Monday, October 22, 2007

Hope ...

Hope …


In a previous post “Further out of view … further out of mind …” I talked about my ongoing struggle to find meaningful ways to live in hope instead of fear.

Margaret Somerville, in her recent book “The Ethical Imagination: Journeys for the human spirit.” (Anansi Press, 2006) in a chapter titled “Past Virtues for a Future World: Holding our humanness on trust.” (pages 199 to 248) mentions hope as one of the “human qualities that I believe will be essential in taking ethical paths into our human future. ”

The five “old virtues” Margaret Somerville considers essential are “trust, courage, compassion, generosity and hope”(p 208).

This ethicist articulates the pain and harm experienced when others dash our hopes as we try to bring safety, security, support and justice into our children’s, and other mothers and children lives after experiencing domestic violence, and then systemic and judicial abuse.


See the following excerpts from pages 235 to 239.


P 235
“Because hope is linked to the future, it’s linked to potentiality. For this reason, the ethics of potentiality and the idea that it can be ethically wrong to deliberately negate potential are relevant to the discussion of hope. We can describe hope as a sense of possibility – the sense that our best dreams, no matter how short term they might be, are open to fulfilment. Helping others to find hope requires imagination and creativity on the part of individuals, institutions, and societies; our enemies in this enterprise are apathy, boredom, inactivity, and nihilism. I believe acting in ways that cause such a loss of passion should be viewed as an ethical “mortal sin.”


P 237

“Hope and the search for meaning in life are linked, in that each helps us find the other. … They are also linked in that the absence of either has the same impact on us: without meaning or without hope, we believe we cannot go on living.

Robert F. Kennedy linked hope and justice, saying:

Each time a person stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
(Kennedy, Robert F. “A Tiny Ripple of Hope.” Day of Affirmation Address at Cape Town University. Delivered June 6, 1966 Cape Town, South Africa.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfk-capetown.htm.)


P 238 - 239
“… I have written elsewhere that hope is the oxygen of the human spirit: without it, our human spirit dies: with it, we can survive appalling suffering and surmount incredible obstacles. A statement attributed to Saint Augustine might explain why hope functions in this way. He said, “Hope has two lovely daughters: anger and courage. Anger so that what must not be may not be; courage so that would should be can be.” Those emotions cause us to engage with the world and doing so nourishes our human spirit – life and what we do with it matters to us and others, that is, we find meaning. Reciprocally, we must have a sense of the human spirit if we are to have the capacity to find hope. The issue is, how can we nurture that capacity?

I understand evolutionary biologist and futurist Elisabet Sahtouris to be addressing this question when she writes:

Recognizing our responsibility and opportunity for creating our reality is the only way I see for making the shift from fear to love – from a world of scarcity and greed to one of abundance in which all people are empowered to fulfil their needs in sustainable ways. To achieve this, we must break through long cultural conditioning on our lack of power, our willingness to accept, and thus co-create, economic and political inequities that disempower people, currency systems that promote these inequities and anything else preventing the full expression of human potential in sustainable ways.” (Sahtouris, Elisabet. “Humanity 3000 Participant Statement. ‘ Foundation for the Future. http//
www.ratical.org/LifeWeb/Articles/humanity3000.html)

“Sahtouris is speaking from an altruistic point of view, but even if we were to adopt a selfish point of view, creating the possibility of hope for others may be the best – or perhaps the only – way to find hope for ourselves, especially if we are to leave a legacy of hope for our children and their children.

Hope for one’s children has been a primary experience for most people across the generations.”

* * *



Take care ... take heart .... Merinda

As it is written ...

As it is written ….

Some of the written laws, regulations and conventions that supposedly protect immigrant women and their children who have experienced domestic and family violence in Canada and would supposedly mean that Australia would have the responsibility and ability to “interfere” to protect Australian children and women trapped overseas by domestic violence and systemic and judicial abuse when countries break their own laws by not protecting and responding to these innocent and vulnerable peoples abuse.


