of a mass movement have a tendency — though by no means a universal one — to become bookish and disdainful of art and music. Certainly there are many wonderful exceptions to this, but elsewhere on the left the same old boring stuff persists.

Phil Monsour, who I’ll be touring with in Australia for most of my gigs, is a fine songwriter who writes about the state of the world, with an emphasis on the struggle in Palestine.

One guy who’s written loads of powerful songs about life in Australia is Mick Thomas [from Weddings Parties Anything].

What inspires you to keep fighting?

Aside from the government of Colombia and the recent coup in Honduras, what’s been happening over the past decade, especially throughout Latin America, has been incredibly inspiring.

All over Latin America people are managing to elect truly left-wing governments that are instituting serious reforms and changing the lives of millions of people in dramatic ways.

The unity and purpose of the left in places like Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Cuba, etc, is a great source of inspiration for me, especially as the empire drags more countries into its wars of conquest and European governments generally move more to the xenophobic right. Latin America is definitely where it's at.

Spending the majority of my time in the global North, this is all a bit theoretical and really my inspiration comes more directly and personally from being part of comparatively small but genuine efforts to shake things up here. These are some fine folks to be associating with on a regular basis.

They are generally a great source of inspiration for me, even if they haven’t managed to overthrow the government — yet!

How do you see your role – singing from the belly of the beast?

I see myself as having various roles. Music has great value just as music. Playing and hearing music is just a good thing.

It also has great value as a means of telling a story, keeping a memory alive, inspiring people through these stories to keep doing what they’re doing and to feel part of something bigger. It can do all those things, daily, and more.

From: Cultural Dissent, Green Left Weekly issue #803 ..  19 July 2009.

Phil Monsour: More than songs for the dispossessed

 Phil Monsour is a singer/songwriter based in Brisbane. His songs reflect a passionate commitment to the struggles of ordinary people. But Monsour does more than just sing about the world. As part of a broader political engagement, he deploys his music as an organising tool.

His recent recordings and performances have been built around the theme of the Middle East, particularly Palestine.

“Over the last five years”, he told Green Left Weekly, “we’ve done a series of concerts and fundraisers that have put that issue front and centre in terms of song selection, the images that accompany the show and the people who organise the nights.”

He says that these concerts “try to focus a bit more on the overall story and on the continuing disposition and the imperialist interventions in the Middle East.

“I cannot think of a historical example where so many millions of people have been hung out and abandoned by the world community so aggressively. Even to this day we are talking about 1.5 million people in Gaza who have nothing. They have a small piece of real estate that has been pummelled and destroyed. They have no facilities, no services, very little food. Children are starting to die from malnutrition.

“When you link that to events like the Iraq war and to other military interventions in the Middle East, you can also link that to events in Australia like the riots that occurred in 2005 in Cronulla and that wave of racism that grew up around people of Middle Eastern descent in Australia.

You can link that to Australia’s refugee policy which in effect is largely played out against people from the Middle East who were up until recently many of the people in detention who were running from various conflicts.”

Monsour said that a number of songs on his latest CD, The Empire’s New Clothes, grew out of his response to the 34-day bombing and destruction of Lebanon in 2006.

This relates to his story “as someone who grew up as an Arab Australian of Lebanese background and knows what it was like to be in a household where there’s a war on — in what my parents called the old country — where their brothers and sisters still lived.

“The experience of having this strong connection to one of these ‘conflict zones’ and having to function normally in mainstream society as well and trying to give people around you an understanding of how we see those events is quite different from how they are told what is happening.

“A lot of those songs are saying: those stories you see on the nightly news are very human stories about people we love and care about.”

Monsour says that the events he has organised have “raised some significant funds for Union Aid Abroad. We’ve branched out and done similar shows in Sydney and Melbourne. What’s been interesting about these events is that they give an avenue to people who aren’t going to turn up to rallies to hear people speak who they haven’t heard before.

“But it is also a music event. Over the last few years in Brisbane, the group of people I started organising with have built strong connections with people in the Palestinian and the Arab communities in Brisbane.

“That’s why those events are significant and provide a model for how people can work with communities and with issues like this in other places as well. That’s why I’m keen to export it to other places.

