Speech by Sr Susan Connelly, Palm Sunday 2002, Sydney.
There are those who say that we mustn't burden people with too many
images and facts about injustice in the world; that people can become
paralysed when presented with the horrors that others suffer. There are
those who say that work for justice must not be "strident" and
that a more gentle approach is warranted.
Your presence here in such numbers today is evidence that we can all
deal with the unpalatable facts of injustice quite well, and that using
our anger together, using our imagination and creativity together,
directing our thirst for truth and justice together, we can reverse
injustices and the great harm to human beings which they cause.
I rather like the fairly strident approach which Jesus took on this day
so many years ago. He went in to the very halls of the Treasury and
knocked the machinery of exploitation and insult to God to the floor.
The image of gentle Jesus meek and mild which is the foremost caricature
of him in today's world is way off the mark. His indictment of the
power-brokers of his day makes riveting reading. He attacked hypocrisy
and blindness with startling vehemence. (Matt 23:1-39)
He knew when to be silent and he knew when to speak, and he says to us
today that it is high time we spoke, and that our voice must become
louder and louder in defence of the poor, and those who have no voice.
Let us not be afraid of being "bleeding hearts", if only
because bleeding hearts can see the bleedin' obvious, which is that
human beings have hearts of flesh, not stone, and that the only true
humanity is that which weeps at cruelty and injustice and puts itself on
the line to reverse the inhumanity which constantly dogs us.
Leadership is a service, that's why both Church and Government leaders
are called "ministers". The service leadership renders is to
authorise initiatives and actions which promote the good of all of us.
We are here to call upon those who have been entrusted with the
privilege of leading us to start leading.
We want leaders in Government, Church and Media who can tap in to the
true heart of the people, who could encourage us to face the huge human
problems of the world as though it was the people who mattered, all of
the people. We want leaders who can distil from our magnificent
traditions the best and fairest ways of dealing with all people.
"Advance Australia Fair" has little to do with complexion or
landscape. "Fair" if it is to be at all useful, is about being
fair, being just.
We want Leaders who would never again stoop to humiliating our Defence
Forces by setting them upon unarmed families, and who would not pass
slick, furtive bills in Parliament which say that parts of Australia are
not parts of Australia for certain purposes. Leaders who would honour
the International Conventions that we have signed, and who would take
the Declaration of Human Rights seriously.
Leaders who would not lie or mislead, who would not shore up their
electoral prospects by appealing to the worst in us. Leaders who would
not accuse nameless, faceless, voiceless and traumatised people of being
murderous parents. Leaders who would recognise that when they accuse
people of manipulation, it could well be that it is just their breath
blowing back in their faces.
We want Leaders who recognise the internationally accepted legal
position that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and
that this must apply to everyone, including asylum seekers. It is simply
wrong to lock up people who have done no wrong and are charged with no
crime.
We want Leaders who would never be guilty of locking up the children of
asylum seekers for months and even years on end, in places unfit for our
home-grown rapists and murderers.
We need Leaders who would not use incorrect terminology when it suits
them, like saying "illegal immigrant" instead of "asylum
seeker", a distinction any primary school child could understand,
if taught.
Leaders who are not afraid of the facts, who make them known, who take
responsibility for the attitudes and actions they take in regard to
those facts. Leaders who don't say, "I didn't know..."
Leaders who would take the risk of trusting that the Australian people
are not quite the stupid, selfish or superficial sheep portrayed by
talk-back radio and tabloid press.
Let us remember, though, that our leaders are very much like ourselves.
They are all fairly ordinary, just like us. In fact, we are all
frighteningly ordinary, with the same ordinariness which allowed the mob
to put Jesus to death, which allowed the Nazi mass murderers to operate,
the same ordinariness which today in Australia allows and rationalises
the existence camps like Woomera.
We need a bit of inspiration. But we are not totally dependent on our
leaders for this because they are only a reflection of ourselves. We
can, and do, inspire and support each other at all levels of society and
when we find out the facts, as Rural Australians for Refugees have so
beautifully reminded us, our hearts change.
We will not be numbed into paralysis by the facts. No, indeed. We will
be spurred to do good, to reverse the trends, to get the information, to
tell our friends, to visit those detained behind razor wire, to talk
turkey to our political representatives. We will keep demanding that
indiscriminate and open-ended detention of asylum seekers, as is carried
out in Australia, is inhuman and unnecessary.
Of course there is a cost in all this. Jesus had a bleeding heart, and
at the end it was because they stuck a spear in it. The prize for
telling the truth may indeed be a crown of thorns. So as we march off in
silence, let us think about the cost, and also the alternative.
Susan Connelly is a Sister of St Joseph, a religious Congregation
founded by Mary MacKillop.
Susan's experience has been mainly in the educational and musical fields
and she became involved with the East Timorese people in 1994. Her work
is within the Mary MacKillop Institute of East Timorese Studies, which
is devoted to educational and cultural partnership with the people of
Timor Lorosa'e. Much of the Institute's work conducted in Australia has
been in association with the Timorese asylum seekers.
Susan organised a local Sydney Timorese choir for three years and then
brought the Choir Anin Murak from East Timor in 2000 for a five-week
tour of NSW. She now coordinates further educational opportunities for
the members of this choir.