Eureka Street

Keywords: Encouragement

AUSTRALIA

The Government's high fibre diet of legislation
- Andrew Hamilton
- 14 August 2014
4 Comments
Last week's legislative flurry was very messy, with few signs of reflection on what kind of a society we want to create, and how far particular legislation will help do so. The arguments for legislation are based on abstractions such as free speech and terrorism. They are not supported by sustained reflection on the way in which human beings interact.
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EDUCATION

Harvard professor defies Australian class warfare
- Catherine Marshall
- 27 June 2014
13 Comments
Amidst a whirl of media interviews and meetings, David Sinclair, professor of genetics at Harvard University and one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world for 2014, paid a visit to his alma mater: a state school in suburban Sydney. State schools aren't the repositories of children too impoverished or unintelligent for the alternative; they're the living manifestation of democracy, egalitarianism, multiculturalism and ecumenism.
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AUSTRALIA

South Sudan warning for Australia's hate speech champions
- Michael Mullins
- 28 April 2014
9 Comments
In South Sudan, hate speech broadcast on a local FM radio station earlier this month led to the slaughter of hundreds of innocent civilians in a massacre based on ethnicity. Local UN officials are now calling on authorities to 'to take all measures possible to prevent the airing of such messages'. Meanwhile in Australia, the Government is attempting to give legal sanction to the kind of hate speech that incited to the South Sudan massacre.
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RELIGION

The peacemaker pope
- Bruce Duncan
- 24 April 2014
7 Comments
Quite striking is the similarity between the warm response to Pope John XXIII half a century ago and to Pope Francis today. Both broke through the gilded cage of outdated conventions and stereotyped expectations. Both stepped over barriers of ideology or religion to evoke bonds of a common humanity committed to promoting the wellbeing of all people, especially the poor and marginalised. The contexts were of course quite different.
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RELIGION

Faiths fight forced marriage
- Ashleigh Green
- 21 March 2014
7 Comments
This week's inauguration of Twiggy Forrest's Global Freedom Network — a large-scale interfaith initiative to end slavery — publicly recognises the importance of interfaith collaboration as a means of understanding and addressing social issues. Its launch comes not long after an Australian-first interfaith forum about the issue of forced marriage. It included Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Jews, and discovered that forced marriage is not a Muslim issue.
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RELIGION

Encouragement for bleeding hearts
- Andrew Hamilton
- 06 March 2014
37 Comments
To call someone a bleeding heart is an insult, not a description. It has no meaning but does have connotations. Those who call advocates for asylum seekers bleeding hearts usually dismiss ethical arguments. Although they may accept in the case of personal relationships that it would be wrong to inflict pain on people in order to deter others, they usually claim without supporting argument that governments are not bound by this ethical principle.
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AUSTRALIA

Credibility at stake for restrained religious media
- Andrew Hamilton
- 05 September 2013
22 Comments
In Australia, September is the month of religious media conferences. This year church media, particularly Catholic media, face a growing challenge: how to deal with bad news about the Church, especially stories regarding sexual abuse and failures of governance. Pope Francis' own style of communication suggests an alternative purpose and approach that such media might adopt.
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AUSTRALIA

Vulnerable are victims of the federal game of thrones
- Andrew Hamilton
- 05 August 2013
14 Comments
If the last three years have been like the first three years of the First World War, now is the time for a final blitzkrieg. The treatment of people who seek protection in Australia is not simply one of many election issues. It is a measure of how far each political party will go, how much damage each will be prepared to do to Australia's honour, reputation, economic interests and relationships in order to gain and hold power.
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RELIGION

Aged care and the business of gift
- Andrew Hamilton
- 09 May 2013
9 Comments
In our care of the aged, not only their health and security are at stake but also their self-respect and dignity. It is impossible not to sympathise with the argument that the high skills this requires from carers should be better remunerated. But in the business of business and remuneration, love is the skill that dares not speak its name.
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RELIGION

Pope Francis' unfinished business with the poor
- Andrew Hamilton
- 21 March 2013
24 Comments
The relationship between the Catholic Church and the poor was explored most seriously in Latin America. I caught its dimensions most vividly in a dawn trip on a clapped out US school bus to a small regional town in El Salvador.
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RELIGION

Pope for a new Reformation
- Andrew Hamilton
- 14 March 2013
28 Comments
If the Church is to be a school for holiness it must reassure Catholics above all that it is a safe school. In schools, this normally demands a change of culture to shift focus from reputation and power to the dignity, growth and empowerment of students. In the Church it will mean dealing decisively with the abuse of power by clergy.
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RELIGION

Preaching on divorce
- Andrew Hamilton
- 06 December 2012
43 Comments
Many Catholic preachers groan when it comes to preaching on Jesus' strong judgment on divorce. But this text is not primarily about sex but about justice in relationships. It calls into question the use of power and law on Nauru and Manus Island as much as in the family home.
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Keywords: Encouragement