Thank you Rev Budde

“At the inaugural prayer service, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, made a direct appeal to President Donald Trump to have mercy on the LGBTQ+ community and undocumented migrant workers.” – Associated Press reporter Darlene Superville

In response, Trump demanded an apology, “for embarrassing him by … deliver[ing] a rare rebuke to his face”. No apology was offered.

Subsequent fallout included conservatives criticising her and calling for her deportation.

Here is my response, sent to her by email:

Dear Reverend Budde,

I am writing from Australia to thank you for your recent appeal to President Trump to show kindness and compassion towards marginalised peoples.

I personally know people in Africa who have been accepted as genuine refugees for resettlement in the USA, and they have now been advised that their resettlement has been cancelled by President Trump.

In the darkness and despair of their current situation, your words have given them hope that there are kind and compassionate people with the courage to stand up for decency and humanity.

I also know LGBT+ people in the USA and elsewhere who are indeed scared, and I want to thank you for acknowledging this reality and challenging those in power to consider the human consequences of their attitudes and actions.

I am an atheist and I share your concern for social justice, compassion and human rights. We both admire the principles of the refugee who is the central character of your religion.

Thank you for speaking up for those who have no voice. Thank you for lighting a candle in the darkness.

Yours most respectfully,

Geoff Allshorn
Melbourne, AUSTRALIA.

©2025 Geoff Allshorn

Dreaming of a White Christmas?

Palestine then and now (artist unknown).

If Jesus had come to Australia, he would have been born a First Nations Aussie and, if lucky, he would have avoided his own Massacre of the Innocents as a member of the Stolen Generations.

If he was born in Palestine today, Israeli soldiers would have shot him in his cradle.

In Russia, he may have fallen victim to another Massacre of the Innocents by becoming cannon fodder in an egotistical politician’s war of self aggrandisement.

In Uganda, his family would have denounced his progressive declarations and the government would have sentenced him to death for advocating the human rights of LGBT+ people and other opppressed groups including women.

In the USA today, the MAGA cult would have declared him illegal for cross dressing in a galabaya; and deported him back to die, along with a million other black people.

Happy Christmas.

The lines of the old song declare:

“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know…”

That was a generation ago, before modern communication brought the world together. These days, we cannot be ignorant of the suffering of others across social media – unless we choose to.

These days, we see a clear divide between the western nations and others. Christmas in the west is often one of eating turkeys, ham, foodstuff and sweets, while exhanging gifts and excess. Christmas in most of the world is a time of deprivation, hunger, or ongoing suffering.

Any message of Christmas and deferral to the philosophies of that refugee from Nazareth, is lost in rabid consumerism and consumption and toxic capitalism. Santa is more important than peace on Earth. No room at the inn.

As I write this, I am mindful of the LGBT+ refugees I know across Africa. For Christmas, they are enduring the usual starvation, medical suffering, homelessness due to unpaid rent, detention due to outstanding medical expenses, or hungry children with no food. Seeking consolation in the very same faith that encourages their families and communities to reject or imprison them, they suffer on the one day of the year that possibly means the most to them.

Meanwhile, people in white nations enjoy excess, and overlook the suffering of others. Happy Xmas indeed.

The apartheid of Christmas emphasises the division during the rest of the year. White Christmas? Enjoy it if you are white and affluent.

But maybe ponder the suffering of others – and if humanity means anything to you, listen to your conscience and do something.

©2024 Geoff Allshorn

In Solidarity with Palestine

Commemorating International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,
commenced by the United Nations in 1977.

By Orionist, previous versions by Makaristos, Mysid, etc. – Own work using: Law No. 5 for the year 2006 amending some provisions of Law No. 22 for the year 2005 on the Sanctity of the Palestinian Flag, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=433206

“We are witnessing a genocide in real time”
Spokesperson for the Defense for Children International – Palestine

I’m sorry Ahmed, Ibrahim, Sarah and Jana, Mohamad and Jusuf, and all the other 17,400 children killed by Israel in Gaza since 7 October 2023, along with possibly 20,000 of your mothers, fathers, and other family members.

On behalf of the civilised world, I am sorry for the deaths and genocide across Palestine, I apologise that many international leaders are ignoring the catastrophe (or looking the other way for political reasons), or providing military equipment to the aggressor nation in order to empower this genocide.

