New Zealand should NOT pass the Russian Sanctions Bill

The New Zealand parliament is currently expediting a bill through the legislative process in order to enact sanctions against Russian power players and other entities associated with the invasion. I believe that New Zealand should abandon this effort in order to retain avenues of direct communication and de-escalation of the conflict Between Russia and Ukraine. Along these lines, the government should also refrain from expelling the Russian ambassador as some have suggested. 

This would not undercut New Zealand's moral authority, with its clear stance against the invasion, having already condemned the invasion, "imposed individual travel bans on high-ranking Russian individuals, limited diplomatic engagements with Russia, imposed a blanket ban on export of goods to Russian military and security forces and pledged $2m in humanitarian aid for Ukraine" according to the RNZ. With limited exposure in New Zealand, adding another level of sanctions has few real consequences for Russia and is primarily a symbolic assertion of Kiwi solidarity with the global anti-invasion movement. On the other hand, New Zealand retains a potentially strategic and critical positionality as a geographically removed actor in this European war, yet a country that maintains a strong "western" identity and therefore the potential to bridge between the rapidly hardening positions of each side. This is important because other western nations that might usually take roles by remaining neutral (Switzerland) or providing quiet facilitation of peace negotiations (Norway) are now directly, threatened, engaged, or implicated in the conflict. New Zealand, as a small global actor with high international credibility, therefore has the potential to engage with other independent actors and maximise other forms of non-violent resistance while providing back channel, tier 1, 2, and 3 diplomatic engagements with the Russian people, civil society, and other regional stakeholders. 

The current reality in Ukraine is characterised by what seems like inevitable extreme violence and large scale military action and reactions. However the real inevitability is a trajectory for the cessation of violence through the pursuit of justice and human rights, and the hoped-for restoration of the peoples of places of eastern Europe. This will require the emergence of new and unexpected actors committed to persevering, creative, and courageous dialogue. By laying the groundwork now for a more independent and dynamic engagement, New Zealand can carefully and quietly help discover as-of-yet un-anticipated opportunities to end the horrific violence engulfing the peoples of Ukraine and prevent further self-inflicted harm by Russia and the destabilisation of the wider European community.

Jesus and the Judas Heart

Jesus went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him.  And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message,  and to have authority to cast out demons.  So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);  James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder);  and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean,  and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. 

Mark 3:13-19

"Jesus called...those he wanted" by name, twelve of them. Some would rage, rejoice and make rash promises; some were known as sons of thunder, another a rock; still yet there were sceptics, critics, doubters, failures, fans, promoters, evangelists, healers, radicals, contemplatives. I'm sure at least one would have been "the quiet type," others were just steady workers. 

I guess we might see ourselves in all of them - we could be any one of them on any day, or even all of them on one day. It seems the many voices and energies that animate the human condition were present - and called - and blessed - and empowered - to be a community of disciples, a movement, a new family of hope for the least, the lost and the forgotten of the day.   

But what about that last one, Judas, "who betrayed him" - how did he make the cut???  Did not Jesus have a sense, an intuition, if not a divine premonition, that Judas was at heart, a bad apple? That he would be the Achilles heel of the entire operation, a vulnerable asset who would turn into a traitor? Was he REALLY also one of the ones that Jesus WANTED and called by name into his inner circle?

And so I ask myself, in my honest moment, what about the dark corners of my heart? What about the places where we ourselves hide, which are often the same places where we hide our demons, the closets where we lockup our skeletons, and the dingy laundries where we stuff our dirty stuff. 

In my heart of darkness, therein lies the Judas heart, the self that would betray all that is good and life-giving and sacrifice the salvation of the world on the altar of ego, pride and self. 

But Jesus also calls my Judas heart, and yours, by name, with blessing, and love, and kindness - to give it all that it really needs, rather than what it thinks it really wants. Jesus calls our Judas hearts, to bring us back into the light, to bring us back to our true home, to our family of brothers and sisters, and our eternally loving father - to the one relationship where all is forgiven, and all can be set free.  

West Papua on the Precipice: The Coal Face of Global Indigenous Peoples Struggles

”After so many years have passed on this cause, it is important to point out the reasons why we are here at this moment.

For almost 60 years, up to 500,000 Have been killed in West Papua.  We could probably say it's the largest scale violence against indigenous peoples in the Pacific. When you look at those numbers, no other place has experienced such violence. 

