This was the week when both the cruelty and compassion of human beings exploded before our startled eyes. The slaughter of 49 dancing young people in Orlando, Florida was followed by an upsurge of human compassion that has become the only too predictable response in the aftermath of horror, people just trying to reach out to each other in concern.
In what has become an age of Anxiety, I find even the smallest gestures of compassion, of one human being towards another, to be incredibly moving. I was in Barwon Heads this week at my doctor’s surgery, waiting for an appointment when a young sandy-haired father entered the reception with a boy of about 11 and a girl around 8. He greeted me with a friendly ‘hello’. It was a nice surprise to not be invisible to casual strangers under the age of fifty. In our struggle to consume, acquire and ‘get ahead’, these small acts of simple, everyday courtesy assume great significance.
There are signs all around us of society being de-personalised, of the race to be ‘the best’, the fastest, the most glamorous or have the most Facebook ‘friends’ and scrambling over others to get ahead. Barwon Heads, for example has, in a few short years gone from being a quiet little seaside town to Hipsville Central. Dingy little cafes and fish and chip shops with macramé lampshades and doilies on the tables, have been replaced by glass and shiny metal cafes selling something called ‘Beaujolais Nouveau’ and fashion shops which seem to have been parachuted in straight from Toorak. Men in t-shirts, thongs and trackie-daks have given way to smart, bearded baristas with hair in top-knots. Style(with a capital ‘S’) has leaked out of the suburbs into the paddocks.
It’s all the fault of ‘Seachange’, that popular TV mini-series which ran until 2000 and focused attention on this, and other peaceful little backwaters and turned them into outposts of Melbourne. Real estate was still cheap then and technology was only just beginning to make an impact. Smart phones were just beginning to replace face –to-face conversation and ‘selfies’ were only starting to become a fashion statement. We were all suddenly discussing Australia’s GDP as if we knew what we were talking about.
And now Barwon Heads it seems is being battered by a crime wave. Groups of young men, supposedly Sudanese (amongst others) according to police, are targeting cars and homes. These are the children of families escaping civil war and famine, seeking a better life for the next generation, one which appears to have eluded many.
Recently I attended a public meeting in Barwon Heads when the Minister for Justice and the local sitting member held a pre-election meeting to focus on crime and its solutions. Two young couples told us how unsafe they felt in their homes when gangs broke into garages at night and stole their cars. A very energetic man in a suit wanted to establish neighbourhood watch but then the discussion was torpedoed by a local resident accusing the Justice Minister of cruel asylum seeker polices. A red-faced man jumped to his feet and shouted him down. ‘We don’t want bleeding hearts going on about asylum seekers when it’s their children breaking into our homes.’
The refugee advocate persists until the Justice Minister loses his cool too and asks if he’s going to be allowed to answer the question. We all seem intent on shouting at each other. The young couple who suffered the home invasion leave the meeting early looking disappointed. The promise of a stronger police presence doesn’t seem to have satisfied them.
Something feels out of order when we reduce community to statistics, graphs and GDPs. Behind statistics are cold facts. This region is one of the worst in Australia for wealth distribution. I’m shocked to hear later in the week that in nearby Torquay, one of the most rapidly developing towns in Australia, there is a homelessness problem. People are sleeping in their cars or in the dunes. The local Salvation Army has just opened a drop-in centre for homeless people.
Perhaps it’s during this time of heightened awareness, pre-election, when we do at least focus on issues of justice and fairness, when we do question wealth distribution, the rights of minorities and long for those small gestures of compassion to expand into the broader policy changes that will distribute the wealth we have fairly. In the meantime the small gestures keep me energised.
Among people in transition, and in townships changing rapidly, gestures of compassion and expressions of empathy tend to be crowded out by grief for lost comfort, anxiety about the now disconnected future, and fatigue from the vigilance of competing to create or maintain your own place in the changing environment.
In Australia’s pre-election atmosphere, I don’t hear that much awareness of what is needed in society and in Australia’s relations with other countries, so much as boredom with the over-long electioneering. Leaders and candidates trot out their predictable sweeteners – to be received avidly by their already committed supporters, rejected by their opponents’ supporters, and seemingly falling on barren ground for the uncommitted swinging voters who, this time around, have largely decided to vote for smaller parties and independents to occupy the cross benches.