Canadian Criminal Code, Domestic Violence Act

Standards in Custody/Access Reports for Registered Social Workers

Standards in Ethical Practice for Professional Social Workers

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms



Relevant Conventions Australia and Canada Have Ratified

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
Platform for Action United Nations World Conference on Women, Beijing
Charter of the United Nations

Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women 1993

Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women
Commonwealth Plan of Action on Gender and Development

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,

Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power

UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers

UN Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors

UN Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organisations to Promote Universally Recognised Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

The perils of indifference....

“The Perils of Indifference.”

Elie Wiesel
Seventh White House Millennium Evening, Washington, 12 April 1999.


“Of course, indifference can be tempting – more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person’s pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbours are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the other to abstraction.

…. In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a poem, a great symphony. One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.

Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always a friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor – never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees – not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment….

In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders…

And our only miserable consolation was that we believed that Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world did not know what was going on behind those black gates and barbed wire…

If they knew, we thought, surely those leaders would have moved heaven and earth to intervene. They would have spoken out with great outrage and conviction…

And now we knew, we learned, we discovered that the Pentagon knew, the State Department knew…

Does it mean that we have learnt from the past? Does it mean that society has changed? Has the human being become less indifferent and more human? Have we really learnt from our experiences? Are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other forms of injustices in places near and far?”



As quoted in Alan J Whiticker’s “Speeches That Shaped the Modern World” , New Holland Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd 2007


Elie Wiesel’s sentiments apply to all forms of social injustice and human rights abuses.

One of the incredibly challenging and traumatic aspects of children and women’s experience of domestic violence and systemic and judicial abuse is the indifference displayed by those we have begged to assist and protect our children and ourselves. The total lack of response. For us it would seem that indifference is indeed a punishment – a punishment for speaking our truth, a punishment for breaking the silence around abuse, a punishment for inviting and challenging people to have their actions meet their words, for calling them on their hypocrisy … their sin becomes our punishment.

Following is an incomplete list of those who I have shared extensive information with in regards to the experience of Australian children and women trapped overseas by domestic violence and systemic and judicial abuse and begged for assistance. Those listed have shown their indifference to the trauma and suffering of these innocent and vulnerable citizens by not responding, not speaking out, by ignoring us – by their indifference.


In Australia …

UNIFEM
Women’s Electoral Lobby
GetUp
Amnesty International
Children’s Rights International
White Ribbon Campaign
State Women’s Legal Services
Anglican Church of Australia
YWCA
Australian Lawyers for Human Rights
Council for Civil Liberties
Australian Institute of Judicial Administration
Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse
Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Centre
Key Centre for Ethics, Justice, Law and Government

Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law
National Research Centre for the Prevention of Child Abuse
VOCAL Victim’s of Crime Assistance League
Australian Centre for Child Protection
St James Ethics Centre
Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Domestic Violence Committee Coalition

Researchers/academics at Sydney University, University of New South Wales, Charles Sturt University, Griffith University, University of Canberra, Bond University, University of Newcastle Legal Centre, Monash University, Melbourne University, University of South Australia, University of Western Sydney.

Australians who also attended the World Conference on the Prevention of Family Violence 2005 (Banff, Alberta), International Conference on Child Witnesses to Domestic Violence (Vancouver, British Columbia 1999 and London, Ontario 1997).

Australian Embassy, Ottawa, Canada
Prime Minister
Attorney General
Shadow Attorney General
State and territory Attorneys General
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Office for Women
Commonwealth Ombudsman
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Premier of New South Wales
Former Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissioner
Home town MP and Senator
MP’s and Senators who claim to care about children and women’s safety and human rights, politicians who held the government responsible for ensuring David Hicks received “judicial fairness’ and returned to Australia, those who believed the government had a responsibility to intervene for the “Bali Nine”, Schapelle Corby, Than Nguyen and others charged with drug trafficking and those who believed the government had a responsibility to bring Robert Jovicic promptly and safely back to Australia.
Leaders of the Liberal Party, Labor, Democrats and Green Party

Media


… and in Canada

Provincial and National Action Committee on the Status of Women
PATHS Provincial Association of Transition Houses
NAWL National Association of Women and the Law
LEAF Legal Education and Action Fund for Women
Family Service Canada
White Ribbon Campaign
RESOLVE Research and Education for Solutions to Violence and Abuse
The FREDA Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children
Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System
Sheldon Chumir Centre for Ethics in Leadership
RCMP Royal Canadian Mounted Police


Attendees, guest speakers and committee members/organisers of the World Conference on the Prevention of Family Violence 2005 (Banff, Alberta), International Conference on Child Witnesses to Domestic Violence (Vancouver British Columbia 1999 and London, Ontario 1997).

