World Refugee Day

Well I made it to the World Refugee Day rally & march, just missing a few speeches after going to the worship ministry meeting at Gracepoint. The meeting was really good as well & I'll be back to playing bass once a fortnight as of the 11th of July. I met a few friends at the rally, Ben & Sole, & Jodie & their friend Kate who I hadn't met before. We did end up running down the road to catch up with the end of the march, but that was because Catherine from 2SER was interviewing us & Sole & Jodie got busy signing petitions after the march had started. I had signed the ones I wanted to sign earlier. After walking around the blocks between Market & Bathurst & Hyde Park & George Sts & yelling "Free the refugees, now" & "Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here" until our voices were hoarse we got back to the park for a few more speeches. I left when someone from an organisation that had been distributing a petition to have someone declared "not a terrorist" because "armed resistance is legitimate" started preaching about how to solve the problem of refugees we really need to deal with the wars causing the problem. Actually what she was saying was quite right - refugees would rather be living in their own countries than fleeing in overcrowded unsafe boats to places where they get locked up for years before being released into the community (in the 90% of cases that are found to be legitimate), & if there were no wars there would be no refugees. It's just that the utter hypocrisy & complete stupidity of some of these groups that would support anyone doing anything as long as it's against the government & do things like disrupt funerals for indigenous Australians with their chanting & slogans even when everyone has been asked to observe a minutes silence really gets to me.

Blessings,
Joe :-)