A new edition of the Okinawan Journal of Island Studies features social justice island activism, including a case study of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific Media Centre, in what the editors say brings a sense of “urgency” in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion in scholarship.

In the editorial, the co-editors — Tiara R. Na’puti, Marina Karides, Ayano Ginoza, Evangelia Papoutsaki — describe this special issue of the journal as being guided by feminist methods of collaboration.

They say their call for research on social justice island activism has brought forth an issue that centres on the perspectives of Indigenous islanders and women.

“Our collection contains disciplinary and interdisciplinary research papers, a range of contributions in our forum section (essays, curated conversations, reflection pieces, and photo essays), and book reviews centred on island activist events and activities organised locally, nationally, or globally,” the editorial says.

“We are particularly pleased with our forum section; its development offers alternative forms of scholarship that combine elements of research, activism, and reflection.

“Our editorial objective has been to make visible diverse approaches for conceptualising island activisms as a category of analysis.

‘Complexity and nuance’
“The selections of writing here offer complexity and nuance as to how activism shapes and is shaped by island eco-cultures and islanders’ lives.”

The co-editors argue that “activisms encompass multiple ways that people engage in social change, including art, poetry, photographs, spoken word, language revitalisation, education, farming, building, cultural events, protests, and other activities locally and through larger networks or movements”.

Thus this edition of OJIS brings together island activisms that “inform, negotiate, and resist geopolitical designations” often applied to them.

Geographically, the islands featured in papers include Papua New Guinea, Prince Edward Island, and the island groups of Kanaky, Okinawa, and Fiji.

Among the articles, Meghan Forsyth’s ‘La langue vient de la musique’: Acadian song, language transmission, and cultural sustainability on Prince Edward Island engagingly examines the “sonic activism” of the Francophone community in Canada’s Prince Edward Island.

“Also focused on visibility and access, David Robie’s article ‘Voice of the Voiceless’: The Pacific Media Centre as a case study of academic and research advocacy and activism substantiates the need for bringing forward journalistic attention to the Pacific,” says the editorial.

Dr Robie emphasises the need for critical and social justice perspectives in addressing the socio-political struggles in Fiji and environmental justice in the Pacific broadly, say the co-editors.

In the article My words have power: The role of Yuri women in addressing sorcery violence in Simbu province of Papua New Guinea, Dick Witne Bomai shares the progress of the Yuri Alaiku Kuikane Association (YAKA) in advocacy and peacebuilding.

In ‘La Pause Décoloniale’: Women decolonising Kanaky one episode at a time, Anaïs Duong-Pedica, “provides a discussion of French settler colonialism and the challenges around formal decolonisation processes in Kanaky”.

Inclusive feminist thinking
The article engages with “women’s political activism and collaborative practice” of the podcast and radio show La Pause Décoloniale.

The co-editors say the edition’s forum section is a result of “inclusive feminist thinking to make space for a range of approaches combining scholarship and activism”.

They comment that the “abundance of submissions to this section demonstrates the desire for academic outlets that stray from traditional models of scholarship”.

“Feminist and Indigenous scholar-activists seem especially inclined towards alternative avenues for expressing and sharing their research,” the coeditors add.

Eight books are reviewed, including New Zealand’s Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia, edited by Valerie Morse.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The long-serving New Zealand MP Louisa Wall has fired a broadside at her own Labour Party as she leaves Parliament to take up a Pacific diplomacy role — using her valedictory speech to accuse the party president of leading a corrupt process.

Wall is leaving politics after 14 years — citing a legal battle in the lead-up to the 2020 election over the Manurewa seat as one of the reasons for leaving.

In the days leading up to her final speech at Parliament, she spoke out about a rift with the party’s leadership, claiming the Prime Minister told her directly she would never be a minister.

Today she slammed the Labour Party for its handling of the Manurewa electorate.

She accused the Labour Party president, Claire Szabó, of leading a “corrupt process”.