But, in the last year in particular:
* Tens of thousands have been displaced from the Nduga region, up to half the population by some estimates, as well as thousands of non-Papuans, who fled after riots in Wamena
* Violent eruptions in August and September, have left dozens dead, both Papuan and non-Papuan
* Meanwhile, across Indonesia, Papuan students experiencing racial abuse and discrimination - called monkeys, dogs and pigs
* Small scale but widespread violence, torture and killing by police and security forces, much of which is unreported - and probably what we hear is just the tip of the iceberg
* This is due to the severe media and humanitarian restrictions by the Indonesian government, that they have put in place
* There is also the continuing deforestation and desecration of land, ancestral domain and environment on a large scale, which contributes to climate injustice

In summary, this is my personal analysis, but I believe others would share this, this is one of the coal-face of indigenous peoples struggles around the world. According to UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Vicky Tauli-Corpuz from the Philippines, she has noted an increase in killings, criminalization and repression of IP rights advocates and environmental defenders over the past year. 

This is probably related to the expansion of surveillance states using artificial intelligence technologies that allow governments to monitor and undermine activists in real time, as well as recent elections in Indonesia and [the] appointments of military officials accused of orchestrating violence in the past against Indigenous Peoples. 

What this all tells us is that indigenous peoples are really on the front lines of these struggles against authoritarian regimes who are seeking to entrench their power and access the resources that are needed to do so. 

So that’s the sad reality, but it’s not all a sad reality. And we need to remember the good news from the last year.

What is the good news? The good news is:
* Growing student movements that are resisting forces of violence, militarization, climate injustice and oppression
* A resurgent Indigenous Peoples rights movements across the world
* The emergence of alternative governance and radical community-building efforts as forms of constructive resistance
* This is not just protest and resistance, but the reconstruction of the alternative to what we are calling for, that deepens and actualizes the vision of social justice and egalitarian societies
* Finally, the climate justice movement has been using increasing sophistication leading to changes in the infrastructure of finance, investment and lending - [thus] the corporations behind the corporate economy are being challenged by the climate justice movement in very creative ways.

The question is, regarding West Papua, will we be, in the coming year, will West Papua and our efforts be on the list of good news or bad news? 

When I was flying here, I saw an advertisement on the flight that had a woman standing on the edge of a bridge, she had a bungee cord tied to her ankle, and she fell off, it was an add for tourism, and the tag line was, “Live more, fear less.” 

So the question for us is, “are we living more,” doing what is life giving? And, “are we fearing less” are we pushing forward in the face of these challenges. And really, for indigenous peoples and Papuans, they are standing on the edge of that precipice and they don’t have a safety net below, and the don’t have a bungee cord tied to their ankles. And so we are here to help keep them back from that precipice.”

-Jeremy Simons, Message given at the hand-over of the 1,000 Voices for West Papua petition to members of parliament in New Zealand, December 3, 2019.

Transformative Kiwi Justice and the Christchurch Massacre

With 50 murder charges and numerous lower charges, as well as the public nature and social media "performance" of the crime, there is little doubt that Brenton Tarrant will be found guilty of murder in the Christchurch massacre. Yet the scale and global magnification of the crime insinuate that the massacre was no ordinary crime scene. Thus, ordinary legal justice confined to the immediate jurisdiction will not do. 

Beyond Legal Justice

I am not suggesting that some sort of quasi-legal or extra-judicial intervention be done instead. New Zealand's courts are primary caretakers of orderly due process, so effectively and judiciously pursuing and concluding the legal case will provide a counterweight to the desire by white supremacists to hijack the event for further anti-Muslim propaganda, and on the other side, reduce the potential for this to stoke anti-Christian violence. 

However, precisely because of the collective impact and global kinetic repercussions spread via social media, and the limitations of the courts to address these wider issues, it is important that justice not only be left in the hands of legal professionals. This requires wider efforts to prevent further copy-cat attacks and retaliatory strikes by those seeking revenge. These efforts must be collective, varied, electronic, and multi-layered, some immediate and others sustained, as manifestations of what I call Transformative Justice. While I am not the first to use the term, what I mean by Transformative Justice includes not only policing and legal forms of justice, but restorative justice and transitional justice initiatives as well - all woven together in an integrated tapestry that promotes immediate accountability, social healing, and violence prevention.

Legal and legislative efforts to tighten New Zealand’s gun laws are a critical first step. However, moving beyond a purely legal perspective in dealing with the violence and its aftermath will ultimately make our communities safer, assuage the needs of victims more effectively and help channel the energy that might be directed to violent reprisals. This needs to be done in ways that do not create a blame backlash among groups in Kiwi society that feel threatened by the rapid social, economic, and demographic changes that have occurred in New Zealand over the past few decades.

Collective Restorative Justice and the Gender Multiplier

One perspective that can help in this effort is a collective restorative justice (RJ) approach. RJ has already been used both within and without the criminal justice and corrections systems in New Zealand. It generally involves face-to-face encounters between victims and offenders facilitated by specialists who guide the discussion to address three questions: 1) what was the harm caused? 2) how will it be repaired? and, 3) who is responsible for that repair? In other words, RJ helps bring into focus and concretely address the physical, relational, and social harms caused by violence. 