“The way we’ve packaged and organised these events has led to a diverse mix of people in the room talking and eating together, engaging in the process.”

Monsour says an important component of these events is a Middle Eastern meal and involving people in organising that meal. “That’s the mix essentially: food and culture, politics and the music.”

Monsour says that when he performed the song “We Will Go Home” at the last concert he did, he realised that there were people in the room who had been dispossessed of their homes in Palestine so he invited them up on stage to sing the refrain.

He says it was a moving moment for everyone when those who had been exiled — and some had been exiled in 1948 — deepened the experience for others with their presence.

“This is about linking music to the organising”, he said, “and the participation in the political struggle. That’s something that has always impressed me. I don’t know if I’ve done it successfully but I have done it and at different times forged a significant link between music that is about something, events that are about something and engaging as a participant in the struggle.”

[Phil Monsour’s latest CD, The Empire’s New Clothes can be bought from www.philmonsour.com .. . He will be performing on the National Palestine Solidarity Tour with David Rovics. Shows are planned for Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, Newcastle, Wollongong and Lismore.]

From: Cultural Dissent, Green Left Weekly issue #804 ..  29 July 2009.

We entered the Military Training Base early on Monday morning. It was a beautiful morning, and as we crossed the first creek we sung the old Negro Spiritual “Wade in the Water”. It is a song that refers to the ancient Jewish story of God parting the waters of the Red Sea to let the Israelites to escape slavery, and was sung by African American people in their quest to escape slavery.

I was thinking about my aim to escape the militarism that I believe that our Western societies are caught in. The slavery to the military industrial complex in the belief it will provide human security. This slavery leads Australia to spend almost ten times the amount on military than we do on overseas aid. And I believe its fuelling terror around the world as people turn to violent solutions to the world conflicts.

We started our walk into Shoalwater Bay with prayers, and inflating giant red balloons. The idea of the balloons was to ensure the military couldn’t deny that we were in the base.

We walked for a number of hours before we released the balloons. In that time a number of our balloons had burst (and one ran out of our hands). As we released the balloons, the balloons seemed to symbolize the blood that is being shed in the war in Afghanistan – and we offered a prayer that we would honor all lives that had been lost in war.

After we released the balloons we continued to walk through the military base. Quite quickly I was immersed in the beauty of the Australian bush – and the amazing bio-diversity of Shoalwater Bay . Often we’d come to a creek – with one side being a lush rainforest, and the other side the dry Australian eucalypt forest that I’m used to down in Victoria. The undergrowth was thick with grass-trees, cycads, and at times amazing areas of Banksias. We were entertained by Bush Turkeys in the trees, intrigued (but a bit scared) of the colorful insects and spiders and breathed in the life around us. Our first serious stop was on the edge of a creek (mostly dry) where we shared our morning prayers from Simon’s mob’s prayer book. At that time we mused at how vast this military base is (the size of Belgium ), and for the military to locate us there would be like trying to find needles in a haystack. From this point our mood could lighten – we’d gotten into the base, had released our signal of balloons, and we could continue to walk.

About an hour after this, my gut suggested we were near a road. There had been no sign of traffic or people, so it seemed a little strange. But sure enough, about 20 minutes later we came across a road. We saw a truck and some personnel, and went back into the bush to take a GPS reading of where exactly we were and to take stock of our strategy. As we were sitting there we had two helicopters circle overhead, low enough to be able to see the US flags flying. Having worked out where we were (quite close to the Helipad as it turned out!!), we decided on our course for the day.


A major issue became the water supply. Many of the creeks were dry or had limited stagnant water – and we knew we needed to camp by a river that side.. So we had to take a bit of a side route along the creek.

By about 3pm we were exhausted (having had only 3 hours sleep the night before), and I turned into driven Jess, leading us about 2 kms further to a flat place by a little billabong to set up camp for the night. We took some time out to pray or rest (the boys read some theology!), as well as boiled some water and began to cook dinner.


By 7.30pm we had eaten, boiled heaps of water, strategised for the day ahead and were tucked in our tents. We shared the Breviary prayers across the two tents, then were soon asleep.

