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I stood to continue on foot around the UN compound. I kept walking, ignoring the screaming, the shooting, the panic. Timorese looked to us. I needed to give them hope. I took motivation from them. More than that, I wanted to stay on my feet. I required time to respond and do what I could when the end came.
One event, recalling the revelation of Jesus' relationship to God, is a feast of light; the other, recalling man's inhumanity to man, speaks of darkness. Both are pointers to possible human futures: one of glory and the other of annihilation. The history of nuclear weapons and recent developments present this choice more starkly.
The timing of the USA's announcement that it is withdrawing from treaties limiting the nuclear arms race came just a few days before the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The anniversary remains important because it serves as a reminder that nuclear weapons have been used and that they could be used again.
The first lesson would seem to be that Iran would be foolish to return to talks with the US. There seems precious little to talk about, and absolutely no assurance that the US would keep its side of the deal even if talks did result in the new and better deal the US has claimed it always wanted.
While nuclear weapon stockpiles have reduced massively since the 1980s, the major arms controls treaties have been gradually eroded. At the same time, and even more dangerously, the world has seen a repudiation of the diplomacy which limited the numbers of nuclear weapons and which has prevented their accidental use.
How are we to honour the commitment to peace of these Japanese and Maralinga survivors of nuclear conflagrations unleashed maliciously or negligently last century? We need to renew our commitment to painstaking negotiation of international treaties and agreements designed to ensure peace and security for all, insisting on the dignity and human rights of all.
One of the naysayers following ICAN's receipt of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was Australian journalist Andrew Bolt. What was most shameful was his insulting of one of Australia's own nuclear survivors, the late Yankunytjatjara Elder and anti-nuclear advocate Yami Lester.
Competing for attention with the Gallipoli landing centenary is this year’s 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. New evidence suggests that even a nuclear war involving a very small fraction of the world’s arsenals would result in the atmospheric accumulation of so much particulate matter from burning cities that there would be reduced sunlight, agricultural decline and famine affecting possibly two billion people.
In his recent article my Jesuit colleague Frank Brennan asked whether there is any ethical discussion to be had about stopping the boats. He proposed seven points that would give greater ethical coherence to the Government's 'shock and awe response'. The corollary of this position is that pressing for legal and practical changes to policy will not redeem the policy but will be a necessary and worthwhile exercise in harm minimisation.
'Like many Australians, I had hoped that the dastardly plan announced on 19 July would stop the boats in the short term, as a stop-gap measure. It is dismaying to learn that appropriate consultations had not occurred with Indonesia with the result that the very people who were to receive the shock and awe message are yet to receive it. There’s only one thing worse than shock and awe; that’s shock and awe that doesn’t work because you haven’t done your homework.' 43rd Barry Marshall Memorial Lecture, Trinity College Theological School, 14 August 2013.
'Might not the chief problem with Church language in the public square be that we tend to come from a position of moral superiority, approaching those dreadfully compromised politicians who will do anything to be elected? The abuse crisis reminds us that the Church is not irreproachable.' Text from Fr Frank Brennan's presentation at the Anglican Church of Australia's Public Affairs Commission Conference, November 2012.
The bombing in Bali ten years ago today did not target Balinese directly, but they took the collateral damage to tourism, their bread and butter, very personally. Drawing his finger across his throat in a slitting motion, a smiling Balinese says he is happy the bombers have been executed.