Research has shown that restorative processes, in tandem with legal accountability, consistently produce higher satisfaction for victims of crime than legal or restorative processes alone. Surprisingly to some, in cases involving violent crimes, RJ has even higher levels of victim satisfaction than for lower level, non-violent cases, as well as a gender multiplier effect for women’s empowerment in the justice process. In other words, RJ in coordination with legal safeguards, provides a better response for the deep psychological and social impacts of violence and trauma, especially for those, frequently women, who are more vulnerable to violence and bear the heavier weight of its impact. 

I will restate and alter my opening. The Christchurch massacre was not an ordinary crime scene, so not only will ordinary criminal justice not suffice, neither will ordinary restorative justice. In light of the large number of primary and secondary victims, as well as the indirect trauma inflicted on the nation as a whole, a simple RJ approach is inadequate. Rather, a collective RJ approach provides a framework for addressing any harmful behaviour – from the interpersonal to the social to the structural. Therefore, the values and framework of collective RJ are essential in moving forward a collective, survivor-centred approach.

Transforming Trauma through Cultural Resilience

Central to such a collective restorative approach is highlighting the resilience and capacity of the Muslim community to assert its vision for how the harm can be repaired. Islam is not only a religion, but a dynamic supra-cultural ideology unifying various ethnic sub-cultures. In the southern Philippines where I have been engaged in peacebuilding work for over a decade, a listening process was undertaken which obtained the input of over 3,000 ordinary Muslims, Indigenous Peoples, and Christian settlers as part of a "tri-people" transitional justice component to the formal peace process between the government and Islamic revolutionary groups. 

An analogous series of open-ended consultation processes that bring into dialogue direct survivors, the victims' families, informal Muslim leaders, the wider and global Muslim community, with the support of non-Muslim friends and supporters of all stripes and colours, could provide a critical mass and platform for Christchurch survivors to support each other over the long haul. The goal of this process would be to collectively articulate ways in which justice, conceived under a restorative and healing framework, can be accomplished. Also prioritizing multi-faceted and rich Maori experiences and perspectives on justice and healing would in itself redress the historical violence and neglect experienced by New Zealand's own indigenous population, and foreground their necessary participation and leadership if this effort is to claim a truly community-based Transformative Justice identity. 

A process built around Muslim-Maori-Pakeha strengths would provide a culturally-safe and appropriate way of processing the trauma of the event, and thus should not be time-bound. This must include specialized training and careful coordination between justice and public safety professionals, social welfare agencies, and non-governmental organizations and individuals with the skills to assist. The recent denial by ACC to support mental  health trauma services for the father of one of the victims (as reported in the Otago Daily Times) is indicative of the critical importance of this.

Expanding Circles of Forgiveness, Social Media, and Everyday Anti-racism

A Transformative Justice process also provides an avenue for the generous spirit of reconciliation exemplified by Farid Ahmed, who expressed forgiveness towards the man who killed his wife, to be amplified as a vivid example of Islamic non-violence. It might eventually even involve a forum for a facilitated encounter between Brenton Tarrant and representatives of the community he so grievously harmed, a process that has been known to open the eyes of even the hardest criminals to the horrific effects of their actions. 

Such efforts are ingredients in a crucial tonic to the potential incendiary rallying effect of the incident, which can be used as propaganda promoting violent Jihad, and which has exacerbated geo-political friction as video clips of the attack were used by Turkey’s president Tayyip Erdrogan for his political campaign soon after the massacre. Encouraging and resourcing social media efforts translating and scaling up Transformative Justice initiatives into various arenas and platforms is an urgent imperative. It would capitalize on the positive potential of the internet to invert destructive social media discourses and curb their incitement of actual, kinetic violence.

Collective restorative justice should not only be integrated with acute legal responses to the Christchurch attack, but utilized as a framework for future grass roots anti-racism efforts. Effective anti-racism programs are not built by banning bigotry, if that were even possible. Rather, they work when people with negative biases, which are invariably based on stereotype, myth, partial truth, and exaggeration, are brought into relationship with the “other” who is the target of those same biases. Doing this requires courageous yet respectful confrontations, restorative conversations, and friendships with those who express such attitudes in everyday interaction. 

The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACs) where I am a student has begun this kind of “conversational” initiative, which is an essential part of concretely expanding the circle of response into the everyday life of the community, as well as beyond the immediate crisis response time frame. Zones of peace where such radical disagreements can be expressed have been used in conflict situations around the world to defuse and prevent cycles of violence. These "zones" require intentional "construction" of safe places and reflective spaces for sustained social transformation, another effort that students at NCPACS have initiated through a "Safe Place" campaign at: https://www.facebook.com/Safe-Space-New-Zealand-2177568969017521/ and http://bit.ly/safespacenz. 