After a massive sleep we awoke to the sound of bombs dropping in the distance. I set to folding paper cranes, both as a symbol of my ongoing need to practice non-violence but also as a potential source of evidence for our presence in the base. We had been informed that the military were not convinced we were in there, we had to think about further ways to prove we were there. In hindsight, this was probably a fantastic strategy by them to ensure that we took some more risks so they could find us. Of course its possible that the choppers from the day before had located us and chose to leave us where we were.

So we packed up camp and began to walk further in to the base. The terrain was much more gentle and we were able to cover several kilometers early in the morning. We urged ourselves forward by singing songs of liberation and faith. As we stopped for a morning break we sat on some massive logs and shared some food…and theology…(of course). The metaphysics of death and resurrection were the theme here!!!

Quite quickly after resuming we came across a main road. It was here we began to think about implementing our strategy, of balancing proof of our presence in the base, and trying to stay undetected. We sat and watched the Range Control vehicle go back and forth a few times, about every 15mins, as we prepared to cross the road. The cars were moving fast and audible long before they were visible. We decided to try and take a photo of a car going past as part of our evidence, and moved next to the road to do this. I stood up on the road to check whether the camera was visible from a car, and at the same moment a car moved around the corner. I quickly commando rolled into the bushes – but it was too late. As the car approached it slowed down and stopped.

There were three men in the car, and the first to approach was armed with a gun bigger than my leg. Jarrod jumped into engaging mode and had quickly found out that the guys were from the USA , all with strong Christian convictions. “Great infiltration” he said, in his broad US accent. They didn’t even know there were protesters on the base, and had been continuing their training. Their role in the exercises was as the insurgents. They saw this as a natural part of the Christian journey – the Christians are the ones trying to challenge that which is wrong – “we are the freedom fighters” he said – not words I expected from a US soldier.

The US soldiers radio’ed through that we were there. “They are really peaceful” he told the person on the other end of the phone.

We moved in to the ritual that we’d planned, which was to remember the names of people who had died in Afghanistan –both civilians and soldiers. We would read a name and age of a person, then reply with “Lord have Mercy”. Meditating on the needless deaths, mostly of people younger than us, amidst a military training area with guns in view was deeply powerful. As we continued to pray and remember, we were completely unprepared for what came next. Gently one of the US soldiers offered us a name of his friend. Our refrain “Lord have Mercy” was said through sobs as we shared in grief together. Suddenly there wasn’t a them and us with war resisters and war participators, but human beings who grieved together, and sought solutions forward to our world.


I prayed for the soldiers around us, and for those who seek to resist war. The US soldier shared his respect for what we were doing, and encouraged us.. He asked to pray for us, and he asked God that our light would continue to shine. The tables had been turned.

It was some time before the Australian military police arrived, so there was plenty of time to debate the place of violence in our world, and the voice of Jesus in this. Jarrod gratefully received drinking water from the US soldiers. Then as I rolled myself a cigarette, a soldier asked to share it with me – so we smoked the same cigarette… We erected a shrine where we were, with Margaret tying red cloth with messages on it to a tree alongside my peace cranes and messages of peace.

When the redhead Aussie Military Policeman arrived he invited us to go with him in his vehicle to the edge of the base. We declined and instead chose to blockade the road that we were on. The MP suggested that perhaps we needed an army to bring peace – I replied with the old John Lennon quote “bombing for peace is like screwing for virginity”. I sang a Kyrie Eleison, a tune we use at St Martins and one that had been in my heart and mouth for the last few days.

We again read the names of those killed as we sat on the road. Jarrod offered Bibles and fliers of resistance from StandFast (veterans group) to each person who arrived on the scene, including military traffic that was stopped by our blockade. Finally the Queensland Police arrived. Two of us chose to continue to pray as they asked us to move, two of us walked to the police car.


With four of us squished into the back of a paddy wagon we were transferred out one of the gates of the base. The sun was setting by now. They conducted a ‘field arrest’ which meant detailing our property, taking our jewelry, taking our official details and so forth. We were transferred to a large prison van. In the 90minute journey to Rockhampton we sang. Jarrod introduced us to some African American spirituals, and we sang some of our old favorites. By now my Kyrie was driving Simon a little nuts!