Provincial Justice Department
Federal Justice Minister
Provincial and Federal Office on the Status of Women
Federal Critic on the Status of Women
Provincial Children’s Advocate
Provincial Ombudsman
Provincial Human Rights Office
MLAs, MPs, Senators from all the main provincial and national political parties,

Numerous lawyers, social workers, counsellors….

Researchers/academics specialising in law or gender studies at numerous Canadian universities.

Media

“If they knew, we thought, surely those leaders would have moved heaven and earth to intervene. They would have spoken out with great outrage and conviction…”


* * *

What will you do after you have read this, now that you know?


Take care … take heart … don’t be indifferent to injustice and suffering – your actions will show whether or not you care … Merinda.



Sunday, September 23, 2007

Further out of view ... further out of mind...

Further out of view … and further out of mind… Australian children and women trapped overseas by domestic violence and systemic and judicial abuse.

“Duty of care to the young justifies Government’s action” was the headline of a recent Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece by the Prime Minister John Howard in regards to the government’s intervention in aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory (SMH, Tuesday 26th June, 2007 p11). In this article Mr Howard acknowledges the reality of violence against children and women, “It’s largely been hidden … out of view and out of mind.” He continues, “I take full responsibility for the success or failure of this plan. … we believe the overriding responsibility and duty of care we have for the young of this country justifies the scale, breadth and urgency of our response.”

The government and the opposition both agree on the need for immediate intervention when “Women and children are petrified of violence and sexual molestation” - but if the Australian children and women experiencing these abuses are further “out of view” and further “out of mind” than the Northern Territory, if they are overseas, then nobody seems to care about the violence and systemic and judicial abuse they experience or how afraid they might be. In fact, the government’s position is that it has “no ability or responsibility to intervene” for these Australian citizens (unlike Australian citizens such as the “Bali Nine”, Schapelle Corby and David Hicks).

So, if a “duty of care to the young” justifies the government’s actions, allocation of millions of dollars of resources and withholding of welfare payments that may be misused in the Northern Territory, what justifies the government’s inaction in regards to Australian children and women experiencing violence overseas? What justifies the federal government financing foreign jurisdictions that use their resources to violate Australian women and children’s human rights and need for safety and protection from abuse? (See the post “Dear Mr Prime Minister” at
www.womenwhowant2gohome.blogspot.com, the online resource I created for children and women in similar circumstances.)

How does this reflect the values and information in the federal government’s current advertising campaigns “Violence Against Women – Australia Says No” and “Becoming an Australian citizen is much more than a ceremony.”? (Advertised benefits of citizenship include “Secure your family’s future” and “Expect full consular support.”)

I have been advised that currently there is no information or statistics available as to how many Australian children and women may be trapped overseas in these circumstances.

The kinds of problems women face ...

The problems and challenges children and women face because of violence in the family are well documented, whether near family, in their own country or isolated in a foreign country. Some of these challenges are discussed in my online resource.

Some of the problems my children and I have experienced that are not as well documented, researched or discussed include:

Change
I polled attendees at the World Conference on Prevention of Family Violence, Banff, Alberta, October 2005 (
www.wcpfv2005.ca) and the consensus was that “nothing has changed in the last 5, 10, 15, 20 … years, they are still talking about the same things and nothing has changed”
At the recent Sydney University Faculty of Education and Social Work Seminar, “Towards Better Practice: Enhancing collaboration between mental health services and women’s domestic violence services” (April 2007,Leichardt) a guest speaker informed me “female politicians will not speak up about this because of male backlash” and “ the only way the government will do anything is if the media embarrasses them into it”. (Seminar proceedings are posted on the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse website
www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au .)

Power and control dynamics within the domestic violence industry.
“If you weren’t so angry and were nicer you would get some help!” (Co-organiser international conference, considered “expert” in the domestic violence industry.) How do you "be nice" about violence against children and women.? Why is being “nice” about the violence your children and you have experienced a condition of receiving assistance? How “nice” do I have to be to get help?