Transitional Justice

Finally, since both the legal and restorative approach involve inherent limitations, we can borrow from the play-book of transitional justice in constructing an institutional strategy that is complementary with the values undergirding a restorative approach and the procedural justice of the courts. Transitional justice describes a cluster of responses that nations have used in dealing with the shift (hence the term "transitional") from large-scale violence such as civil war, genocide, and the injustices committed by regimes that govern with impunity. While South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is perhaps the most famous, there have been a great many efforts since the 1990s in a variety of countries and contexts that could provide insight for New Zealand’s effort. 

After nearly three decades, these transitional justice endeavours have generated a veritable cottage industry of research, institutions, and consultancies around the concept. The creation of a Royal Commission Inquiry into the Christchurch attack in many ways falls in the domain of transitional justice and is an extremely important effort to be commended. Transitional justice can help frame the multiple inquiries that will necessarily compose the work of such a Commission. These can be identified under four rubrics of exploration and engagement: truth-telling, reparations, justice, and non-recurrence for dealing with the past. A series of critical questions based on these rubrics would generate not only productive avenues of inquiry for the commission, but would help expand the circle of stakeholders for the process. 

Kiwi Justice - A Beacon of Hope

In conclusion, a Kiwi-crafted Transformative Justice approach that reflects New Zealand’s unique local cultures and maximizes her expanded global credibility is possible. It encompasses an integrated response to the Christchurch massacre that includes legal, restorative and transitional elements. It takes seriously and holistically integrates the individual, collective, cultural and institutional obligations engendered by the atrocity. The mechanisms of legal justice ensure the individual is held directly accountable for the actions he committed. Collective restorative justice provides a paradigm that centralizes the role of the survivors and the cultural voices of the broader community in the process. Transitional justice brings into focus the wider role of the state and other institutions in society to address underlying structural, political, historical, and cultural root causes and prevent recurrence.

New Zealand’s initial response to the attack has already provided a positively viral beacon of hope for communities and nations seeking to navigate polarized and violent realities. Building on this through a comprehensive Transformative Justice approach will further demonstrate that justice and healing are not mutually exclusive, but are soul-mates of reconciliation in a divided world.

Jeremy Simons is a doctoral learner at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand. A trainer, mediator, advocate, and researcher, he draws on over 15 years of expertise in Conflict Transformation (CT), Restorative Justice (RJ), Chaplaincy, and Appreciative Inquiry (AI). He has consulted with various academic, organizational, religious, and community organizations in the Unites States, the Philippines and New Zealand. He believes in family, the power of humour in difficult circumstances, and the importance of chocolate, God, coffee, and hugs in facing the challenges of life. His doctoral research focuses on restorative leadership, peace processes, and indigenous justice in the southern Philippines.

Has anyone ever called you crazy?

A prison chaplain's reflection on Mark 3 for the Sunday of June 10, 2018 

Has anyone ever called you crazy?

Has anyone ever called you a devil, or evil, or hopeless? 

Have your own family members thought you were out of your mind?

Have you ever been cursed and slandered by people who you thought were your friends?

Have you ever tried to help someone, and people accused you of just stirring up trouble?

Have you ever had friends undermine or betray you because they were jealous of your success?

Have you ever had to hide or get away because someone was trying to kill you?

Have you ever walked into a room, and it gets silent because you were the one they were all talking about?

"Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. ² Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. ³ Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.” ⁴ Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent. ⁵ He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. ⁶ Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

⁷ Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. ⁸ When they heard about all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. ⁹ Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. ¹⁰ For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. ¹¹ Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” ¹² But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him."

This is the situation we see today in our gospel reading. 

Jesus had become a popular figure, he heals people who are sick and deformed, he casts out demons, and the demons try to expose him. The leaders twist the truth saying “it is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons” in order to destroy his reputation, while they try to think of a way to have him killed. “Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.” (verse 6)

All this because Jesus is confronting and disarming the “demonic” forces of evil, not only by casting out the spirits of disease and sickness, but naming the hidden forces that crush people’s spirit, the deceptions and manipulation used by authorities to keep people in bondage and fear, and the spiritual powers and system of hatred and despair. 

That is the meaning behind Jesus line of inquiry and action earlier in verse 4-5: “Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent. 5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.”

As a prophet, Jesus lived in an occupied land, yet he spoke out against the legacies of historical injustice and the systems of violence the Romans and their Jewish collaborators used to oppress, enslave, and terrorize entire peoples, races, and communities. Crucifixions were the direct violence the Romans used to kill anyone they thought might challenge them, but the indirect violence they used was in alliance with the Jewish religious leaders who collaborated with them. That was the why the Pharisees feared Jesus, when they met before his final execution, it was because they were afraid that because of Jesus popular movement of restoration, they would lose their place in power in cahoots with the Roman occupiers.

