Peace is precious and comes at a cost. Regardless of NZ export interests, we have a duty toward security in our international community.

At the same time, before committing this warship, and the millions required to keep it at sea, the government, and all of us, must ask questions. Like is this solution we’ve been asked to invest in sustainable?

Questions like who are these pirates and what are the causes of the piracy? And does the proposed solution address the issues sufficiently?

It is a fact that the brains behind most of the Somali pirate operations are former fishermen. It’s also a fact that ransoms are lucrative in a country with no jobs, no economy and reliant on aid.

What wasn’t initially thought a fact, were local allegations that toxic dumping was poisoning their waters and shorelines. Until in March 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme reported systematic dumping of radioactive uranium, lead, cadmium, mercury and other forms of industrial, hospital and chemical waste in Somali waters, after testing hundreds of rusted, leaking barrels washed up on Somali shores after the December 2004 tsunami. (Also reported was that dumping uranium in Europe cost $250 per kg at the time while dumping it in unpatrolled Somali waters cost $2.50.)

Research shows that fishermen initially formed ‘coastguard’ patrols, in the absence of a national navy, which ceased to exist following a U.S.-funded Ethiopian invasion in 1991, which precipitated the collapse of the Somali government and economy. Over two decades these morphed into the present-day piracy operations. A further allegation brought initially, was that illegal fishing was harming local livelihoods and food sources.

This too became fact in 2006, when the United Nations reported that US$300 million worth of tuna, sardines, mackerel, lobsters and shark were illegally fished from Somali waters, annually, since the government’s collapse in 1991. This fishing was carried out by European and Asian trawlers.

Which begs other questions: Does this patrol we’re being asked to join also send back trawlers and dumpers?

Or will we be protecting them, while ploughing scarce resources into surface containment that doesn’t address the causes or complexity of an issue and that hasn’t brought the world’s strongest navies any lasting success in 5 years of operation?  Couldn’t the millions spent on patrols be more effective in ending piracy if spent on development within Somalia?

I pray for wisdom as our government questions the history and proposed action before committing our servicepeople and millions of dollars. I expect that this be done with at least the same fervour as the questioning and testing of ways to reduce support to single parents, the sick, the mentally ill and early childhood education currently underway

But it is surprising, and quite poignant, to see it highlighted on the front page of the most read newspaper in our country’s power-centre.

We proudly count Aotearoa New Zealand among the fairest of societies. Yet a caring look shows how fairness may find itself relative to power; even here.And so its positive to see this mainstream attempt to shine a beam into the structures of our systems. I pray that this exploration continues.I also pray that it moves beyond simply looking at equity in our ‘Punishment Systems’.

In Biblical interpretations, crime is a symptom of an unwell society, and each criminal act a wound that hurts its ‘wholeness’. Justice is meant to be the salve that heals, recreating lost wholeness.So I find it upside-down in a way, to speak of an equalizing of punishment, for powerful and powerless, without speaking of an equalizing of healing – for the individuals concerned, and also for the wider human family of whom they are part.

Jesus’ response to injustice, was to heal. His last act as a free man, in Gethsemane, in the face of an overwhelming injustice, was to heal. (Lk 22:51).

What if our paradigm for justice were to alter, from ‘Crime and Punishment’, to ‘Hurt and Healing’?

Maybe that would allow us to measure justice by its capacity to heal – like those who are seeking the wider establishment of restorative justice here in our land.

Sentences are imposed when laws are broken. The sentenced are distanced – through severing community ties, diminishing mana, limiting freedom. Yet they remain part of our family, and will return.

We can control the nature and quality of that return.

I pray that as we see discussion of the ‘Sentencing Gap’,

we better understand the silent injustice of our ‘Healing Gap’.

Being named the world’s most peaceful nation is a special opportunity for me to pause and reflect. And to savour, celebrate and give thanks for this special peace that covers our beautiful land.

In November 2009, we were also ranked the world’s least corrupt nation¹. Both these plaudits come at the expense of Scandinavian countries, which for many years have been models of social harmony, but have recently been affected by the financial crisis and its consequences for all.

We have since learnt how this global crisis was caused by the greed of a few with disproportionate power and access, enabled by the flaws in our existing structures. While many Kiwis have felt some of the effects, we’re blessed to have been spared the worst.

At a homily given in Christchurch in November 1986, Pope John Paul II said that “Peace in the world can never be won so long as injustice controls the relationships among people and social and economic imbalances are allowed to continue”. As I reflect, I feel that acknowledging the relative justice and fairness of our society – and seeking to protect and build on our achievements – are precious keys to our peace.