“When I was forced out of my electorate in 2020, by the unconstitutional actions of the party president Claire Szabó and some members of council, I was devastated.

“The president accepted a late nomination, did not share the fact of the late receipt with the council until questions were asked and then retrospectively tried to justify and legitimise her actions.”

Agreed to leave
Wall told the House at the conclusion of the spat, she agreed with the Labour Party to leave politics during this Parliamentary term.

“In 2020, I agreed to leave. Because irrespective of the merits of challenging actions, being in a team where there is no appetite for your contribution is not healthy.

“I took the opportunity to complete some of my ongoing work, including in the international advocacy space. I was placed on the list just below where I had been in 2017 and accepted that I was to resign as an MP during this term.”

Wall thanked MPs Michael Wood, Nanaia Mahuta and Tim Barnett for helping her reach this agreement but told the House she was not going of her own volition.

“I stand here today fulfilling my part of the agreement but I want to be very clear that this was not entirely my choice.”

As is custom on Thursday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was not in the debating chamber but deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson watched on.

Despite never holding a ministerial position, Wall has a long list of legislative achievements, including her successful campaign to legalise same-sex marriage.

‘Rapid-fire course’
She told MPs the journey to marriage equality was “a rapid-fire course in process and procedures” not universally supported within the Labour caucus.

“While the deputy leader of the caucus at the time wanted more recognition of civil unions I believed that advocacy for marriage equality was based on fundamental human rights and that civil unions became a stop gap measure because it was not clear that marriage would get over the line,” she said.

“When I expressed this view I was told that this would be the end of my career and I would be on my own.”

Wall said throughout her time in politics she had been able to advocate on housing, period poverty, surrogacy, alcohol policies, revenge porn and abortion safe zones.

With her family watching from the packed public gallery, she finished her speech on a positive note that paid tribute to her previous sporting career.

“So while there have been obstacles to face and overcome I leave knowing I did what I could within those constraints. To use a sporting analogy, I left it all on the field.”

Louisa Wall is taking up a newly-created role as ambassador for Pacific gender equality starting next month.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The United Nations says Indonesia must immediately drop charges and look into threats, intimidation and reprisals against human rights defender Veronica Koman and her family.

Veronica Koman, a human and minority rights lawyer, is in self-imposed exile in Australia.

However, she still faces several charges in Indonesia for alleged incitement, spreading fake news, displaying race-based hatred and disseminating information aimed at inflicting ethnic hatred.

The charges were believed to have been brought against her in retaliation to her work advocating for human rights in West Papua.

Veronica Koman was among five other human rights defenders mentioned in the UN Secretary-General’s 2021 annual report on cooperation with the United Nations, its representatives and mechanisms in the field of human rights, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, said.

She has faced threats, harassment and intimidation for her reporting on West Papua and Papua provinces, for providing reports to UN human rights mechanisms, and for attending UN meetings, for which she was questioned by security forces.

“This case highlights how human rights defenders are often targeted for their cooperation with the United Nations, which is fundamental to their peaceful and legitimate work in the protection and promotion of human rights,” Lawlor said.

Explosive boxes thrown
Acts of intimidation and threats against Koman’s family have also been reported this year, most recently on November 7, when unidentified individuals threw two small explosive boxes inside the garage of her parents’ home in West Jakarta.

The boxes reportedly contained threatening messages, including one stating “we will scorch the earth of wherever you hide and of your protectors.”

Another box addressed to Koman, delivered to the home of a family member, contained a dead chicken and a message saying that anyone hiding her “will end up like this”.

“I am extremely concerned at the use of threats, intimidation and acts of reprisal against Veronica Koman and her family, which seek to undermine the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the legitimate work of human rights lawyers,” Lawlor said.

“I urge the Indonesian government to drop the charges against her and investigate the threats and acts of intimidation in a prompt an impartial manner and bring the perpetrators to justice,” Lawlor said.