I am sorry that a national political and military machinery that purports to represent the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, is itself enacting a new Holocaust. This does NOT reflect the wishes nor morality of many Jewish people in Israel and around the world.

Anti-Semitism

Please understand, kids, that some adults state that your murder is part of a response to a terrible attack on 7 October 2023, during which 38 Jewish children and 1101 other people were also killed. The 7 October atrocity deserved a firm response (one example being the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for the Hamas leadership responsible), but the Israeli response has killed over 40,000 Palestinian civilians and elicited a similar ICC arrest warrant.

We must be careful to avoid inflaming passions on either side of this catastrophe. The hate speech and negative behaviours connected to antisemitism have traditionally focussed upon Jewish people, but Arab people (including Palestinians) should also be protected from antisemitic words and behaviours. Within both Israel and within the diaspora communities of all the world, including Australia, there are strong voices speaking against the war crimes committed against tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians. “Antisemitism” is criminal because it tars all Jews with the brush of genocide, without differentiating. For the same reason, Islamophobia is a crime, because it tars all Muslims as terrorists.

We must be careful that accusations of antisemitism are not trivialised, nor distorted to shut down valid criticism; nor can we ignore the reality of antisemitism and thereby allow hatreds to manifest during this time of division. It must be emphasised that we are all humans with dignity and nobility, and if we want to see humane and just behaviour by those on all sides, then we must set the example.

People in both Israel and Palestine have an equal and inalienable right to live peacefully, freely, autonomously and safely.

Solutions

The genocide against children (and their parents) must stop.

How?

In Humanism and Democratic Criticism, Palestinian-born Edward Said argues:

“Humanism is the only and the final resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history…

“The essence of humanism is to understand human history as a continuous process of self-understanding and self-realization, not just for us, as white, male, European, and American, but for everyone…

“A fair degree of my own political and social activism has assured me that people all over the world can be and are moved by ideals of justice and equality.”(cited in Zakarriya, 2015, 198 – 199).

Israelis and Palestinians must be assisted to sit down together at the negotiation table. It must be made clear that hostilities cannot continue. The ghosts of the Holocaust, and of the genocide in Gaza, demand it.

Palestinian-born poet Mahmoud Darwish has written of Palestine and Israel as a place of both terrible tragedy and incurable optimism:

“This land absorbs the skins of martyrs.
This land promises wheat and stars.”
(Diary of a Palestinian wound)

US President Jimmy Carter has previously called for peace:

“Down through the years, I have seen despair and frustration evolve into optimism and progress and, even now, we need not give up hope for permanent peace for Israelis and freedom and justice for Palestinians if three basic premises are honoured: Israel’s right to exist – and to live in peace – must be recognised and accepted by Palestinians and all other neighbours; the killing of innocent people by bombs or other acts of violence cannot be condoned; and Palestinians must live in peace and dignity, and permanent Israeli settlements on their land are a major obstacle to this goal.”

The Larger Genocide

Palestine is not the only genocide that is being ignored by the world. Other children named Celine, Farah, Ibrahim, Khalid, Sarah and Tala are also dying in Sudan and Yemen and Syria; meanwhile Daniel, Joseph, Marie and Sarah are dying in the Democratic Republic of Congo. One predominant feature of these nations is that the main religion is often Islam (with Christianity as a runner-up); another common feature is the racial/cultural demographics of these children. Either way, our world leaders need to consider why these children (like the children in Gaza) apparently do not currently matter. When seeking to focus on the killings in Gaza, we must not ignore these other deaths. Genocide everywhere must end; the killings must stop.

The world (and the judgement of world history) are watching and judging us all. As Mahmoud Darwish writes about Israelis and Palestinians alike:

“Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me … and I forgot, like you, to die.”
– from In Jerusalem, Mahmoud Darwish, 2007.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Jimmy Carter, 2006. “Jimmy Carter Op-Ed: Colonization of Palestine Precludes Peace, 12 March, Carter Center.

