Justpeace Blog

Kia ora everyone, firstly I just want to say goodbye to a dear sister and friend from Aotearoa New Zealand who was very influential here in Hong Kong from ASA, Ms Helen Te Hira. She departed Hong Kong last night heading for Thailand and then will return home. Tena koe Helen for your aroha, whakaaro me nga mea o tena o tena. Na Paddy Noble.

Ok, Hello everyone. I was talking with Max today about things pertaining to Just Peace issues. And so there are a lot of things that I want to write about for the just peace. Firstly concerning the war in Iraq and other subsequent wars in the world, we are looking at indigenous methods of restoring peace within a society.

The idea is to look at indigenous methods of restoring peace in a society. Using Food, Gender differences, symbolic gestures that lead to actuall peace. Dialogue and many other gestures.

Ok you may be wondering how is this going to restore peace. This is to remind ourselves that in conflicting situations we don't need to spend millions of dollars on warfare, and
the death of innocent lives. We need to find creative, less threatening ways of restoring peace. Several questions need to be asked. Why are we afraid to find creative non threatening diplomatic ways of restoring peace? Is it because the human race relies on institutions of power, money, elite, political influences to gage our methods on more diplomatic measures of restoring a country to a liberating state? The war in Iraq is a prime example of how people like Bush has lost the vision and creativity to find better ways of so called liberation. As we know the motive of this war is economic based, so diplomatic measures were not a priority.

So we need to look at more creative models out there to restore peace. There are indigenous methods out there, as well as more contemporary material. These examples demonstrate to us that we still have value systems out there that bring about a more diplomatic, open minded, means of living in a world that is at harmony with each other.

The interesting thing is that we should also look at the natural elements and environtment as a model of creating a more peaceful society. Since living in Hong Kong for nearly 3 months I'm always amazed to see butterflies in the middle of downtown Mong Kok. Now this tells me that among the self centred life of urban living we cannot escape our need for the life giving elements needed to maintain a healthy life. You may also remember how doves were released as a symbol for peace, so we should also look at how animals place an important in the creative process of creating peace. This does not mean that we exploit them for this reason but we look at them in their natural surroundings to learn something from them.

Maybe we are so reliant on the comfortable living of modernism based on high buildings, computers, cell phones to dictate the modelling of our ability to find peace, that we are looking in the wrong places. That is why such places where conflict exist there is also the cure to restore a sense of justice and peace.

As a gay person wanting to do ministry among GLBT people in Aotearoa New Zealand the Pacific and Asia is to look at indigenous queer models of ministry that help people deal with their sexuality and faith. Therefore in issues of just-peace I feel that GLBT have something to offer to the world in this matter. We have the means to be creative, humour, and to look into our gift from God, our sexuality, as a means of empowering people and societies. Sexuality as a means of holistic healthy living as individuals and as a community.

For example last night I was thinking about how war is often insitigated and colour coated by religion, politics, race, and other ideologies. Whereas for GLBT people who come from these different cultural, religious, political and ideological backgrounds, are bound in commonality by their sexuality. The inner core our sexuality is a place where we can fully know each other and experiences that we endure. Therefore we can look into this and find models that are much healthier in restoring peace. This can be used for many situations.

Last year I did some research on the issues of indigenous issues of sexuality and gender. The First Nations people of Canada and the Native American People considered Queer people as 'Two Spirits' which meant that they were blessed as Sharmans. Two Spirit people were considered important in the community in returning peace within the conflicting community. Two Spirit people were the only people who were allowed to travel into conflicting war areas to retrieve and burry the bodies of the dead. They were given so much respect that it was not possible for them to be killed in conflicting situations. They were also used to return restore peace and to work with poeple who are in conflict with each other.
That is why you will find that many Queer people today are very good pastoral people.

So if we use this as a model of looking at all the commonalities that we have to give us a starting ground to fully understand each other and come together without having to go into war.

Ok this is my talk for the day,

Regards, Paddy Noble. (WSCF/DAGA)
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