“Impunity for violations against human rights defenders has a chilling effect on civil society as a whole.”

The Special Rapporteur will continue to monitor the case and is in contact with the Indonesian authorities on the matter.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Phyonna Silikara Gangloff is a champion Papua New Guinean squash player.

Fit and healthy, the 37-year-old mother of two lived a normal life until 14 days ago.

She was one of those who was vocal against the covid-19 vaccine and admits that she successfully convinced a lot of people in the second-largest city of Lae and family around PNG not to get vaccinated.

But this has changed.

In 14 days she has gone from a strong anti-vaccine campaigner to a vaccine advocate.

The National Control Centre was made aware of her ordeal and her campaign for PNG people to get vaccinated this week.

It was reported that she felt unwell and went for a medical check that turned her life upside down upon discovering that she was covid-19 positive.

Fighting for her life
Now fighting for her life, she released a video of her struggle.

“It’s day 14, I am still here.

“The hardest thing is I am struggling to breathe.

“Before it gets you, go get vaccinated,” the strong advocate against covid-19 said after contracting the virus.

Her appeals come as authorities step up the call for Papua New Guineans to get vaccinated against covid-19 before the disease collapses the entire health system, killing more people.

Medical doctors yesterday urged people to ignore the myths and lies surrounding the vaccines and get the shots, to not only protect their lives but also to arrest the escalating situation that is placing a huge stress on the country’s health system.

“We now have a surge in the covid-19 Delta variant in our community,” said Dr Arnold Waine, who runs his own private practice.

Hospital admissions 75pc positive
“Daily admissions to Port Moresby General Hospital average 75 percent new admissions with positive covid-19.

“Most of the admissions are those who have not got their vaccines,” he said.

Dr Waine joined other medical experts to say there was no treatment for covid-19 right now, despite few scientific advances, leaving Port Moresby General Hospital and the rest in the country with no standard treatment protocol.

They said what was being done at present throughout the country was “still in experimental stages” and individual choices of treatment and regimes were anecdotal and could not be prescribed for every patient.

“Vaccine helps stop severity and chances of admission into hospital,” Dr Waine said.

“We encourage people to get vaccinated so our hospitals are not exhausted and transmission is lower in our community.”

For a country with more than eight million people, only 61,221 people have been fully vaccinated.

These include 4085 health workers, 21,157 people above 45 years and 814 with morbidity.

These are out of the 133,741 people who have gone in for their first dose.

Three covid vaccines allowed
There were three covid-19 vaccines that were allowed by government to be used in the country –– AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Sinopharm.

Currently, PNG is using Sinopharm and AstraZeneca. Both are provided free of charge at the hospital entrance and the public and staff are expected to access these and get vaccinated.

A third vaccine, Johnson & Johnson, setup is coming soon.

“So we will have three sites for free vaccinations,” a medical doctor at Port Moresby General Hospital pointed out.

Most vaccines commonly used around the world exceeded expectations, with efficacy rates as high as 95 per cent, according to studies on the effectiveness of the vaccines.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation last month quoted a paper published by the US national health agency which looked at how much protection against hospital admissions the vaccines provided.

It found that 14 days after a second doze of AstraZeneca, the vaccine was on average 67 percent effective against hospital admission and death.

WHO efficacy studies
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), studies on the efficacy rate of Sinopharm after the second doses show hospitalisation was 79 percent.

WHO reported that for AstraZeneca vaccine, the efficacy rate was 63.09 per cent against symptomatic covid-19 infection and longer doses interval within 12 weeks range achieve greater efficacy.

The studies also show that covid-19 vaccines did not cause anyone to be magnetic, nor covid-19 vaccine change or interact with a person’s DNA.

“We have the vaccines but are not protecting anybody because we are not vaccinating our people.

