Monday 3 October 2011

Mayors for Peace - Does Cairns measure up?

For October, Cairns becomes a mini vortex of global peace making. Local peace activists Margaret Pestorius and Patricia Gates welcome an important exhibition, showing for the first time ever in Australia.

The A-Bomb exhibition of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum will be at the Tanks Arts Centre. Mr Hiromi Hasai, a survivor of the Hiroshima A-Bomb will be in Cairns to open the exhibition and participate in a public forum on 21 October 2011.

Kathy Kelly, a world-renown activist from Chicago, will also present a forum in Cairns, on Thursday 20th October.

Pestorius and Gates critique how the people of Cairns can contribute to a more peaceful world.


This month Cairns becomes an epicentre of global peace making. Showing for the first time ever in Australia, the A-Bomb exhibition of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum will be at the Tanks Arts Centre. Mr Hiromi Hasai, a survivor of the Hiroshima A-Bomb will be in Cairns to open the exhibition and participate in a public forum on 21 October 2011.

This is one of a series of events and exhibitions the centre is calling “War in Profile” which has been initiated
as part of the global Mayors for Peace campaign. Mayors for peace has 4,800 members around the world. Cairns Regional Council joined in 2010.

Also in October Cairns Peace by Peace is hosting a key global activist from Chicago in the USA. Kathy Kelly is coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and has been internationally recognised for her humanitarian and nonviolence work in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza. Kathy has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kathy will be giving a public address at Cairns Regional Council's civic reception. Kelly will present “The Cost of War: the Price of Peace” on Thursday 20 October, 6pm. She will also explore and strengthen the organisation of peace.

It will be a privilege to meet and hear from these distinguished international guests. We’ll hear from the past and the present, from Asia and America, from the mainstream and the radical core of peace activism on our planet. What could be better than that?

Well... now that you ask, let’s have a look at some of the things going on in Cairns.

Advance Cairns, the Cairns Chamber of Commerce, and the Cairns Regional Council, with the support of Mayor Val Schier, are all hard at work lobbying for an expansion of HMAS Cairns, and an increased rate of recreational visits by US warships to Cairns. The context of this lobbying is a “force posture review” by the Australian government. The Australian review is being carried out in parallel to a US “force posture review”.

The US has decided to increase its military presence in Australia, particularly northern and western Australia to meet a number of objectives:
  • Australia is a convenient location for naval and marine forces preparing to fight in either East Asia (against China) or the Indian Ocean (key to the middle east). Australia is said to be “out of range” of the ballistic missile exchange that is expected in the event of armed conflict with China. Thus Australia can maintain a forward deployed US counter strike force.

  • Australia is a convenient location for training air, naval, marine and army forces in a variety of terrains and conditions.

  • Australia is a politically convenient location for R&R to naval crews plying the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The US Navy can no longer source these services anywhere else in SE Asia.

  • The political formula already announced by Canberra is that US forces will have full access to Australian bases in northern Australia. This the same formula used between the US and Afghanistan.

  • ADF bases in Townsville and Darwin have already been tagged for direct expansion to accommodate increasing US forces, and Cairns will see more US warships making port visits.
So the Cairns Regional Council is joining Mayors for Peace on the one hand, and directly supporting US military adventurism on the other. Mayors for Peace gets an art exhibition. Cairns for War gets a professional lobbying exercise and the full support of our civic leadership.

Does Cairns measure up as a city for peace? No.

Should it?

The Community Development Branch of the Cairns Regional Council is organising a “Mayors for Peace” workshop to “explore the way forward for our city in its role as a city for peace”.

We’d like to participate in that forum and suggest that the best thing Cairns could do as a city of peace is to question US militarism and facilitate public discussion every time a US warship comes to town. Are we able to use the Mayors for Peace project to improve the performance of Cairns Regional Council?
  • Contact Margaret 0403 21 44 22 or Trisha 0405 391 608 for more information

17 comments:

nomooremike said...

Aren't the armed forces here to maintain peace?

Does Australia maintain a military to fight wars or protect our country?

