RfP Tasmania, March 2014

Tasmania Logo

Religions for Peace Tasmania have had a few informal meetings this year, but this is the first formal meeting to be arranged. The gathering will be at the Catholic Women’s League Centre, Mather’s Lane, Hobart City on Tuesday 11 March from 12.00-1.00pm. We will have a Hindu speaker discussing the Bhagavad Gita. There will also be sharing of Gershon Goldstein’s recent seminars on the Torah which were held at Holy Trinity South Hobart and were very well attended.

We hope there is also an opportunity for us to discuss a plan proposed to us by Larry Marshall and April Robinson from UCA Victas, who visited Hobart on 7 February, for an Interfaith Slam poetry session in September, which could be held at UTAS. You can see slam poetry in action performed by Meena and Freeman at http://blogs.victas.uca.org.au/unitingthroughfaith/

After the gathering on Tuesday, if anyone would like to come along to the State Theatre Cafe, we will be meeting Fr Shammi Perera, from St Mary’s Cathedral. Fr Perera is from Sri Lanka, now resident in Tasmania and very interested in Interfaith activities.

Women as Peacekeepers

Also a note that the Multicultural Women’s Council of Tasmania has invited members of Religions for Peace Tas to participate in the Multicultural Women’s event to honour UN International Women’s Day tomorrow, Saturday 8 March from 2.00-4.00pm at Mather’s House (AKA 50 and Better Centre). A small group of brave souls have volunteered to sing ‘Pray for the Peace of Humanity’. Come and honour the activities of Women everywhere, and don’t miss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w21nCiG3ZSs It’s an incredibly moving video of women as UN Peacekeepers.

Women Make Peace Possible

Women as agents for peace

The landscape of women’s participation has experienced significant change mostly in the area of awareness. All of us, men and women alike, have gender roles firmly embedded within us. The more we all try to pretend they do not exist, the less conscious we are of our own behaviors that promote inequality. Discussion of these issues openly is a first step to dealing with them and getting more women involved in the process of peace.

Read more of this report on the Regional Interfaith Network Website

tasman ecovillage

tasman ecovillage

Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black draws our attention to tasman ecovillage.

It is a new initiative – an Israeli, Ilan Armon, has spent the past 6 years getting permission for a strata-titled eco-development adjacent to Nubeena, not far from Port Arthur, which I visited last week. It looks very exciting, with up to about 65 households of all ages potentially living there, and 21 acres of shared land and facilities including an indoor pool and sauna and a small on-site motel for visitors and guests.

It sounds like a good place for a future RfP visit!

From the Website:

On the stunningly beautiful Tasman Peninsula, overlooking Parsons Bay in Nubeena, Tasmania, a diverse group of people is transforming 23 acres of land including a motel complex into an intentional community based on permaculture and co-housing principles. Our Community Development scheme is registered at the Land Titles Office and approvals are in place.

It is the early days of an exciting and rewarding journey and we are looking for people who share our vision to join us.

Our common thread is a deep belief that, through living cooperatively, we can enjoy more rewarding, environmentally sustainable lives that nourish each other and which can ultimately benefit the planet>

Interfaith School in India

The India Peace Centre invited me to speak at a four-day Interfaith Peace School that they conducted in Assam, India, in September 2013. This was the first of a number of peace events planned for different conflict areas of India. There were nine ongoing local participants, nearly all male, from Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, with three Indian male Christian presenters and me, the only non-Indian, non-Christian female presenter. Other participants of various faiths came for one or two sessions, but dropped out or were otherwise unable to attend further sessions.

One notable local peace movement was peace clubs, started by a Roman Catholic priest in his home for school students of different faiths to do activities together. This expanded to peace clubs in high schools, with training for university age students to become leaders of these clubs. Some of them attended sessions at the Peace School. Other participants spoke of how they mix with and employ people of different faiths in their daily lives in villages. Yet others spoke of land conflicts between their tribe and others.

The initial focus of my sessions was on sowing seeds and networking without thought of reward (referring to the Islamic concept of sadaqa), and listening – listening to God or our inner voice, listening to our fellow humans. This built up to listening activities that could be useful in working towards peace. I used Quaker-inspired formats of sitting in silence to listen to God, although without ministry, and worship-sharing style groups to practise some of the skills and attitudes needed to listen to others, regardless of faith. Feedback and whole group discussion followed. While sitting in silence in one of these sessions, I found myself thanking the Quaker body for all that it had given me, despite my difficulties with Quakers. As participants tended to stay in their own faith groups, I also saw my role at the event as encouraging mingling and spontaneous whole group discussion.

From participants, facilitators and my own reading while there (not much is available on the internet), I learnt something of the history and current situation. A few simple points follow.

The whole region of north-east India is quite isolated; locals refer to the main part of India as the mainland. It is very fractured because of the number of tribes and sub-tribes: 270 communities in Assam alone (the second largest in area of seven states in the region), with many mutually unintelligible languages and dialects. Over the centuries, different groups from south-east Asia, greater India and Britain have invaded and colonised. Major religions and sects of each have proselytised and continue to do so, competing with each other, often overlaying or exterminating local beliefs and ways of life. Although some of these have been irretrievably lost, some Christian missionaries have researched the lifestyles, customs and beliefs of peoples in the northeast; their books and institutions are among the valuable resources held in the region.

Starting nearly 200 years ago, the British brought in people from different ethnic and religious groups around the wider region as dairy, agriculture and tea plantation workers. Refugees fled to north-east India from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) after the Indo-Pakistan war ended in 1971. The border is porous, so locals move fairly freely between India, Bangladesh and Burma, especially where an international border divides a tribe.

There has been ongoing conflict for centuries over land rights among these various groups, tribes and sub-tribes. Stereotyping is also a problem; for example, many Muslims including those whose families hav
e been there for several centuries are discriminated against because of unacceptable behaviour by recent Muslim migrants. Christian sects have done excellent work in providing facilities such as hospitals and schools but compete for followers because their theologies are different.

I was shocked by how the legacy and impact of British colonisation and religious proselytising over the centuries contribute to ongoing conflict in varying degrees in the region today. It certainly made me consider anew how my own actions might impinge on others, how deep and long-lasting that impact might be, even to future generations. It made me ever more deeply aware of how careful I need to be with my behaviour and my thoughts, that I sow seeds of peace, not seeds of potential conflict, in myself and in those whom I meet.

Rosemary Mattingley
Religions for Peace, Tasmania Branch

Waters of Harmony Concert

From Kris: A beautiful photo of Prayer

In peace,
Terry
Convenor RfP Tasmannia Branch
6272 6521

Religions for Peace Tasmania

Religions for Peace Tasmania