serving the faith communities of the Goulburn Valley
Loddon Campaspe Multicultural Services conducts an annual Festival of Cultures in Bendigo. A Multi-Faith Dinner and Forum will take place during the Festival on Wednesday, 18 March. The guest speaker will be Prof. Gary Bouma.
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Andrew Hamilton, consulting editor of Eureka Street has written the following op-ed piece: The Martin Place killings and the Paris murders had one thing in common. They both generated hashtags. #Illridewithyou and #JesuisCharlie (or #IamCharlie) focused popular response to the atrocities. Their simplicity allowed people to express instantly their solidarity with victims and their rejection of violence. But they also raised complex questions.
#Illridewithyou responded to the fear that in the aftermath of the Martin Place siege Muslim Australians would suffer vilification. The hashtag rejected divisiveness in the community and asserted solidarity with its potential targets. But some critics believed that it made a premature and ungrounded judgment of widespread xenophobia in the Australian community, and was even likely to create the response that it feared. Others claimed it obscured the connection they made between Islamic beliefs and the violence.
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The Taize Community are conducting a three year pilgrimage around the world, a pilgrimage of Solidarity. Brothers from Taize will visit Australia and New Zealand. They will visit Melbourne on Saturday, 7 February. Young people are invited to attend.
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Multicultural Arts Victoria will present the 4th Piers Festival on Sunday 25th January 2015 (over the Australia Day weekend) at the Port Melbourne piers precinct, featuring a diverse range of music, dance, food, forums and historical exhibitions that celebrate and reflect on the collective migration stories at this significant entry point where almost half of the 180,000 post World War II refugees to Australia arrived. The Piers Festival brings to life the Port Melbourne piers precinct, celebrating the pivotal role it played from 1915 to 1969 in Victoria’s growth and as a gateway to the diversity of cultures that enrich our community.
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The Shepparton Interfaith Network is saddened by the terror attacks at Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
These acts do not reflect the harmony and integration we experience in the Goulburn Valley among our many faith communities.
These acts are a betrayal of Islamic values and principles.
The Shepparton Interfaith Network sends condolences and prayers to the loved ones of those killed, those wounded, and the French people.
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An ancient religious divide is helping fuel a resurgence of conflicts in the Middle East and Muslim countries. Struggles between Sunni and Shia forces have fed a Syrian civil war that threatens to transform the map of the Middle East, spurred violence that is fracturing Iraq, and widened fissures in a number of tense Gulf countries. Growing sectarian clashes have also sparked a revival of transnational jihadi networks that poses a threat beyond the region. We present a video from the Council for Foreign Relations.
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