peace

On 25th of April each year, Australia “celebrates” ANZAC Day. The day has become a chance to whip up nationalist fervour and to perpetuate the myth that Australian identity was formed during the carnarge of World War One. Instead of being a day to remember the victims of war it pushes the historical lie that “our freedoms” were won and protected by participating in a imperialist invasion of Turkey on behalf of “King and Country”. The myth serves helps to bolster our current involvement in imperialist wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. However the peace movement and the left continue to try to undermine these militaristic efforts and mark ANZAC day differently by holding a range of peace and social justice events around Australia and by publishing articles in the alternative press that offer a counter historical view.

On Sunday, despite the floods, a small group gathered in Brisbane to mark the 20th anniversary of first US led attack on Iraq. We joined others around the world gathering at the same time.

We remembered all those killed in the wars Australia has supported since then, especially those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I started with an overview of the wars in those countries. I mentioned Pope John Paul 11’s strong opposition to the first Gulf War, when he prophetically called it the “Seed of death”. The war helped spark a never ending spiral of violence- “war-terror-war-terror-war……..”

World Peace

World Peace:
World peace is a future ideal of freedom, peace and happiness among and within all nations.
So says Wikipedia.

A future ideal! Get real, what do we want, we want World Peace Now!!

Well I grew up thinking that Peace was a right that every citizen had, but that was way back in the fifties.

Today Peace is an elusive state of being.

We can achieve personal Peace, that is a individual state of being, something that we all have a choice on how we create our own personal Peace.

But Peace in our world, our nations seems to be unreachable.

The Boenhoffer Four successfully infiltrated the secret Australian military base on Swan Island near Queenscliff this morning. After swimming to the island at 5.30AM they spent several hours on the base shutting down the switchboard, a satellite and causing lock down on the base, effectively disrupting the Australian war effort in Afghanistan. The four have been charged with trespass and have been held at the Ocean Grove police station.