by Lucretia Ackfield | Jul 12, 2020 | change the world, compassion, hope, humanity |
“If you look at our prime minister at the moment where he has $270 billion to invest in missiles to displace people, why doesn’t he have billions to house people with dignity and safety? Why isn’t that part of the Covid-19 stimulus package? … here’s your chance to do two things, put billions into social housing, keep Jobseeker at the rate it is now and don’t return people to poverty. Because if you’ve got no way out, if you’ve got no income security and no housing security, that’s how you get those high-rises. They shouldn’t even be there anymore, should they?” Kon Karapanagiotidis, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre commenting on the lockdown in Melbourne’s public housing high-rises on The Briefing podcast, Thursday, 9 July 2020.
If you’re in Australia right now, the Corona situation is starting to feel shaky again. With much of one state on lockdown, many of us are wondering, will it be our turn next? Certainly, in the global scheme of things, Australia has suffered very lightly indeed, so far. Can we continue to be the ‘lucky country’ when it comes to Corona?
At the moment, I sometimes find myself unconsciously holding my breath then unexpectedly sighing it out. It’s a reminder of the stress I’m carrying in my body – a stress I know is not exclusive to me during these unpredictable times.
Some in the spiritual community talk of this as a time of rebalancing the planet and we have a few more years to go yet. When my mind grapples with that concept I feel…challenged…despairing…resolute…hopeful? My feelings shift like the sands on a windy beach.
Then the Universe steps in and sends me a gentle reminder of where I should focus my attention. Today it came through the words of Kon Karapanagiotidis – he was interviewed on The Briefing podcast earlier this week about the public housing lockdown in Victoria. For those of you who don’t know about Kon, he is a community leader who supports and advocates for refugees in Australia. He founded and still runs a charitable, not-for-profit called the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre which is entirely community-funded and has never taken a cent of government money – this is a deliberate strategy to ensure their advocacy remains uncompromised.
I have no doubt that Kon makes many politicians shift uneasily in their well-padded seats. He and his team, along with supporters and partners within the refugee advocacy sector, successfully lobbied for the Medivac Bill which guaranteed people seeking asylum (human beings) transfer to the mainland for medical treatment when assessed and referred by doctors. I still find it gobsmacking that in our ‘lucky country’ we needed a bill to ensure sick people could receive the medical assistance they needed…as instructed by doctors. Equally appalling is the fact the government couldn’t wait to repeal the bill when they had a chance. But let’s face it, even a cursory look at how successive Australian governments (from both sides of the political spectrum) have treated refugees for decades is enough to show just how low politicians will stoop for easy votes and out of sight/out of mind expediency.
I’m sure many politicians would love to dismiss Kon as just another bleeding heart but they couldn’t sustain this argument for long because he is also a well-educated, articulate pragmatist. And that makes him difficult to dismiss or silence.
I wasn’t surprised to hear that he and the ASRC team had stepped in to provide food for the people on hard lockdown in Melbourne’s public housing high-rises. I also wasn’t surprised to hear him encourage people to donate to other local charities for this cause instead of than the ASRC. He feels that supporting the organisations who work with the affected communities in the long-term will have a greater impact. To hear the head of one charity diverting donations to another charity is highly unusual, even in a sector based on giving.
As someone who has long-worked with low socio-economic communities, Kon has used his platform this week to point out one of the issues that Corona has starkly unveiled – the inadequacy of public housing in Victoria. While I don’t live in that state, I don’t doubt the legitimacy of his statements because the evidence seems to indicate he is right.
More broadly, I think Corona is exposing many of the social problems that have been unaddressed for far too long across Australia.
Up in my hometown of Brisbane, a friend says many children from a local school did no work during the last lockdown here – they had no internet at home and their parents either couldn’t get to or couldn’t be bothered to travel to the school to pick up the hard copy work sheets. Some children did no schoolwork for many weeks. This highlights existing socio-economic problems where teachers and schools provide a lifeline for kids who otherwise slip through the cracks. This is not a new problem and reminds me of when they added fluoride to the water here in Brisbane. The government told us it would help prevent rising levels of tooth decay in children and the community. Certainly, over the years, I’ve heard horrific anecdotal stories from dentists who practised in some of the areas most affected. But adding fluoride to the water felt like a bandaid measure. The government added another unnecessary chemical to our water supply instead of addressing the underlying issues of poverty, education and lack of community support.
All these thoughts and many others ran through my head as I listened to Kon’s words and I took away the following Universal message.
When we feel like things are darkest and we don’t know what is coming next, turning our attention to how we can help our communities is one of the most important things we can do. Doing this takes our anxiety and uncertainty and channels it into action to make the world a better place. Find the causes that you feel called to, then find a way to help – donate funds, give your time or increase awareness by talking about the issues on your social media channels. Do whatever you can.
We have a lot of social problems that need to be sorted out. They aren’t new and they aren’t very sexy. But they need to be addressed. Covid-19 and the lockdowns are simply exposing in sharp relief the problems that many were choosing to ignore for too long.