I acknowledge we have wounds, yet to be healed. I pray that as we work toward healing, we continue to show the respect for each other’s dignity, that has earned us our peace, and enabled our mahi in bringing peace elsewhere in our world. I am reminded of the image given to us by the NZ Bishops, of Te Kahu-o-te-ora²; the sacred cloak of integrity and wholeness that embraces all aspects of human life. Strengthen and perfect our peace, Lord – our kahu – and as it preserves and protects us, may it flow out, bringing others into its embrace.

The article partly attributes our ranking to our government. I pray for wisdom for our leaders, that they may continue to keep us a fair, just and united country that seeks social justice and the common good.

¹ http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5AH0HA20091118

² http://catholic.org.nz/statements/9704_consistent.php

There are signs of a dangerous and insidious dehumanisation becoming increasingly apparent.

They’re now trying to “vigorously” and “rigorously” draw neat lines classifying invalid and sick Kiwis, some with long-term mental illness, many of whom have been ill for years. All this to bash those on the fringes of our society further down from $243 to $194 per week?

Why put all this energy into trying to make black and white areas of mental illness and sickness, when any mistake will end up costing so much more in terms of hardship, longer recovery, and damage to Human Dignity?

Wouldn’t efforts be better directed, (from the point of view of both social justice and cost-effectiveness) in improving systems to detect, prosecute and recover the tax-avoiding efforts of companies and individuals at the other end of the spectrum?

Wouldn’t this be a truer pursuit of the Common Good that Catholic Social Teaching implores us to seek as a basic tenet of our lives?

On Christmas Eve 2009, New Zealand’s big four banks and the Inland Revenue Department announced a settlement of their disputes over structured finance deals that involved the banks paying the government a gross $2.2 billion. And this was just 80% of the total tax owed plus interest. This ‘settlement’ left them still holding on to $550 million of ours, the taxpayers, money.

How many more of these sophisticated, complex transactions pass untaxed through the loopholes of our tax system? To say nothing of the vagaries of Trust Law and other tax mitigation measures which have legions of dedicated experts giving advice?

Do we accept this without batting an eyelid, then suddenly become morally outraged when it comes to $49 per week to a person either an invalid or ill?

Simply stating an increase in the number of invalids beneficiaries is a smoke screen.

• How is this affected by an ageing population?
• How many are genuine cases who for one reason or another were unfairly left out previously?
• And how many are those who simply did not know they could access this benefit before in the first place?

Many people are not told they are entitled to benefits, and miss out. In the case of Temporary Additional Support, for example, 4 out of every 10 beneficiaries entitled to this were missing out as at Dec 2009.

Also alarming is the way in which the current government is going about making these and other important and potentially life altering changes without any sort of consultation with those affected.

The Social Teaching of the Catholic Church clearly calls us to raise our voices against this modus operandi. The Principle of Subsidiarity emphasizes that people or groups most directly affected by a decision or policy should have a key decision making role. The total lack of consultation with beneficiaries and beneficiary groups is openly acknowledged in Ministry of Social Development papers analysing these welfare changes.

Faith calls us to be active in seeking justice for all, here and now, to stand up and raise our voices in solidarity for the Common Good, against the evidence of unjust structures.

That Mr. Harawira was later unrepentant, after knowing that many thought his decision unfair, may be put down to stubbornness, again something that many of us are prone to – not just those who seek positions of leadership, authority, power…

Our elected leaders, people with power, are not immune from making errors of judgment, nor from being stubborn, like us. However, we can and we must, hold them to higher standard at times. I feel now is one of those times.

Power, coupled with hatred, is a dangerous thing in any person.

When do people show true emotion? In the limelight, when forced? Or in private, in conversations we think will not come to light?

If a person with power, elected to a leadership position, is willing to voice words of action, or re-action, which openly show hatred; it is a divisive and dangerous thing, which should be very seriously pointed out, examined and addressed. But how do we do this in a way that positively engages and attempts to reduce these feelings, instead of exacerbating them?

We can only hope that reactions like this fade away in our collective memories…

…but perhaps not before they also provoke us into a deeper examination of our own hearts. Can they remind us to hold ourselves to higher standards too? To be conscious of the feelings and words we dare not express in public spheres, but may voice with friends, in conversation, in email, in jokes…

Many who have suffered generations of injustice respond everyday in ways which show great mana: integrity, strength, grace, tolerance, resilience, pride. Without needing violence of deed, or word, they powerfully remind our hearts of the distance we are yet to travel toward reconciliation.

Only their acts can provide positive unifying leadership in our story, which remains torn and still needs healing, as we search for justice, pray for it, and look for ways to make our awareness and our small acts count