This was the reality that Jesus was confronting – surrounded by people, yet isolated at so many levels - personal, familial, social and institutional. Thus, “When his family^[b] heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” (verse. 21)

Do we ever feel this way, like we are fighting the world, or fighting ourselves, or our history, and can never win? Or have we just given up and just survive one day to the next? Maybe we just take it out on the people around us, allowing the anger to just bubble over as threats, negativity, insults, violence?

^"And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

So how do we get out of this mess, this house of destruction? Let’s go back to our story, to where Jesus is telling a little story to make a point. And he’s doing it in a way so that people have to think about it to get the point. Why? Because he is a prophet and a teacher, and if you think about your best teachers in life, what did they do that helped you learn?

Did they just stand up front and lecture for hours or give you a list of answers? No, the best learning comes through a story, and this is the story he told to make his point,

“If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27 In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house”

So what can we learn from this story? First, we find that Jesus is actually in the house with us already. Jesus is like a rebel or robber who sneaks into the house of the “strong man” and has the power to tie him up so he can take his stuff. 

Has anyone here ever stolen anything? Breaking and entering? Theft? So maybe we can relate to this.

What is this “house” Jesus is talking about? This house of the strongman is the violent, sick and dying reality that is our world. It’s everything that Jesus was working against and confronting on that day when his own family thought he was crazy, and the authorities wanted him dead. It’s all that stuff – that terror, oppression, deception, pain, hurt, anger, fear, loneliness – that Jesus experienced and was fighting against, but in a different way.

Who is the Strongman? Satan is the strongman who has been tied up and made powerless by the truth of the Holy Spirit, that is the word of God, spoken and lived out by Jesus. It is by his words that Jesus, healed the sick, delivered those under demonic possession and raised the dead. So we see in the story that Jesus claimed the truth and exposed the deception of those who tried to destroy him by pointing to the Holy Spirit as the source of truth and the antidote to “blasphemy” of the Pharisees. 

"Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.”"

The unforgivable sin he was pointing out was simply that if we try to rely on our own spirit or the spirt of the world rather than the spirit of God, we can’t be saved – we can’t save ourselves. The eternal sin, or blasphemy against the spirit, is the truth of our prideful spirit, of relying on ourselves and the power of the strongman, Satan, to rule our lives. He directed this as a warning to the pharisees, who were attacking him, that they were in great danger to reject his mission and distorting his message by saying "he had an impure spirit". So it is not that we ever need to be afraid that we have committed an unforgivable sin. God's gift is forgiveness for all sins, regardless. But if we, like the Pharisees, reject him, than we are rejecting the one person who can help us out of the mess we're in.

But we are in luck! We don’t have to submit to that reality, to that dead-end lies or fake truth. Jesus is the like a “divine robin hood” or guerilla fighter who sneaks into enemy territory to rescue the people who are suffering under the occupation forces because the bad guys took over and ruined everything and so everyone is just doing what the bad guys’ leader, the strongman, says to do. 

But Jesus, he snuck, and he’s trying to “steal” us – you and me – out from Satan’s house, and he has already tied him up and made him powerless, all we have to do is walk out the door of the house of destruction with Jesus and start the journey of faith back to the homeland of God’s love. But if we refuse that, then we are stuck in the house of death, and that is a sin that God “can’t” forgive, because God won’t force us to accept his freedom – he would be going against his own nature, which is love.

And that’s why he points out, that if the rebel used the same methods as the strongman, then his effort would fail. That’s what he means by saying, “a house or kingdom divided against itself would not stand.” And so it is not just that this power used by God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit to bind up the strongman is greater power than Satan’s power, but it’s a totally different kind of power. 

And what do you think that power is? 

I already mentioned it, its the power of love, because God is love. So through the power of the Holy Spirit of love, Satan’s power of hate has been made powerless. If we try to manipulate or hate our way out of the mess we’re in, without relying on God’s power of love and wisdom, we’re not going to get anywhere. We will only be repeating the same mistakes that caused things to go wrong in the first place. 

That’s why Jesus points out the contradiction of the Pharisees accusation "a house divided against itself will fall" – you can’t defeat hatred with hatred, violence with violence, oppression with oppression, deception with deception, slander with slander, insults with insults, depression with depression. The Romans and the Pharisees stayed in power by killing others to save themselves – that is the logic of violent power. Jesus did the opposite, and sacrificed his own life to save everyone else – that is the logic and power of sacrificial love.

Jesus is offering a totally and radically new way of life. That’s why he says it is like being born again, you’re coming into a new world, and the old rules don’t apply because the guy (Satan) who made those rules has been cuffed and locked up and has no power in this house of love. 