We finally made it to the Rockhampton Police Station at 7pm at night. We were processed yet again (with them taking each individual item out of our pack to register), and were placed in individual cells by about 10pm. As I watched people come and go out of jail, I noticed that we were the only white faces beyond bars. And as I listened to what was going on around me I realised that the men were in jail for violence, and the women for self-violence – self-harm and drug addiction. It is one thing to know the statistics about indigenous people in our jails, but quite another to see the faces. I sung “from little things big things grow” and “Yil Ul” from my own cell as a small gesture of solidarity. I reflected about the difference in my choice to come to prison and others who had been dragged there against their will.

During the night I was woken up twice to be offered bail, but we had decided we’d face court the next day together.

In the morning we were visited by a lawyer. As I entered the visiting booth with the glass screen, I noted that I’d been on the ‘professionals’ side many times, but this was the first time I’d been on this side.

We were taken up to the cells behind the court room and brought in one by one. We had to stand in the docks this time as we represented ourselves. Again I had a tiny insight into the feeling of powerlessness it is to stand in the accused box. I was called in to the Court first. There were supporters sitting there, including a local elder Aunty Jeanette. I asked the Magistrate for us to be heard as a group but he said no. As the charges were read out the Magistrate looked down at his papers and began stamping. I shared my journey to this point and why I had done what I’d done, but he chose not to make eye-contact. He fined me $1,200 (almost the maximum), and sent me back to the cells, with the next one called forward.

When each of us had been heard, we were accompanied back to the cells, sharing some last time with others who were behind bars with us, and were led out one by one out of the cells. It wasn’t until we were being returned property that the watch house staff informed us that police had taken some of our property earlier that day.

We had to then go to the Police Station where they informed us they were seeking forfeiture orders on our phones and cameras, as well as our navigation equipment.


Until this moment I felt strong. I had done what I’d set out to do. I had held my spirits through a night in a cold and dirty cell. I had spoken to the Magistrate my truth.

But as I left I began to feel heavy. The police had struck back with their punitive taking of my stuff. The military had continued their training. I had come close to the pain of war, and of the police cells, and my heart was sore. For two days I felt weak and sad – unsure of where we were. I cried a lot. It reminded me of the Easter Saturday experience – where Jesus had been killed, and the disciples didn’t know where they were going or what the crucifixion was all about.


With love of friends, swims in the ocean and some reflection my spirit returned. I returned to the barracks to protest, and felt again able to plead my case that militarism had us going down the wrong path. We returned to the roadblock where I’d been arrested 2 days before to pray and release balloons. As we released the balloons this time, it was like my pledge to continue to hope. I knew that I am one small person, challenging the might of the military, but I also know that each of us can make a difference.

Our group chose Bonhoeffer as our namesake for many reasons. He was a theologian in Germany in the 1930’s, whose convictions led him to actively resist the rise of Hitler’s fascism and subsequent wartime atrocities. Bonhoeffer was executed for his part in this resistance. Bonhoeffer’s theological writings asks Christians to take their faith seriously. He also challenges the Church to get in the way of the State when it acts unjustly – to “jam a spoke in the wheel”. He has been named as the person in the 20thCentury that our Prime Minister Rudd admires most, and we hope that our action being named after Bonhoeffer might help Rudd to reconsider our participation in Afghanistan and his increasing financial support for the military as part of this.

The part of Bonhoeffer’s story that resonates with me most profoundly just now, is his humanity. He admits mistakes that he made. He struggled on his journey to resist the state, and what to do about Hitler. And he was part of an assassination attempt on Hitler (something he knew would have deep spiritual consequences for him), which ultimately failed. One of Simon’s mantras for us was that we are called to be faithful to what we know is right – knowing that we don’t have control over the outcomes of our actions. I’m pretty aware that our decision to enter the base was a small part of a much bigger journey to be faithful to our efforts to resist violence and oppression. And I’m pretty aware of our my humanity in this – I made mistakes along the way, I can be hard to get along with sometimes, I can be impetuous or bossy…but this stuff isn’t make or break. The key thing is to remain on the journey of continuing to work for what is right.