Mahmoud Darwish, 1969. Yawmiyyat jurh filastini (Diary of a Palestinian wound). (Poetry Foundation)
– – – – – – – – -, 2007. In Jerusalem, from The Butterfly’s Burden, (Copper Canyon Press). (Poetry Foundation)

Jihan Zakarriya, 2015. “Humanism in the autobiographies of Edward Said and Nelson Mandela: memory as action”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2015), pp. 198-204.

©2024 Geoff Allshorn

Edited 30 November 2014 to expand and clarify some points, particularly about antisemitism.

A Line in the Sand

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” – Abraham Lincoln.

The Decline and Fall…

In 1988, I stood in southern England, at the site of a reclaimed ancient Roman building. Amidst the mosaics, there was a sign indicating that – if I recall correctly – the building was believed to have belonged to a wealthy English man who claimed Roman citizenship and culture, and who had been alive to witness the withdrawal of Roman soldiers from Britain at the end of the Roman occupation.

I stood there, wondering how he must have felt watching the decline and fall of an empire from his distant vantage point, knowing that the empire was collapsing due to internal rot.

That is how I felt at the time as an Australian citizen, watching from a distance the decline and fall of another great empire due to internal rot encouraged by a mediocre President whose claim to fame was a mediocre Hollywood acting history. It’s also how I feel now, watching the election last week of another US President who is clearly unfit to lead.

My human empathy for this unknown Roman citizen in circa 400 CE now compels me (and all of us) to empathise with the coming suffering of millions of people as they face the consequences of possible white supremacist fascism and theocratic Project 2025 in the USA.

The Coming Storm?

Historians of the future will debate why so many US voters chose the lesser alternative of the candidates – or chose to not vote at all – and discuss whether it is a reflection of mediocre mass media monopolies who feed distortions and lies (or withhold truth) from their audiences; a wider culture of ignorant, narcissistic individualism based upon narrow self-interests or (worse) an entitled racist and misogynist hatred of “the other”; or simply that the privileged grandchildren of those who fought a World War against fascism and the Holocaust have forgotten its legacies of human rights and equality.

As Sarah Connor said in the “Terminator” movie, a storm is coming. We need to build and resource storm shelters now.

But we also need to recognise that the storm is already here. We see that in the fact that millions of otherwise good people are prepared to vote for bad outcomes; and in the realities of climate change that the incoming Administration is about to deny and exacerbate.

Anyone who empathises with others, who cares about the welfare of fellow human beings, or who opposes injustice and inequality, should be worried and compelled to action.

The Line in the Sand

How to respond without hatred and anger? We must surely do our best to respond with the better angels of our nature in mind.

This is not just an election where the populist vote won, like a sports game where one team simply beat another. This is an outcome where harm and cruelty and injustice were selected.

This is not an “us versus them” situation. We are all in this together. We must act individually but for the common good.

This includes being willing to take a stand against the excesses and injustices that will start in the USA and spread around the world. For example, our extended LGBT+ family must be prepared to do what they can to oppose the cultural or physical extermination of trans people or others who are targeted.

But we must also remember an important lesson that Trump voters have forgotten: that human connection and intersectionality are important.

I encourage people to join local, national or international activist or support groups as they feel led. LGBT+ support groups. Women’s rights groups. Abortion advocacy groups. Refugee and immigrant support groups. Public education advocacy groups. Civil rights and human rights groups. Groups opposing the death penalty or unrestricted gun ownership. Community groups or other local volunteer organisations that help homeless people, women, school students, elderly citizens, public health or welfare advocacy. Whatever groups you feel led to support due to your passion for human decency and natural justice. Because we are all in this together.

This is not just a call for people in the USA. Deporting immigrants and refugees based upon their skin colour will kill people around the world, just like it did during Trump’s first Presidency. Encouraging antigay death laws in Uganda or other nations dependent upon US economic support will spread death and hate. Allowing genocide in Ukraine or Palestine or Yemen or Sudan or Congo will diminish us all. Withdrawing humanitarian aid or spreading lies about black people as criminals or rapists will affect the world. Locking children in cages will not build a better world for our children. The rise of Trump populism will encourage a similar rise in other nations.

We can look with horror or disapproval or disgust and abhorrence at those who voted for the diminution of human rights – but what are we going to do about it?

Our collective morality must not equate with those who refused to vote. Inaction is a form of collaboration and complicity for us all.

©2024 Geoff Allshorn.