World Council of Churches - Feature
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For immediate release: 12 July 2004


Kobia issues two challenges to Australian Christians



By Nick Kerr (*)
Free photos are available (see below)
Cf. WCC press update PU-04-33 of 9 July 2004
Cf. WCC press update PU-04 32 of 7 July 2004
Cf. WCC press release PR-04-16 of 1 July 2004

Just before he left Australia on 11 July, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia issued two challenges to Australian Christians. In a final interview shortly before catching a flight to Fiji, he appealed to Christians to visit detention centres like Baxter Detention Facility, see the conditions for themselves, and be like good Samaritans to the detainees held there; and to support Aboriginal people who feel their self-determination is being threatened by government moves to abolish the elected ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission) and replace it with an appointed advisory council.

The general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) had been attending the National Council of Churches (NCCA) in Australia's forum in Adelaide, South Australia. Before the NCCA forum, he spent a day with Aboriginal people in Port Augusta and three hours visiting detainees in Baxter, just outside Port Augusta.

Baxter - a shocking reality

"I appeal for as many Christians as possible to visit these centres and show love and care to the detainees," he said. "Many of those I talked with in Baxter expressed their happiness at being visited by ministers and priests of the Uniting Church, Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church. They also said that they would very much like to have more Christian people visiting them."

Kobia was visibly distressed by what he saw at Baxter, where about 250 asylum-seekers are being held. "I'd read and heard about the detention centres," he said. "But I must say I wasn't prepared for what I saw. I was really shocked, firstly by the physical reality - the high fences, the forbidding gates. I couldn't understand what made the government detain these asylum-seekers, who are not criminals, in a maximum security prison. Because that's what it looked like to me, a prison.
"That was one of the shocks I had. Then I looked at the detainees' faces. Many of them crowded around me, wanting just to whisper a few words. Almost all of them asked: 'Please, can you tell our story? And can you help to get us out of here?' I came out of Baxter with more than pity. I left wanting justice done, but also with the feeling of how much these people need Christian hospitality."

Kobia said he had talked with many church leaders during his four-day visit to Australia. "Many of them have read my comments in the media about Baxter and the conditions there," he said. "Most agreed with what I said. I felt encouraged by that. I'd like to believe that many of them will continue to advocate with the government on behalf of these detainees."

Aboriginal expectations at lowest ebb

Kobia also stressed that he was concerned about the situation of Australia's Indigenous people, and his comments on this topic made news headlines as well.

Kobia visited the Pika Wiya Aboriginal Health Service outside Port Augusta, founded with a WCC grant 30 years ago, and spent an evening hosted by the Aboriginal Faith Community, which is run by the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, the Indigenous arm of the Uniting Church in Australia.

Expressing his concern, Kobia noted that "After all these years of tremendous efforts on their part, and after all the expressions of solidarity they've had from the Australian churches and the ecumenical movement world-wide, it was very depressing to hear Aboriginal leaders say that their expectations of an improvement in their conditions are now at their lowest ebb. For the government to abolish ATSIC is the worst blow that could have been dealt the Aboriginal people at this time."

"The government wants to replace ATSIC, composed of people who were elected by Indigenous people themselves, with a hand-picked advisory council. The Aboriginal people see this as a way of denying them their rights to self-determination and what they see as the legitimate voice of the Aboriginal people," he explained.

However, he was "encouraged by the covenant between churches and Aboriginal people, the Sorry Day that's being observed for the 'Stolen Generations' (Aboriginal children who were taken away from their parents) and the memorial to them in Canberra. These efforts towards healing and reconciliation by the Australian churches will continue and be strengthened by our solidarity."

Kobia said that the churches had spoken out clearly on these issues. "(Rev. Professor) James Haire, the president of the National Council of Churches in Australia, said that what the government should have done was not to abolish ATSIC but to fix whatever problems there were with its leadership. He also said that the government shouldn't have taken any action against ATSIC without consultation with the Aboriginal people."

Asked if he thought that the Australian government's policies were racist, Kobia commented:
"When I consider the way the Aboriginal people are treated here, and listening to them, I would say that one cannot avoid detecting some racist tendencies. I wouldn't, however, call the
Australian people, or Australia as a country, racist in the same way I would have called South Africa racist in the apartheid period. There are very commendable initiatives and efforts that the Australian people have made, both the churches and other communities. But in any society like this, you will find individuals, or maybe some extreme organizations, that would want to continue with racist attitudes."

"Guantanamo without the shackles"

At a press conference in Adelaide the next day (Friday, July 9) Kobia called on the Australian government to abandon its policy of mandatory detention of asylum-seekers. He said the policy violates human rights and is un-Christian.

"The image of Australia has been damaged by what is happening in these detention camps," he said. "I think it's a great disservice to Australia to have this kind of policy and to maintain the types of camps I saw yesterday."

Kobia said the Baxter high-tech detention centre was like a "maximum security prison". "This reminded me of the pictures I have seen of Guantanamo Bay - without the shackles and the uniforms. But then there is the electrical fence."

Kobia talked to detainees attending a worship service; some 60 to 70 of them attend Christian services in the facility's visitors' centre every week.

"I could clearly see people who are depressed. Many of them complain of psychological and emotional torture because there they are, day in and day out, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. They feel that even criminals who have been imprisoned are better off in that they know how long the sentence they are serving will last."

Light and shadow

Kobia returned to the theme of the detainees when he addressed the NCCA forum the next day (Saturday, July 10): "Refugees and migrants have enriched Australian society and made it into a wonderful multi-cultural society. Australia also has a long tradition of supporting the international system of refugee protection, of supporting UN endeavours and international legal norms on refugees and asylum-seekers. However, policies adopted by the Australian government in the last five years have called into question this legacy and have damaged Australia's reputation abroad."

Among those policies, he mentioned the Australian system of visa controls that is intended to keep people fleeing persecution at home from arriving at Australia's borders; the existence of detention centres in which asylum-seekers are mandatorily detained for an indefinite period; the policy of Temporary Protection Visas where individuals who are recognized as refugees are only allowed to remain in the country temporarily; and the so-called "Pacific solution" in which asylum-seekers who were en route to Australia are "warehoused" in the small country of Nauru.

On the other hand, Kobia also congratulated Australia for receiving many hundreds of Sudanese refugees in the last two to three years, and for sending relief to those who have fled from the ethnic cleansing in West Dafur. "There are a million Sudanese refugees in Chad," he said.
"Many of them will die of hunger and disease within the month if enough aid does not reach them." He also congratulated Christian World Service, the relief arm of the NCCA, on its special appeal for these refugees.

The Good Samaritan

The next day (Sunday, July 11) Kobia preached on the Good Samaritan reading in St Peter's Anglican Cathedral. "For churches and Christians in Australia, reaching out to the strangers in your midst or advocating with the government in an increasingly difficult climate is not easy," he said. "Nevertheless, if we are to be faithful to the gospel - to welcome the stranger and work for justice - we have no choice. It must be our task and responsibility to open our eyes to the uprooted among us."

(Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia is presently - 12-15 July - visiting Fiji on the third leg of a tour in Asia and the Pacific.)

Nick Kerr is communications officer of the Uniting Church in South Australia and editor of its publication New Times nick@sa.uca.org.au

Free photos on the visit of Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia to Australia are available at the website of the Uniting Church in South Australia
www.sa.uca.org.au/pages/news/ncca/

Opinions expressed in WCC Features do not necessarily reflect WCC policy. This material may be reprinted freely, providing credit is given to the author.

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.