Ethics of research.
“I’m a researcher, not an advocate”. Her organisation had just received millions of dollars of government funding but she had no suggestions or resources to share with me, and when she realised that although I could converse knowledgeably about the issues I was not in fact a “researcher” or associated with a university she didn’t have time to talk with me.


Colonisation in the domestic violence industry.
“I can’t do anything to help you or your children but I’d like to use your writing for a project I’m working on.” Law Professor specialising in violence against women and children.

Ongoing abuse and trauma.
There is an expectation that children and women who have experienced domestic violence should “accept” what has happened, accept the injustices they experience, accept the lack of change, accept children continuing to be exposed to violence and in the custody of abusive parents and “get on with” their lives. This ignores the ongoing abuse and trauma and the harm (as serious as attempted and completed suicides of children and women in these situations) that could be prevented.
As Martin Luther King, Jnr. said, “It is hardly a moral act to encourage others patiently to accept injustice which he himself does not endure”. Women in these circumstances know others are benefiting and profiting from being “experts” on their and their children’s traumatic lived reality, garnering votes from claiming they care about children and women’s safety, obtaining public funding or donations for work on these issues, while telling these women they cannot help them and “You should just be patient and maybe your children will contact you when they are adults”, they never add, as long as you all survive until then.

Harm caused by abusive systems.
For me the trauma my children and I have experienced trying to get the government, politicians, justice system, police, advocates and organisations to provide the support, advocacy, protection and justice they claim to provide, has been more traumatic, unexpected and damaging than the abuse I experienced in my marriage.

Whistleblowers
When you leave an abusive spouse and “speak your truth” about the abuse in the family you act as a “whistleblower” on that persons actions and experience the associated dangers, challenges, isolation and backlash. When you then speak up and become a whistleblower on systems and governments that condone and reward abusive behaviour the dangers, challenges, isolation and backlash are compounded proportionally.


So, what options are available to children and women in this situation?

What are the options when justice systems and governments find violence against children and women acceptable?

What are the options when you have spent over $100,000 on lawyers, attending domestic violence conferences and doing advocacy work and you still can’t find anyone who will address the issue of justice departments who have their staff misinform courts about immigrant children and women’s experience of domestic violence?

What do you do when the “experts” say, “you’ve done more than any other mother I know and I don’t know what to suggest”?

What are your options when more people than you can remember have said, “I don’t know how you have survived”?

There have been many times when I felt so depressed, discouraged and disillusioned about not being able to protect my children that I thought that the only option for my children’s safety was to bring all my information together in one place and then to commit suicide in a very public and horrific way – and then maybe there would be a chance that someone would start to talk about these situations. But I now know that other children and women have attempted and committed suicide because they can no longer endure the pain of such situations, and this still continues.

Many people asked me to write a book about our situation, but no one offered safety or support or resources to enable me to do that. So I created an anonymous online resource in the form of a blog,
www.womenwhowant2gohome.blogspot.com. I hoped that one day my children would read it and know how much I loved them and how hard I had worked to protect them. I hoped it might be a source of encouragement and information (accessible and free) for other women in similar circumstances. I hoped that if I shared this online resource with enough people one day someone would read it and be convicted to act.

I tried to find ways to live in hope instead of fear…

So writing this article became an opportunity to;

- Send a love letter to my children –because I have the privilege of knowing what amazing, delightful, caring and creative people you are I am still able to find hope.

- Say “Thank you” to my family and friends, your love and support sustains me.

Writing this article also became an opportunity to imagine options and;

- Beg those that have the opportunity and resources to act to assist us to do so, and if the only way for there to be change for us and other Australian children and women in these circumstances is for “the media to embarrass the government into it” then work to involve the media (being mindful of our safety and privacy).

- Encourage human rights activist and advocates who saw the upcoming federal election as the window of opportunity for political interest in justice for David Hicks to do the same for innocent and vulnerable Australian children and women trapped overseas by injustice.