And the next thing he points out, is that leaving the house of the strongman means being part of a new family, so that if your old family thinks you’re crazy to escape with Jesus, it’s because they have not yet realized that they are still living in the house of the strongman.

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. 34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.””

So the question is, will you accept that power, that love in your life. If you’ve been living in the house of hatred and destruction, or you’ve wandered back into that house even after you had left already, do you want to be free from that reality sickness, depression and hopelessness?

It’s an utterly lonely place to be, disconnected from God, disconnected from others in ways that are life giving, it is the house of death. Jesus has gone into that house, through his death on the cross, incapacitated the strongman, and wants to take you into the new house of life and love and freedom. 

I am with you - a Lament

(originally published on Mindanews at http://www.mindanews.com/mindaviews/2018/05/pagdaro-sa-kalinaw-i-am-with-you-a-lament-j/)

Today, I pray with you, though you see me not, nor hear my voice.

I scream with you when you wrap his body in a white sheet and lay him on the ground, accompanied by voices filled with rage and grief.

As you peek out from hiding, watch the soldiers burst through the door and execute your family in the living room, I watch with you.

They gathered round stripped you naked, each had their turn with you, and left you bleeding and unconscious – my soul dies with you.

I graduate with you as the police run through the streets, herd you to an alley, shoot you in the head while you kneel, begging for your life – and a chance to graduate from high school.

When they were lined-up and one by one their heads lopped off, I vomit with you.

I claw with you for air as hands of power cut off your breathe.

I will confess with you, as the faces of those you killed assault your mind and haunt your dreams.

Where you stumbled over papa’s body in a dark field after the rebels exacted their “justice,” I collapse with you.

I curl up with you, as the planes and bombs and artillary scream through the air, and your buddy is skewered alive beside you.

As your mouth foams, eyes swell, muscles spasm, choking on the gas, I shake with you.

When the child turned aside so not to see the bodies beheaded on the side of the road, I look away with you.

Though we are not with you, we are present, we will live so that you may return, and in your death, never forget….

[this is an open piece, add your own stanza, translate into your language, or repost and tag me as you see fit – Jeremy Simons, 16 May 2018, Otago, New Zealand]

Duterte waging war to hide his Achilles heels

I repost my article published last week in New Mandala linking Duterte to the drug trade. This is all the more relevant with his decision last week to cancel talks with the CPP/NDF/NPA and declare them a terrorist organization. All the more ironic when one considers how he has terrorised his own county with his supposed anti-drug campaign and the destruction of Marawi City.

-----

Steer clear of Duterte’s wars

JEREMY SIMONS - 22 NOV, 2017

At a regional defence forum in the Philippines on 24 October, Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne appealed to regional neighbours to assist in the war on terror in Southeast Asia, announcing the deployment of 80 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel to the Philippines.

During the same meeting, Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte thanked the United States and Australia for sending military advisors to assist in fighting ISIS and local affiliates, who had just been flushed out of the southern Philippines city of Marawi after 5 months. The fighting killed hundreds, displaced nearly 400,000 people, lead to human rights abuses, and destroyed the heart of the Philippines premier majority Muslim city. Duterte also commended Russia and China for supplying arms in this scorched earth campaign against terror.

Though the Australian ambassador in early October denied that their units will be deployed in Mindanao, where Marawi city is located, they will nevertheless “provide mobile training teams that will begin providing urban warfare, counter-terrorism training.” Minister Payne noted that “the move is part of a wide strategy that will see Australian troops deployed to land, sea and air for the first time in a co-ordinated leading role in the terrorist fight in South East Asia.”

In inaugurating an expansive and militarised posture towards regional security, one that will apparently include boots on the ground in the Philippines, Australia has chosen a corrupt and violent government as its initial partner. Before the battle in Marawi, the incursion of ISIS into Mindanao was ignited by the charisma of Ipsilon Hapilon, a leader of the Philippines resurgent Al Qaeda-affiliated Abu Sayyaf group, who opportunistically swore allegiance to ISIS. In doing so, he obtained new sources of international finance, and was able to rally together militants disgruntled with a failed peace process, the locally powerful Maute clan, and other drug lords seeking new allies. But, more fundamentally, the targeting of Marawi city as the first bastion of a Southeast Asian caliphate was an extreme response to the failures of local politics, unpaid inter-clan grudges, and corruption.

These issues are nothing new on the island of Mindanao. Since 1969, they have fed the armed insurgencies of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the New People’s Army (NPA), a Maoist armed movement. The MNLF, MILF and NPA had all been in various stages of peace talks and peace accords implementation with the government. Those efforts have ground to a halt over the past year due to strategic mismanagement by the Duterte administration, the explosion of violence in Marawi, and declaration of martial law on the island.