Of course we can’t escape the question – were you successful? I have many answers to this question…depending on which objective we are focusing on.

One immediate goal was to stop the war games – the ADF had stated through Parliamentary processes that if there were citizens on the military base – the games would be stopped. We went on the base, and they knew we were there, but they chose not to stop the bombing. We were certainly an inconvenience to the training exercises. Participants in them needed to stop when they found us, trucks were stopped from moving along a main internal road when we sat on it, and we imagine that they military had to take extra measures to ensure we weren’t in the areas we weren’t bombing. It was more expensive and difficult for the State in general to undertake these exercises – particularly in terms of policing (both military and civilian). So while it appears we didn’t stop the exercises, we certainly got in their way.

Our most ambitious goal is to stop the wars. I think that our actions have helped take us along the direction this way. We have asked many people to reconsider their own participation in the military industry around us – whether we be civilians, police, military.

The most important goal of course is to remain faithful. And to that I know we have done our best! The action has inspired me to be continue to take up this call in my life. It is harder sometimes, but I certainly feel like I'm sucking the marrow out of life!

Current media stories online:

The Age: Game on for Christian protest:
http://www.theage.com.au/n..ational/game-on-for-christ..ian-protest-20090712-dhef...html

The Morning Bulletin: Talisman protesters enter live-fire area
http://www.themorningbulle..tin.com.au/story/2009/07/1..3/talisman-protesters-ente..r-live-fire-area/

ABC: Military watches for Shoalwater Bay trespassers
http://www.abc.net.au/news../stories/2009/07/13/262425..5.htm

ACTION ALERT!!!
PLEASE CONTACT TS09 info line 1800 639 724 and
Defence Minister John Faulkner
Defence.minister@defence.g

Hope you can join me at one or more of these local events!!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Come Celebrate International Day of the World’s Indigenous People

Brisbane Gay Catholic Challenges Church on Homophobia

May 17 2009

Brisbane Gay Catholic advocate, Tony Robertson has made his annual call for the Catholic Bishops of Australia to include May 17 the International Day Against Homophobia in diocesan, parish and school calendars.

Tony first made his appeal to the Bishops in 2005, when the International Day Against Homophobia was launched to commemorate the removal of homosexuality from the General Assembly of the World Health Organization(WHO)list of mental disorders on 17 May 1990

“The inclusion of the International Day Against Homophobia in Church calendars will send a clear message to those in the Church who fail to understand that the dignity of the human person is a core Catholic teaching which challenges homophobia in our community” he said.

Tony will also be inviting the Australian Catholic Bishops to join him in an online photo exhibition This Is Oz. Mr Robertson said “I believe that the Bishops images on the site will help to fight discrimination against Australia’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community. Their participation in this project will also demonstrate the Bishops commitment to core Catholic  teachings including the statement in the Catechism of the Catholic Church addressing homosexuality which states: “ Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

Mr Robertson’s self image shows him holding a sign which reads: I am Catholic I am Queer, Homophobia’s Un-Christian. Hear?

Tony said “My experience as a participant in online discussion forums about faith and sexuality has raised my concerns about a culture of homophobia which is evident among some of the contributors to such forums. Strong leadership from the Church will help to change a culture of death to a culture of life for my sisters and brothers who live in sexual minorities.”

Tony Robertson

cultureboy@gmail.com

041...

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

..





Wherever
you are on the evening of Saturday March 28th, join in solidarity with
tens of millions of people all over the world who will observe Earth
Hour. By turning off lights and electrical appliances from 8:30
until 9:30pm, you can show your commitment to taking action on climate
change. You also help to raise the profile of climate change as an
issue of urgency. Why not consider spending the time in prayer, or
having a candlelit dinner with others from your community. Click here for more information, and to sign up for useful tips and tools to reduce your carbon footprint.Join
me at the Earth Hour Vigil at the Multi Faith Centre Griffith
University nathan Campus on Saturday 28 March, 7.30pm-9.30pm. rsvp
March 25 Yaseen 37357052 or mfc@griffith.edu.au

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSn-DrWUz2o

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/rights&id=560 for Brisbane Details next Monday March 23

(Email text from Christine Howes)Image of Maureen approved by the family



"We want to make the world a better place, that's the bottom line I
guess, we want to make the world a better place, for my children, for
his children, her children, your children, we want to make the world a
better place." Aunty Maureen Watson, Brisbane, 5 February 1998



Aunty Maureen Watson was a storyteller, poet, singer, actor and
political activist, highly regarded for her stories which told of
Aboriginal culture and experiences within urban Australia.



