[Music]
[Applause]
in 2014 two Vietnamese high school
students were suddenly taken out of my
community and placed into immigration
detention they’d received a letter from
the government that said their presence
in the community was no longer in the
public interest they’ve been living in
Australia as unaccompanied minors here
seeking asylum from political and
religious persecution a week after
receiving this letter just as they got
home from school still in their school
uniforms immigration officials and
federal police showed up at their house
told them to pack all their belongings
in a black plastic bag and then whisked
them away to invar Brockie detention
center just outside of Adelaide at 3
o’clock the next morning they were woken
up taken by four guards two different
planes flown via different cities and
then landed in Wickham Point detention
center in Darwin 2600 kilometers away
ready for deportation immediately about
a dozen other children who feared they
could be next went into hiding and
supporters protesting this outrage
organized a rally on the steps of
Parliament House and I was one of the
guest speakers some of the friends of
these students who were also at risk of
being deported came to the rally they
wanted to show solidarity with their
friends but also to hide their
identities some of them wore masks
others stood behind the pillars at
Parliament House hoping to not have
their faces shown on TV
I remember seeing tears streaming down
their faces as I stood up to soliloquy
about injustice and the unnecessary
cruelty of our asylum seekers system and
then I remember thinking to myself I get
to go home after this
after this is over all drive home and
put my kids in the car and we’ll go to
the playground I’ll sit down with my
wife and I’ll plan our next day the next
week our next year’s after all my fine
rhetoric and passionate campaigning I
get to go home to my comfortable life
I don’t live the nightmare but we often
use the nightmarish experiences of
people enduring injustice to sell a
different story to people of privilege
like me we say become an advocate a
donor a volunteer join this campaign and
you’ll feel fulfilled like you’re making
a difference you’ll get to have exciting
and diverse experiences with like-minded
people
you’ll feel enriched like you’re really
making a difference if you do it well
enough and long enough there will be
awards and accolades and a and a career
you have a great reputation you’ll know
you’re a good person you’ll leave a
legacy and people will remember you for
the way that you served others we tell
people there’ll be a return on their
compassion and so we build charities and
organizations and movements around
shared values and a vision for achieving
measurable change for others our
organizations or movements the movements
they sit within develop common language
and ideology and methodologies for
change our activist communities and
organizations develop cultural norms
rituals and rites of passage we start to
recognize our people by their strict
adherence to acceptable opinions
behaviors and relationships and this is
how the return on your compassion is
apportioned I received my first death
after I put out a statement as a pastor
of my local church in support of halal
certification for milk products a fellow
Christian wrote to me and among other
things said I’ll come to your church and
rip your tongue from your body to stop
you from ever blaspheming again you
might be able to imagine the response
when our church announced that we would
fully include people of LGBT IQ
community in the life and leadership of
our church what happens when your
expectation that you’ll personally
benefit from your involvement in making
the world a better place is not met what
if the very things that are required to
achieve the outcomes you signed up to
fight for or that define your
organization come at great personal cost
or organizational cost in order to
achieve them what if the things that
need to be said or done to achieve
better outcomes for others lead to
poorer outcomes for you and your family
what if the right decision for the
people for whom you advocate is not the
same as the right decision for the cash
flow mailing list or reputation of the
organization you’ve worked so hard to
build when you stand at the intersection
of self-interest and transformational
change who wins as a pastor I see that
being involved in activist movements
provides many of the same benefits of
being involved in a religion you have
ideological certainty you have a
framework for making sense of the world
cultural norms that let you know you
belong there’s a list of righteous acts
and evil sins and purity is rewarded
with regular affirm a
as an activist I know that if you break
any of those rules you lose all of those
benefits you don’t lose your salvation
but you lose your status as a righteous
comrade but sometimes the words your
movement wants to hear are not the words
that will lead to better outcomes for
people sometimes the actions your
supporters demand of you are not the
actions that will lead to changing lives
or society for the better when activism
is practiced like a religion it becomes
more important to say the right things
at the right time with the right amounts
of vitriol than to achieve outcomes for
people when activism is practice like
religion it becomes less important to
get outcomes for people and more
important to protect the institutions
and brand names that were first set up
to achieve those very outcomes we start
out with really pure intentions but we
can fall into the trap of elevating the
importance of our ideology our
reputation or our brand over the
importance of change for people who need
change most what if the only thing we
were truly dogmatic about was achieving
better outcomes for people communities
and our society would that make our
activist communities and organizations
safe places to discuss strategy
narrative achievable goals and even to
propose solutions that might put us out
of business but will change someone’s
life for the better my friend Jared
McKenna says some people are so addicted
to being right they get in the way of
the world
being made right some people are so
addicted to being right they get in the
way of the world being made right we
need to remember that it’s not an
ideology or a brand that we’re fighting
for where victory can be measured in
trending on Twitter or shaming the
opposition or scoring points in a
debate winning isn’t being the most pure
or the most righteous or getting the
most likes the biggest mailing list or
the largest marketshare
winning is achieving meaningful change
experienced by real people can we not
get sucked in by the promise of being
someone or building something instead
can we simply risk it all for the sake
of others and so I’m not asking you
today to be creative and clever
campaigners or innovative activists or
passionate progressives I’m not asking
you to commit to leaving a legacy or
building a thriving organization I’m
asking you to simply love people love
people more than you love your place in
the cause need social transformation
more than you need to get good stats on
your next campaign or win the next
tender or get the next promotion the
question I had to ask myself that day at
Parliament House and every day when I’m
confronted again by the reality of other
people’s nightmare is do I expect
something back for my solidarity do I
expect a return on my compassion and I
leave that same question with you now do
you expect a return on your compassion
thank you
you
[Applause]