“We have to do that to protect our people and also restore some of the freedoms that are being taken away as a result of the restrictions,” the source at Port Moresby General Hospital summed up nicely.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

How determined are Labour to take the necessary steps to fix inequality and poverty? Will electoral calculations triumph over their principles and stated ambitions?

These are some of the questions being asked on the political left, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government looks determined to stand by while social problems continue to get worse under their watch.

During their last term in government, Ardern and colleagues failed to be transformational on their key promise of fixing inequality and poverty. And now they are choosing policies that massively increase inequality, while ignoring the plight of those at the bottom.

That’s why this week more than 60 charities and NGOs made an open plea to the government to increase welfare benefits before Christmas.

Despite the extraordinary conditions at the moment, Ardern response was a firm “no”. Poverty advocates say Labour should be “ashamed”, with many suggesting that the prime minister’s own advocacy of kindness and compassion is directly contradicted by her actual decisions.

Writing in The New Zealand Herald today, Matthew Hooton argues that the poverty advocates “have a point” in their dissatisfaction, as “Ardern’s response to these issues is unsatisfactory”. He argues that this week’s rejection of benefit increases “has prompted the first mini-rebellion on her left”.

Hooton is particularly dismissive of Ardern’s plea for more time to consider benefit levels: “she says more ‘work’ is needed but it is not clear what ‘work’ is required to make a basic decision on benefit levels.

Why is more ‘work’ needed?
Ruth Richardson, after all, took just 53 days after the October 27 1990 election to announce her benefit cuts. It is not obvious why any more “work” is needed to make the opposite decision.

In any case, the “work” was presumably already done in Ardern’s now eight and a half years in the children’s portfolio and by her [Welfare Expert Advisory Group].”

So should the left be rebelling? And is Labour putting hanging on to power above tackling poverty? Hooton seems to believe so: “The Prime Minister just emotes her usual concern.

“This is not economically or socially sustainable — and surely not politically sustainable either. There must come a time when Ardern’s own political base demands something more on such issues than her frowny-concerned face.

“It will be another 100 years before Labour again wins a mandate like the one Ardern secured last month. If she won’t act now on the issues she says concern her, left-wing activists will be entitled to ask whether hungry children and young couples struggling to buy a house really mean anything to her beyond being useful walk-on parts during election campaigns.”

Similarly, writing in the National Business Review yesterday, Brent Edwards says the debate “is a pointed rejoinder to Ardern from those who do not believe she is as committed to reducing child poverty as her rhetoric suggests”, and he argues that the decision to keep benefits down is unsurprising, given that Ardern’s decisions are guided by electoral considerations.

Brent Edwards contrasts the benefit decision with the first policy announcement of the Finance Minister: “Grant Robertson announced the Cabinet had decided to extend the small business cashflow loan scheme, which was due to end next month, for another three years and extend the interest-free period from one to two years.

Wooing the business community
“It is also looking at other changes to make the scheme more accessible for small businesses. It was the new government’s first decision of this term and is part of its attempt to woo the business community.”

So, just how long will beneficiaries and others in poverty have to wait until Labour delivers? Today’s Stuff newspaper editorial asks: “It takes more than one term to solve it, but will it take more than two?”

The editorial says Ardern is risking damage to her own brand by talking about kindness but doing the opposite: “Poverty advocates are used to hearing governments say one thing about poverty, especially the emotionally powerful issue of child poverty, but do another.”

They also ask: “What is the political cost of kindness? Or conversely, what is the political cost of doing nothing?”

Poverty advocates are understandably upset by Ardern’s rejection of action on poverty, and some are starting to speak out strongly against her and the government. Auckland Action Against Poverty’s coordinator Brooke Stanley Pao has said that Ardern is “choosing to keep people and families in poverty”.

According to this article, Pao “challenged the prime minister and other politicians to try and live on the current benefit for a month and ‘see how they find themselves’.”

Brooke Stanley Pao also wrote about this just prior to the election, saying, “You can’t eat kindness“. Responding to Ardern’s mantra, she says “We want more than kindness. We want the political bravery necessary to lift people out of poverty. Anything else is lip service.”