Full credit to you, John, being among the minority whose awareness is enhanced when an election is in the offing, whether in optimism for changes toward a better outcome, or just keeping your eyes open lest the future turns sour.
Yes, a thousand times ‘yes’; every expression of compassion is to be celebrated. Whether it is the groundswell of revulsion against the massacre in Orlando, the declaration of sympathy expressed in Peter Woodruff’s comment, or simply the warm greeting from a stranger in a doctor’s waiting room – these all express, and thereby reinforce, our shared humanity.
I was at an interfaith meeting in El Paso that approved the following letter to be sent to the local paper.
June 15, 2016
Letter to the Editor
El Paso TIMES
500 W. Overland, Suite 150
El Paso, TX 79901
The tragic events in Orlando inspire fear, anxiety, anger and questioning in communities across the country and in our borderlands.
But in the candlelight vigil in San Jacinto Plaza, and in anguished prayers voiced in places of worship throughout El Paso and Southern New Mexico, we have seen the power of solidarity to overcome even the darkest and most confused acts of hatred.
Solidarity speaks words of life, unity and peace in the face of terror and refuses to give way to feelings of revenge, animosity and bigotry. We reject the twisted logic that would divide our communities on account of race, national origin, religion or sexual identity.
We stand in solidarity with all those overcome by pain and grief in Orlando, and we – representatives of El Paso’s and Southern New Mexico’s many faith traditions – pledge our commitment to build bridges of understanding and peace among all.
Rev. Deborah Clugy-Soto, Pastor, Revolution United Church of Christ, El Paso
Chair, El Paso/Southern New Mexico InterFaith Alliance
10624 Brian Mooney, El Paso TX 79935
(915) 471-0603
Msgr. Arturo J. Bañuelas, Pastor, St. Mark Catholic Church, El Paso
Co-Chair, El Paso/Southern New Mexico InterFaith Alliance
Dr. Nosrat Heidarian, Bahá’í Faith Community, El Paso
Co-Chair, El Paso/Southern New Mexico InterFaith Alliance
Sabri Agachan, Director, Dialogue Institute of the Southwest
Gerard Baca, Sathya Sai Baba Center of El Paso
Ayse Aktar Bakir, Assistant Director, Raindrop Turkish House, El Paso-Las Cruces
Norma Bustillos, President, Sathya Sai Baba Center of El Paso
Bobby Kankin Byrd, Leader, Both Sides/No Sides Zen Community, El Paso
Rev. Carlos Clugy-Soto, Chaplain, CIMA Hospice, El Paso
Dylan Corbett, Director, Hope Border Institute, El Paso
Rev. Cemelli deAztlán, First Nations Ministry, Kalpulli Tlateca, El Paso
Pat Delgado, Pax Christi El Paso
Jennifer Fox, Director of Spiritual Direction, Grace Presbyterian Church, El Paso
Diana Do-Shin Johnson, Both Sides/No Sides Zen Community, Las Cruces
Rev. Peter Kapenga, Retired Educator, Peace Lutheran Church, El Paso
Rabbi Stephen Leon, Congregation B’nai Zion, El Paso
Rev. Neal Locke, First Presbyterian Church, El Paso
Katrina Martich, Lutheran Deaconess Association, El Paso
Rev. José A. Morales, Pastor, Holy Spirit Parish, El Paso
Rev. David Morrison, Desert Rain Community, Chaparral
Fr. Bill Morton, Columban Fathers, El Paso
Rev. Robert Mosher, Director, Columban Mission Center, El Paso
Rev. Dennis O’Mara, Columban Mission Center, El Paso
Rev. Jayne L. Ruiz, Presbyterian Pastor, El Paso
Jim Tolbert, El Paso City Council Representative, Religious Society of Friends
Rev. Stephen White, Pastor, Faith United Methodist Church, El Paso
Rabbi Ben Zeidman, Temple Mount Sinai, El Paso