Many analysts believe that Duterte’s failed peace efforts, and the brutal Marawi siege that resulted, have simply created a wider pool recruits for local armed militant and extremist groups not only in the Philippines, but in Malaysia and Indonesia as well, as stated in a recent report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta. “The risks won’t end when the military declares victory,” says Sidney Jones, IPAC director. “Indonesia and Malaysia will face new threats in the form of returning fighters from Mindanao, and the Philippines will have a host of smaller dispersed cells with the capacity for both violence and indoctrination.”

In other words, ADF soldiers will be battling an extremism that has burgeoned precisely because of multiple failures by the current Filipino administration. In particular, Duterte and his main peace advisor Jesus Dureza neglected a relatively effective peace process begun during the former Aquino presidency. That peace process with the main MILF insurgent group had led to a dramatic decrease in insurgent violence and militarisation on the island, and the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro in March of 2014.

The problems armies can’t solve

I question whether the troops, as special units with the aforementioned strategic guidelines, will really be restricted from Mindanao, where their services are supposedly most needed. I believe that the deployment of Australian forces anywhere in the Philippines is a grave mistake. American soldiers have been rotating through Mindanao island since before September 11, 2001, and were expanded as part of then US president Bush’s global war on terror.

Since 2001, an unknown number of US soldiers have died in Mindanao, including two civil relations psychological operations rangers killed in Sulu by an IED in 2009. There have been persistent rumours that US special forces operators were also killed in the Mamasapano incident that targeted a Malaysian bomb maker in 2015, which left 44 Philippine Police commandos dead and torpedoed popular support for the 2014 peace accord signed with the MILF. However, the Americans’ deaths were denied in the Philippine National Police’s board of inquiry report, which noted, “The United States involvement was limited to intelligence sharing and medical evacuation. Only SAF Commandos were involved in the actual combat operation.”

Nonetheless, US troops were intimately involved in supporting the entire action, according to an anonymous whistleblower, and the American troops that were killed over the past 15 years in the Philippines were conducting the kinds of training, intelligence, and support operations that Australia is now deploying its service members for.

Yet the militaristic approach has failed to address the underlying causes of terrorism, as a former US special forces commando discovered after he lost two of his comrades in 2009 in Sulu, Mindanao, while ostensibly fighting the Al-Qaeda linked Abu Sayyaf group. In a 2015 memoir the soldier stated,

“The three of us combed through six months of everything from text messages to our radio shows, plus interviews with local leaders and debriefs of the community. A clear pattern emerged. Governance: the warlord families were manipulating every election cycle with violence, bribes and vote stealing, creating a corrupt, impregnable oligopoly….[Then] we met with the chancellor at Mindanao State University to go over the data we had. After showing it to him, the chancellor looked up and said, “I don’t see anything surprising here….My people cannot break the stranglehold the warlord families hold on this island. You tell your commander this: keep your roads and schools. If you can give us a free and fair election, we can do the rest ourselves.”

In my independent investigative report on the failure of the peace processduring the Marawi crisis, I found the same dynamics at play in Duterte’s current effort to eradicate the same group that killed two American special forces soldiers in 2009. As I noted,

“we can see that the roots of…the Marawi siege, had much less to do with international terrorism, and more to do with traditional clan feuding, political alliances and patronage, exacerbated by the competition of local leaders attempting to protect their illegal economies, a volatile combination ignited and inflamed by the infusion of foreign “terror” ideology…. In other words, the real issues in Marawi had much less to do with a terroristic ideology (though that was a significant component, like pouring gas on a fire), and much more to do with solvable concerns of governance and corruption.”

How ADF troops will help solve the complex issues of governance and corruption that are the root causes of terrorism in the Philippines is beyond me.

What’s more, there is a self-defeating factor in the current context, because according to my report the Philippines president and his peace advisor were secretly working with one of the terror groups that Ipsilon Hapilon had recruited into his movement for an Islamic Caliphate. Thus, I concluded that “while Duterte sent off his soldiers to lay down their lives for the bansa (nation) on one hand, with the other, he and his peace advisor consulted with, hired, hid, and protected the leader of one of the terrorist groups directly involved in the Marawi siege.”

The opacity of information leading up to and during the Marawi crisis mirrors how reality has also been obscured by Duterte’s bloody war on drugs. Duterte’s drug war has involved such massive, documented human rights violations that a Brookings Institute researcher recently recommended to the US Congress that “President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs in the Philippines is morally and legally unjustifiable. Resulting in egregious and large-scale violations of human rights, it amounts to state-sanctioned murder….The United States and the international community must condemn and sanction the government of the Philippines for its conduct of the war on drugs.” Apart from halting sales of rifles to the Philippines National Police, there have been no other concrete steps taken by the international community to sanction the Philippines.