Born in Rockhampton in 1931, Aunty Maureen was a proud Birri Gubba and
Kungalu woman who left school at the age of 13 and at 21 married Harold
Bayles to have five sons.



She later returned to her education, eventually moving to Brisbane in
1970 to begin an arts degree at the University of Queensland in 1970.



In 1981 she moved to Sydney, where she set up the Aboriginal People's
Gallery in Redfern and was a driving force behind the development of
Indigenous broadcasting in Sydney community radio.



Aunty Maureen was at the forefront of the Aboriginal protests against
the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane in 1982, and was arrested three
times while participating in demonstrations.





Her first collection of stories and poems, 'Black Reflections', was
published in 1982 and she subsequently produced six more poetry
anthologies, one children's book and one picture book.



She narrated for Robert Bropho's film, Mundu Nyuringu, in 1983 and
appeared in Jack Davis' play, The Honey Spot, in its 1986 tour of
Victoria and New South Wales.





Her gift for storytelling helped her to travel widely across Australia, New Zealand and Europe to give presentations.



Over a number of years she worked with Sisters Inside, a support group for women in prison.



In 1996 Aunty Maureen was awarded the Australia Council Red Ochre award
for her outstanding national and international contribution towards
recognition of Aboriginal arts, and was the first winner of the United
Nations Association Global Leadership Prize for her outstanding work
towards achieving cross-cultural understanding and harmony.



Aunty Maureen continued to work as an active leader and highly
respected elder in Brisbane for the next ten years or so before
suffering a stroke and spending her remaining days on Stradbroke
Island, close to some of her 24 grandchildren and many
great-grandchildren.



She will be greatly missed.



Funeral Service:

12.30pm Monday 12 January



Murri School, cnr Beaudesert & Mortimer Rds, Acacia Ridge



For more information contact Tiga Bayles on 3892 0100

Personal Note from Tony

I was honoured to work closely with Maureen in the launch of Ted
Kennedy’s book, Who is Worthy at St Mary’s South Brisbane in
2000.Maureen’s warm hugs and interest in my work have stayed with me
over the years. Today I received a call form the family asking me if I
could provide a copy of the song “Black Is” written by Maureen and
performed by Peter Kearney. I am so touched to think that in some small
way I can also participate in this memorial to a great Indigenous
woman.



Tony

Today's Brisbane paper includes the following item: William McInnes admits his preference for nudism. I couldn't resist the opportunity to post the following comment:


Thanks Wiliam McInnes for affirming the practice of naturism or nudism as a positive choice.The social prejudice against naturism is founded on fear and ignorance.

A healthy respect for the individual includes honouring the body and the ability to be comfortable in the presence of a naked person.

In a society struggling to move beyond a culture of violence,I prefer to be "undressed to live"  rather than "dressed to kill"

Tony

Roby Curtis in storerelease:  Christian Suppliesis proud to host Roby Curtis for therelease of his new album and DVD“people still die”.  Come fora free all ages concert and screening of DVD as well as interviews and album signing – Friday September 5, from 7:30-9pm, 179 Elizabeth St Brisbane. Roby is a Catholic musician who plays music that is both inspirational and confronting.  He will also be appearing at The Tivoli on Sept 19. Tickets available through ticketek.  www.robycurtis.com

In store releases are a new initiative of Christian Supplies to showcase Catholic musicians, artists and authors.  Roby will be performing tracks off his first full length album as well as screening his DVDand signing autographs.  Roby is a passionate Christian who plays contemporary original acoustic Rhythm and soul music.  His debut album/DVD is both Inspirational and confronting!  Roby will be sharing about his album and his message of hope in a world of injustice.