Category Archives: World

Views on international issues

Glass houses

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The Rudd government is under heavy fire from it’s own constituency on many fronts, most prominently asylum seekers and climate change. Ultimately the two are united by the question of lifestyle. How thinly can a finite pool of resources be spread before the general populace considers itself deprived and cries foul? And as day follows night, any such discontent will surely find its fullest voice on election day.

And there’s the rub, not just for the government but for all Australians. It’s easy to label the PM as “Howard lite” and charge Government and Opposition alike with gross moral relativism, driven by electoral self-interest. “Vote buying!” cry some. “In bed with the coal industry!” say others.

But at least some of the righteous protesters might well live in glass condominiums. Compassionate largesse and serious community action to slow climate change must eventually cost us all in lifestyle, reducing all our options at home, at work, and in leisure.

Our politicians may be vote-driven. But with 3-year terms and a very comfortable electorate, who’d be surprised?


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It doesn’t work

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I’m a film dork, if there’s such a thing. (And if there isn’t, there will be when you’ve met me.) When I’m with a bunch of people who are talking movies, I try to grunt intelligently but my answer to every question is “No, I didn’t actually.” After giving that answer six times, the room knows there’s a cinematic philistine in its midst. (I do occasionally see it on DVD when the world’s moved on, but no one’s asking by then.)

So it was truly out of character that, with a nearly empty evening beckoning, I spent last night in a nearly empty cinema. On the screen was the latest Woody Allen directed flick Whatever Works. It was nearly empty too. I picked it because it was in a timeslot that worked and because I don’t mind some of Woody Allen’s one-liners.

Whatever it was it didn’t quite work for me, but I’m glad I saw it to remind me of the senseless futility of the world viewed through the prism of nihilistic agnosticism. I knew Allen was a bit of a nihilist, penning classic lines like “Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.” But I’d forgotten just how truly empty and purposeless that world is. From a quick google about Woody Allen, a spiritual drifter from an orthodox Jewish background, he strikes me as a man running from God – and making hard running of it too.

To watch this film is to take a crash course in the brand of ancient gnosticism which, predicated on the ultimate meaninglessness of pretty much everything, advocates the worship of today’s erotic pleasure ahead of yesterday’s covenant.

Will someone please pass me a Bex …


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Kippers

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A good article here about “Kippers” (Kids in Parents’ Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings), as they’re lately defined. Financial ties still bind empty-nesters Good cross-reference for those of us Melbourne Anglican clergy who attended the recent ministry conference in Bendigo, and heard Mark McCrindle’s stimulating opening plenary.


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Islam, the world and us

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A record of interview with Barnabas Fund’s Dr Patrick Sookhdeo in the April issue of Australian Presbyterian is one of the more helpful things I’ve read in a while for an understanding of Islam and Muslims, both from a western cultural point of view generally, and from a Christian point of view in particular.

The most significant insights for me centre around Islam’s understanding of the world, the future and its place in both. Muslims are taught that every nation belongs in effect to them. (“Islam teaches that all lands belong to Allah, who has given them to the Muslims.”) When coupled with a historical perspective on the theology of Jihad, violent conquest of other nations can be seen as legitimate. (Jihad may have a core meaning of simply ‘striving’ for a righteous life, but in the context of the development of Mohammed’s understanding of his destiny violence came to have a place in the quest.)

So in terms of human endeavour, one worthy priority is encouraging the branch of contemporary Islamic scholarship concerned with the place of war in Islamic theology.

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Greed without borders

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American corporations typically are governed by a supremo who functions as both board chairman and executive director. Consequences may include lack of accountability and grossly disproportionate salaries, bonuses and payouts. In contrast Australian corporations keep governing and executive functions at a distance. In consequence … Oh, heck …

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Mighty pens indeed

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When in 1839 novelist Edward Lytton wrote ” … the pen is mightier
than the sword”, he didn’t know the half of it. Within just a few
months, by scribal enactment, a planet has been cut adrift from the
solar system, and here in our own backyard tonnes of toxic waste have
been detoxed. And the drought is over too. (It must be; I just wrote
it.)

Speaking of provocation …

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It would be a pity if the community’s natural outrage at Sheikh
Hilali’s now infamous comments did not occasion some honest
reflection on mainstream western culture. In the cultural world
which is home to the mufti – and most of his hearers, western
civilization is commonly regarded as somewhere between decadent and
downright evil. The core of this is our hedonism generally, and our
public sexual morality in particular.

One could debate endlessly the boundaries between unashamed beauty
and shameless display. But drive down any freeway in Melbourne, and
you might well be confronted with a giant billboard displaying a
woman fully naked but for a pair of shoes or a lacey bra. Or open a
lifestyle magazine or visit the milkbar, and chances are you’ll see
more exposed flesh than some new immigrants have ever seen beyond the
sanctity of the marital bedroom. Are we actually surprised that some
ethnic or religious communities are scandalised?!

There is something hypocritical about demanding that the mufti be
silenced, if we will not subject our own fashion, entertainment and
advertising industries to the same critical analysis. Most of us want
to take pride in our burgeoning multiculture. Just don’t ask us to do
any of the adapting.