‘Protected at the highest level’

The drug war and the Marawi siege demand that the international community take a new stance regarding the Philippine government, when combined with a new development in the Philippines: Duterte’s possible personal enmeshment in illicit economies. This follows several revelations. First, during a senate hearing in March of this year, by a former Philippine National Police officer in Duterte’s security team when he was mayor; and second, that which emerged in the course of a methamphetamine smuggling scandal at the Bureau of Customs in Manila this past September. During these two separate Senate hearings, the son of the president was implicated as a facilitator in the trade of billions of pesos of illegal drugs from China into the Philippines. However, the result of the second hearing was that Duterte’s political allies in congress only recommended charges to be filed against the security watchman of the warehouse where the drugs were stored in Manila, essentially sweeping the investigation under the rug. Additionaly, Duterte has since re-appointed two high level customs officials back into government positions, after they were implicated by the senate in facilitating the smuggling of methamphetamine.

In my work over the past 8 years on peace and development in the Philippines, I was based in the home city of Duterte and conducted outreach in the Davao City jail. What I heard in my work there meant that recent suggestions of Duterte clan involvement in the drug trade—such as were aired during the Senate hearings—did not come as a shock. Indeed, they apparently followed a pattern of collusion in protecting the local drug trade.

According to information shared with a fellow outreach worker by former drug couriers who had turned their lives around, couriers brought their “products” into Davao City and were allowed to pass unhindered through the Task Force Davao security checkpoints that encircled the city. Rodrigo Duterte was then mayor of Davao City, as well as the director of the Regional Peace and Order Council, which oversaw the Task Force Davao security program. On Duterte’s watch, the drug trade flourished in Davao. Former drug operatives explained this by saying, “kung sino ang pangulo ng lungsod, sya ang ulo” —”whomever is the mayor of the city, is the head” referring to leadership in the local drug trade syndicate. In the words of a former high-ranking Philippine military officer I met privately earlier this year, “the drug trade in Davao City is protected at the highest level.”

Additionally, he has directly facilitated the expansion of terrorism in Mindanao through actively supporting members in the ISIS conglomeration that were hidden by his peace advisor—specifically, senior members of the powerful Salic clan in Marawi (per my independent investigation). He has also hamstrung the existing peace processes, foregrounding the highly complicated, drawn-out, and controversial shift to federalism at the national level as the key to peace in Mindanao rather than immediately pushing for the autonomous region as promised in the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro signed in 2014. All of this is masked by two aggressive and bloody wars, ostensibly fighting terror and drugs, but which I believe are being used to disguise how his family and political networks are enmeshed in Mindanao’s illicit political economy. This puts him in a very precarious position, requiring extreme violence and deception to maintain control.

While there is no indisputable proof that Duterte’s family is involved in the narcotics trade, there is growing evidence from multiple sources that this is the case. Though the president and his family predictably insist any such claims are politically-motivated, the complicity of the local state institutions, and the political clans who control them, in the drug trade is a pervasive reality in the Philippines. As a 2013 report described narco-politics in Mindanao, “Drug money can be converted into political power, but control over public office represents the real prize because it ensures the diversification and protection of illicit sources of wealth.” It is the most pernicious, but far from the only, facet of the total failure of governance in the Philippines that lies behind the rise of ISIS-linked insurgencies and Duterte’s push towards dictatorship. Viewed in this light, Duterte and the type of local politics he exemplifies are part of the problem, not the solution.

Standing up to the Duterte administration

Therefore, regional allies should take a new tack against the Philippines administration. The evidence in my view clearly indicates the need for a coordinated strategy that includes international legal and economic sanctions against a national government under the sway of a political clan that stands plausibly accused of involvement in the illegal narcotics trade—and is, as I and many other human rights observers believe, responsible for crimes against humanity. To ignore this reality is to cover a rogue administration with a blanket of impunity and further destabilise an already uncertain regional security environment. A new approach would lend moral support to several emerging groups from across the political spectrum that seek to turn the ship of Philippine state from crashing on the rocks of autocracy. More than that, it should not risk the lives of Australian soldiers sent to wage battle against terrorism in the Philippines. Who would not want to avoid the sentiments that headline the memoir I quoted earlier, written by a former U.S. commando regarding his losses in the Philippines: “Two Soldiers I Served With Died In The Philippines. They Didn’t Have To.” To develop a realistic, moral, and long-term strategy would honour those fighting men and learn from their sacrifices.

The reason they didn’t have to die was that their political superiors failed to recognise what was really at stake in their deployment. And now, the same dynamics that lead to the death of those Americans are what characterise the dysfunctionally lethal political reality Duterte embodies. For Minister Payne to continue on the present track is simply to support a redo of the mistakes of the past that got the Philippines into its current predicament.

It’s time for a course correction.