Talks and presentations

• Sr Susan Connelly, "Dispossession, deceit and dissent", North Sydney, 27/5/07

• Mr Tony Kevin, "The forthcoming Australian election: making moral choices", North Sydney, 27/5/07. You can also read an excerpt here: "Election year strategies for bleeding hearts", Eureka Street Extra, 31/5/07

• Rev Jojo Fung, "Aboriginal dignity rooted in subverted yet subversive beliefs", North Sydney, 27/5/07

News and media

Josephite sister criticises "prostitution" of language

Date: 28/5/07

Christian community leaders met yesterday in North Sydney to celebrate the 1967 referendum anniversary with hard-hitting addresses delivered by Josephite Sr Susan Connelly, former diplomat Tony Kevin and visiting anthropologist Dr Jojo Fung.

In her talk, well-known Josephite Sr Susan Connelly compared the colonisation process in East Timor with the loss of Aboriginal language and culture in Australia.

"Each language has a particular way of interpreting the world, adding to humanity's store of truth and to its ability to perceive," she told the annual gathering.

"We are probably unaware of the extent of the loss to the world of the 150 Australian Aboriginal languages which are now dead."

However, the East Timor advocate says that it is not just Aboriginal languages that are being destroyed.

She accuses the Federal Government of wasting "vast amounts of money" on advertising that is not intended to inform but to deceive.

"The attack on truth which is integral to the prostitution of language as practised by the present Federal Government is behind its inability to express the sorrow of the population at large for the treatment of the indigenous peoples of this land," she said.

"The loss of any language is a loss to the whole human race apart from the death blow to the culture from which it comes and which it forms," Sr Connelly says.

Also speaking at the Forum was visiting Jesuit anthropologist Rev Dr Jojo Fung and former Australian Ambassador to Poland and Cambodia, Mr Tony Kevin.

Former "human shield" in Iraq, Donna Mulhearn, also made an appearance -- her last in Sydney before facing charges in Alice Springs under the Defence (Special Undertakings) Act 1952 which carries maximum penalties of up to seven years in jail.

Sr Connelly's speech will be available on the New Pentecost Forum website tonight. Speeches by Dr Fung and Mr Kevin will be available by request to the media only.

Media contact: 0403 181 586.

Ecumenical justice forum goes international

Date: 15/5/07

Three Asian cities -- Bangkok, Chennai and Kuala Lumpur -- will join Melbourne, Sydney and Wollongong in hosting this year's major ecumenical social justice event, the New Pentecost Forum.

Each city will celebrate the spirit of Pentecost independently and in different ways, organisers say. But all Australian events will feature international speaker Fr Jojo Fung, a Jesuit student chaplain and expert on Malaysia's Indigenous spirituality.

The Melbourne events, starting on 19 May, will look at ways of making next year's World Youth Day -- which is expected to attract 100,000 overseas visitors and generate the equivalent of a million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions -- an environmentally friendly event.

In Sydney on 27 May, the Forum will acknowledge the 1967 referendum recognising Indigenous Australian's rights. It will feature East Timor advocate Josephite Sr Susan Connelly, outspoken former diplomat Tony Kevin and Indigenous leader Graeme Mundine.

In Wollongong, the theme of the gathering on 29 May, "Welcoming Jesus the Stranger in the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit", will coincide with the Wollongong Catholic diocese's Year of Welcome.

The New Pentecost Forum -- collectively one of the largest ecumenical justice events in Australia -- was established in 2005 with the visit of the award-winning co-founder of the World Social Forum, Chico Whitaker.

Interviews with speakers can be arranged by contacting organisers on 0403 181 586.