in 2014 two Vietnamese high school
students were suddenly taken out of my
community and placed into immigration
detention they’d received a letter from
the government that said their presence
in the community was no longer in the
public interest they’ve been living in
Australia as unaccompanied minors here
seeking asylum from political and
religious persecution a week after
receiving this letter just as they got
home from school still in their school
uniforms immigration officials and
federal police showed up at their house
told them to pack all their belongings
in a black plastic bag and then whisked
them away to invar Brockie detention
center just outside of Adelaide at 3
o’clock the next morning they were woken
up taken by four guards two different
planes flown via different cities and
then landed in Wickham Point detention
center in Darwin 2600 kilometers away
ready for deportation immediately about
a dozen other children who feared they
could be next went into hiding and
supporters protesting this outrage
organized a rally on the steps of
Parliament House and I was one of the
guest speakers some of the friends of
these students who were also at risk of
being deported came to the rally they
wanted to show solidarity with their
friends but also to hide their
identities some of them wore masks
others stood behind the pillars at
Parliament House hoping to not have
their faces shown on TV
I remember seeing tears streaming down
their faces as I stood up to soliloquy
about injustice and the unnecessary
cruelty of our asylum seekers system and
then I remember thinking to myself I get
to go home after this
after this is over all drive home and
put my kids in the car and we’ll go to
the playground I’ll sit down with my
wife and I’ll plan our next day the next
week our next year’s after all my fine
rhetoric and passionate campaigning I
get to go home to my comfortable life
I don’t live the nightmare but we often
use the nightmarish experiences of
people enduring injustice to sell a
different story to people of privilege
like me we say become an advocate a
donor a volunteer join this campaign and
you’ll feel fulfilled like you’re making
a difference you’ll get to have exciting
and diverse experiences with like-minded
people
you’ll feel enriched like you’re really
making a difference if you do it well
enough and long enough there will be
awards and accolades and a and a career
you have a great reputation you’ll know
you’re a good person you’ll leave a
legacy and people will remember you for
the way that you served others we tell
people there’ll be a return on their
compassion and so we build charities and
organizations and movements around
shared values and a vision for achieving
measurable change for others our
organizations or movements the movements
they sit within develop common language
and ideology and methodologies for
change our activist communities and
organizations develop cultural norms
rituals and rites of passage we start to
recognize our people by their strict
adherence to acceptable opinions
behaviors and relationships and this is
how the return on your compassion is
apportioned I received my first death
after I put out a statement as a pastor
of my local church in support of halal
certification for milk products a fellow
Christian wrote to me and among other
things said I’ll come to your church and
rip your tongue from your body to stop
you from ever blaspheming again you
might be able to imagine the response
when our church announced that we would
fully include people of LGBT IQ
community in the life and leadership of
our church what happens when your
expectation that you’ll personally
benefit from your involvement in making
the world a better place is not met what
if the very things that are required to
achieve the outcomes you signed up to
fight for or that define your
organization come at great personal cost
or organizational cost in order to
achieve them what if the things that
need to be said or done to achieve
better outcomes for others lead to
poorer outcomes for you and your family
what if the right decision for the
people for whom you advocate is not the
same as the right decision for the cash
flow mailing list or reputation of the
organization you’ve worked so hard to
build when you stand at the intersection
of self-interest and transformational
change who wins as a pastor I see that
being involved in activist movements
provides many of the same benefits of
being involved in a religion you have
ideological certainty you have a
framework for making sense of the world
cultural norms that let you know you
belong there’s a list of righteous acts
and evil sins and purity is rewarded
with regular affirm a
as an activist I know that if you break
any of those rules you lose all of those
benefits you don’t lose your salvation
but you lose your status as a righteous
comrade but sometimes the words your
movement wants to hear are not the words
that will lead to better outcomes for
people sometimes the actions your
supporters demand of you are not the
actions that will lead to changing lives
or society for the better when activism
is practiced like a religion it becomes
more important to say the right things
at the right time with the right amounts
of vitriol than to achieve outcomes for
people when activism is practice like
religion it becomes less important to
get outcomes for people and more
important to protect the institutions
and brand names that were first set up
to achieve those very outcomes we start
out with really pure intentions but we
can fall into the trap of elevating the
importance of our ideology our
reputation or our brand over the
importance of change for people who need
change most what if the only thing we
were truly dogmatic about was achieving
better outcomes for people communities
and our society would that make our
activist communities and organizations
safe places to discuss strategy
narrative achievable goals and even to
propose solutions that might put us out
of business but will change someone’s
life for the better my friend Jared
McKenna says some people are so addicted
to being right they get in the way of
the world
being made right some people are so
addicted to being right they get in the
way of the world being made right we
need to remember that it’s not an
ideology or a brand that we’re fighting
for where victory can be measured in
trending on Twitter or shaming the
opposition or scoring points in a
debate winning isn’t being the most pure
or the most righteous or getting the
most likes the biggest mailing list or
the largest marketshare
winning is achieving meaningful change
experienced by real people can we not
get sucked in by the promise of being
someone or building something instead
can we simply risk it all for the sake
of others and so I’m not asking you
today to be creative and clever
campaigners or innovative activists or
passionate progressives I’m not asking
you to commit to leaving a legacy or
building a thriving organization I’m
asking you to simply love people love
people more than you love your place in
the cause need social transformation
more than you need to get good stats on
your next campaign or win the next
tender or get the next promotion the
question I had to ask myself that day at
Parliament House and every day when I’m
confronted again by the reality of other
people’s nightmare is do I expect
something back for my solidarity do I
expect a return on my compassion and I
leave that same question with you now do
you expect a return on your compassion
thank you
you
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