Is the US at war in the Pacific?

More one-sided claptrap, no wonder the fat fucker likes it here.

Michael P Moore said...

You need some reading glasses, as this article was written by Margaret Pestorius and Tricia Gates.

Your continual use of the term 'fat fucker' says more about you than anyone you intend to insult.

KitchenSlut said...

I respect that this post is not directly from Bryan Law. However, as posted elsewhere, the biggest supporter of an expansion of HMAS Cairns .... has been ..... Gavin King?

Indeed, I think Gav lauded it as a saviour and key focus for the Cairns economy?

Hello? Can hypocrisy take a back seat for a change>

KitchenSlut said...

P.S. King actually looked like a Jehovas Witness on TV at the LNP pre-selection! He should at least consult his closer ideological soulmate Kev Rudd when it comes to taste in ties!

Bryan Law said...

Gee KS, what a sophisticated view of politics you have. I support Gavin because he'll run a process that's fair and inclusive - not because he and I agree on everything.

The ALP are so hard-boiled in their exclusive factional bossism they are incapable of inclusive politics.

Go Gavin you good thing.

Syd Walker said...

I've heard Fox News describe itself as "Balanced and Fair" and thought I'd most likely never hear anything quite as idiotic again. But I was wrong.

Gavin King is "Inclusive & Fair"
Ignorance is Strength
War is Peace

At least irony isn't dead in our town.

Bryan Law said...

"At least irony isn't dead in our town". But Syd, I thought the Jews stole it. My God! Is Gavin a Jew?

nomooremike said...

"this article was written by Margaret Pestorius and Tricia Gates."

I don't care who wrote it, my comments stand, I've got family in the military putting their lives on the line for this country, only to be run down by a bunch of publicity seeking arseholes.


"Your continual use of the term 'fat fucker' says more about you than anyone you intend to insult."

The fat fucker has called people far worse on here, but then he's your mate so it doesn't count.

KitchenSlut said...

You certainly can disagree with someone you more generally support Bwyan. I do so all the time as we all should expect.

However, it becomes hypocritical when that person is excluded from criticism while his political opponents are lambasted for, if anything, more moderate opinions? This hypocrisy is emphasised when it is your fave issue of judgement.

With regards my sophisticated view of politics I think any comments I have made on Gav's appallling JW tie can not possibly be less sophisticated than Gav's comments on Val's hair?

Terry Vance said...

Well said KitchenSlut, as usual. Is Gav a Jew? Interesting question because Americans who read my blog have been telling me that a person can claim Jewry through their mother and their mother's mother's mother, if they want to. There is a certain name to that type of Jewry. Anyway apparently several American Senators and Congressmen have claimed Jewry under these rather tenuous conditions.

Bryan Law said...

It's true then. Gavin King eats Christian babies while they're still alive!

Terry Vance said...

King "inclusive and fair"? Except for women, aborigines, boat people, Muslims, drug addicts, disturbed teens, greenies, the ALP,and unionists. But oh, King embraces Bryan Law, so of course he is "inclusive and fair." Well, now we know. ROFL ROFL

KitchenSlut said...

Jewry? If he doorknocks Kitchenslut with that white shirt and tie I'll just give him back my accumulated collection of Watchtower!

KitchenSlut said...

By the way am thinking that when the corflutes come out we could spray paint a Bwyan Law parrot face onto the shoulder of Gav's corflutes?

Would this be cool Bwyan? If Gav took any action or even made any comment what would you reckon??

Terry Vance said...

Brilliant idea KitchenSlut. We can paint a Bryan Law parrot sitting on King's shoulder, with the very catchy caption, "Women deserve rape!"

Bryan Law said...

I reckon that even if you had the courage to do it, you'd fuck up the execution.

But go hard guys. Go hard.

Terry Vance said...

The million dollar question Bryan is that if King blames drunken women for being raped, does that apply to maggotted men who find themselves poked? Or is that a different story? One rule for women, another one for men? Maybe you might like to have a few drinks with him to find out?