- Enquire as to which legal experts can provide a second opinion on the federal Attorney General’s assessment that the government cannot “intervene” on behalf of Australian children and women in these circumstances, and would comment on the legality/constitutionality of the government providing consular assistance, paying legal fees and negotiating prison exchanges for Australians convicted of heroin trafficking in foreign jurisdictions and refusing to provide any support or assistance for innocent and vulnerable Australian children and women who are victims of a crime while in foreign jurisdictions.

- Request academic support, supervision, safety, encouragement and enablement for people like myself who have used their personal lived reality/ their experiential knowledge, to inform their research, reflection, social actions and advocacy and to create a portfolio of these “survivors” work to be assessed for academic accreditation.

- Request support, safety and enablement to write the book many have requested.

- Recommend reserved senior/executive/board/committee positions for “experts by experience”. (I would appreciate being considered for any of the above positions, see www.womenwhowant2gohome.blogspot.com for evidence of my research skills, resourcefulness, creativity, resilience, practical application of knowledge/social action and advocacy, communication skills and ethics.)

- Encourage payment of consultancy fees to “experts by experience” for their ideas and information.

- Recommend “measures of success” and “cost/benefit analysis” criteria for research grants and funding that reflects positive change in the lives of victims/survivors.

- Request funding to attend national and international conferences (it would also be wonderful to receive a complimentary ticket to that expensive banquet and invitations to the networking wine and cheese parties and exclusive get-togethers that you have to have some impressive job title or letters behind your name to attend).

- Invite “experts” to ensure that women who are “experts by experience” that have used their experiential knowledge to help others have access to the benefits and resources of the domestic violence sector.

- Invite discussion on how safety, social justice, equity and the right to resources for self-actualisation are prerequisites for sustainability.

- Invite and encourage all who have experienced violence and abuse in any form to “speak your truth” and find meaningful ways to live in hope.

- Send a message of celebration, gratitude, encouragement and honour for everyone who has ever contributed towards a safer, more just, more equitable and more sustainable society.

Take care … take heart,
“Merinda”

Leading with heart...

Leading with Heart

Leadership is Relationship – With Oneself and With Others

Principles of Relationships


Experience Oneness: Strive to experience the interconnectedness of life; cultivate a unifying and abundant heart.

Be Compassionate: Love one another; develop an unconditionally loving and caring heart.

Connect to Inner Wisdom: Take the time you need to pause, reflect and introspect; grow a wise heart.

Live in the Present Moment: Live in the now- not in the past, not in the future, but in the peaceful present; find your peaceful heart.

See the Good: Look for the good, even in difficult situations; develop a positive, hopeful heart.

Practice Radical Honesty: Tell the truth and by doing so, seek to create a truthful heart.

Live by the Golden Rule: “Do to others what you want done to you”; develop a giving and forgiving heart.

Be Grateful and Appreciative: Be grateful for all you have; cultivate an appreciative heart.

Keep Your Word: Maintain all agreements impeccably and with integrity; foster an integral heart.

Choose Full Responsibility: Become fully responsible and accountable for all your decisions; create a responsible heart.

Commit to Lifelong Learning: Learn from both micro and macro life events; cultivate a reflective heart.

The Twelfth Principle: With an open heart and a spirit of truth-seeking investigation, decide for yourself what the twelfth principle might be.

Used with permission by Lillas Hatala (excerpt from Integrative Leadership 2005)
www.integrativeleadership.ca .

Thank you Lillas for sharing wisdom and encouragement.

Take care ... take heart ... Merinda.

Sustainability

Sustainability …. What do you believe it is important to sustain and why?

Elisabet Sahtouris.

“Recognizing our responsibility and opportunity for creating our reality is the only way I see for making the shift from fear to love – from a world of scarcity and greed to one of abundance in which all people are empowered to fulfil their needs in sustainable ways. To achieve this, we must break through long cultural conditioning on our lack of power, our willingness to accept, and thus co-create economic and political inequities that disempower people, currency systems that promote these inequities any anything else preventing the full expression of human potential in sustainable ways.”

Elisabet Sahtouris “Humanity 3000 Participant Statement.” Foundation for the Future.
http://www.ratical.org/LifeWeb/Articles/humanity3000.html

As quoted in Margaret Somerville’s “The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the Human Spirit.” House of Anansi Press Inc 2006.