Whatever you are struggling with right now, there is always someone else who is struggling too. Perhaps this time of upheaval is showing us this more clearly so we reach out more often and live more in alignment with that saying, “We’re all in this together”. Our ability to pull together in this way, to make things better for everyone, is what makes us the lucky country.
by Lucretia Ackfield | Jun 4, 2020 | change the world, humanity, racism, self development |
I’ve been struggling to process what’s happening in the world this week. I don’t usually choose to turn off the news. I know a lot of sensitives and empaths choose not to watch any of it because they find it too distressing. And I get it. But I’ve long considered myself to be a global citizen and therefore, it’s important to me that I stay in the loop about what is happening. So, I rarely turn away.
But this week I’ve had to a few times. On Tuesday my emotional overload from the images on my screens almost undid me and I had to retreat. I sat quietly and sketched for hours – the creativity blocking out the world while I regained my emotional and energetic equilibrium.
My thoughts have been jumbled and confused as I’ve watched people speak their truth across social platforms with the intention to help change things, to add their voice to the collective who are seeking a transformation of the way things are, to create something equitable. Certainly, racism is also a scourge in Australia just as in the United States although we don’t have the widespread gun use which seems to, from the outside looking in at least, make things so much worse.
There is always more we can do, more we can say, more times we can speak up against the racist commentary and actions that still finds its way too frequently into modern society. I know, despite my own work and advocacy for Indigenous and multicultural communities in the past, there is still much more I can do and say. I haven’t done enough. I’m owning that. There is always more that I can do and I’m committed to that.
But, in light of all this, what came to the surface for me today as I tussled with the morass of chaotic thoughts in my head was the phrase, “The fish rots from the head”.
Right now, in the US, Trump is the head but he has been created by the rest of the fish. And the rest of the fish is rebelling against itself. I don’t feel like a lot of people get that yet. I think a lot of people voted for Trump and are now protesting for a better world, yet still don’t fully understand that they created the world they are protesting against. They voted for a man who promised to “make America great again” yet he also openly preached division, sexism and racism. He didn’t stand on a platform that appreciated diversity of thought, speech, beliefs or race. Yet, otherwise right-minded, kind and compassionate people voted for him. Try as you might, you can’t dismiss the millions who had their own good reasons for their decision at the ballot box. They can’t all be mad right-wing, survivalist, religious zealots, surely.
Yet, just as surely, many of those right-minded, kind and compassionate people are now protesting in the streets against levels of racism that are reprehensible and unacceptable.
I wonder if they see the connection. I’m guessing some of them might. I’m hoping they do.
From what I’ve observed, 2020 is a time of our shadows coming to the surface and what is happening in the US is part of that process.
The truth is, the enemy isn’t “out there”. It’s not some nefarious one percent of the richest people in the world manipulating the rest of humanity. It’s actually not about money at all. Money is only an energy and some people create and use it ethically while others don’t.
It is the shadows within all of us that we need to address and bring out into the light.
When you allow people like Trump to flourish and you give them power, you create an environment where division is the name of the game. Because the name of the game is power not humility. Ego not wisdom. Control not compassion.
Whether you voted for Trump or not, whether you are in another country observing the destruction from afar or not, we all need to realise that he is a symptom of the whole. And we are the whole. We have created this situation. And it’s time to fucking own it.
There is no mass conspiracy by an unnamed few. There is only us each as individuals, part of a collective of humanity, refusing to look at our shadows and seeking to blame others when we should be looking at ourselves a lot more closely.
Racism and discrimination is wrong. Murdering a man in broad daylight is wrong. This is a no-brainer and we all need to do better.
But turning away from our shadows and pointing out there, is not the answer. It’s time to look at ourselves and own the fish we have created. Then make different choices.
by Lucky Lucy | Jul 31, 2015 | humanity, Right thing |
A few months ago, I felt very disheartened by some of the policies and events in our country. It seemed like every time I opened a news website, there was another story about how we seemed to have lost our hearts in how we treated other human beings.
For example, I would hear rhetoric coming from the mouths of our politicians and some media commentators about refugees (i.e. people who need our help) and I would feel depressed and disgusted by their lack of humanity. Even more disturbing was an overwhelming feeling there was no way to change the situation. I knew many other people who felt as I did, yet we all to a large extent felt powerless to make a difference.
But since then I feel like there’s been a shift and a movement in our community is beginning to gain traction. People with a public profile are speaking up, not just once, but repeatedly about how the situation is unacceptable. They are no longer willing to provide obedient silence and tacit consent for what is being done in our name. They are saying no more. Media commentators, religious figures, doctors and others are speaking up. They are willing to stick their heads above the parapet regardless of the consequences because they know they must do what’s right.
It’s an inspiration and many ordinary people, people like you and me, are adding our voices. We are not going to let the issue die.
For some reason I also feel like people are saying, enough is enough, when it comes to many other forms of inequality and not doing the ‘right thing’ in our country. You just have to look at the Adam Goodes discussion being played out across the social and traditional media channels today to know that people are ready to have their voices heard. No more treating people like crap just because that’s the way it’s always been done. No more pretending that racism doesn’t exist here. No more pretending that we don’t all have a role to play in saying, no more.
When I hear people speaking up for others and saying, ‘Hey, that’s not the right way to treat another human being,’ I feel so very proud and grateful to live in this country. It gives me hope that we are on the right track and we can make a difference. We can all make this a stronger, more inclusive and heart-focused place to be.
So today, instead of feeling disheartened, I feel joyful and hopeful and proud. And they are awesome feelings to have.