Leftwing bloggers losing faith
Other leftwing bloggers are losing their faith that Labour and Ardern really believe in progressive politics. For example, No Right Turn says: “The message is clear: their ‘kindness’ extends only to rich people, who will be exempted from paying their fair share of the costs of the pandemic (or society in general).

“As for poor kids, they can keep on starving. Which once again invites the question: what is Labour for, exactly, if they’re not going to ever deliver anything?”

The Child Poverty Action Group reports “the dismayed, disappointed and, in some cases, furious response to its dismissal” of benefit increases by Ardern and asks of the Government, “What, exactly, are they waiting for?”

She argues that increased payments would have an immediate impact on alleviating poverty.

McAllister also draws attention to the Government making decisions in the Covid environment that are likely to worsen inequality while ignoring the needs of those at the bottom: “Using children as economic shock absorbers – that’s unreasonable.

“Covid-response policies that stretch inequity even further – that’s unreasonable. Child Poverty Action Group research this year has shown that core entitlements for those receiving benefits are mostly far below key poverty lines, and in some cases will be tipping people into severest poverty.

“We modelled a scenario that shows 70,000 additional children are at risk of poverty due to Covid-19 on current policy settings.”

Why Labour is ‘tinkering’
For more on what Janet McAllister thinks is wrong with the current government policies, see Why Labour’s tinkering of our welfare system just isn’t enough.

Looking back at what Labour have implemented over the last term, she concludes: “By themselves, these policies are disappointing. It’s still just tinkering around the edges and far from big, bold moves to cut the mustard.

“They’re of no use to many of our poorest families.”

Another poverty advocate, Max Rashbrooke of Victoria University of Wellington, has written in The Guardian about how disappointed he is with progress on child poverty under the government, and how things look set to get worse unless policies are implemented that live up to the lofty targets set by Ardern.

The problem according to Rashbrooke is that Ardern “has relied largely on the ‘third way’ policies of her Labour predecessor, Helen Clark, in her fight against child poverty.”

And so although there has been some “modest progress” on some poverty measures, these are essentially the result of picking the low-hanging fruit. He points to Treasury modelling showing that “the number of families in ‘material hardship’ – those reporting they are unable to afford basic items – will ‘rise sharply’.”

Is it true that the government can’t afford to increase benefits? Not according to business journalist Bernard Hickey, whose must-read column this week argues that Ardern and Robertson seem determined to massively increase inequality by following outdated economic philosophies.

Making homeowners richer
He asks: “Is it more important that homeowners are $100 billion richer? Or that hundreds of thousands of children are left unnecessarily in poverty?”

Here’s Hickey’s main point: “It is bizarre that a Labour government and a Reserve Bank that talk a big game on their social responsibilities and sustainability are choosing to pump up to $150 billion into increasing housing market valuations for the richest half of New Zealanders who own homes, but don’t think they can afford increasing benefits at a cost of $5.2 billion for the hundreds of thousands of kids and their parents living in poverty.”

He points out that “economists as conservative as those at the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank are now begging Governments to do things differently by spending money on the poor and on infrastructure, rather than just pumping up asset prices to make the rich even richer.”

Hickey also refers to a report out this week with findings from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study. You can read the report here: Now we are eight: Life in middle childhood.

Hickey sums up the inequality findings: “Nearly 40 per cent are living in cold, mouldy and damp homes. About a third are obese. About 20 per cent of the families surveyed did not have enough money to eat properly.

“Nearly 15 per cent of the eight-year-olds had already moved school twice, largely because of having to move from one rental property to the next.”

Not everyone is criticising Labour’s rejection of benefit increases. Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking says that giving into such a demand would take the government down a “slippery slope”, and be too expensive for little real gain.

Urgent need for relief
There is no doubt there is urgent need for relief for those at the bottom. And this week the Auckland City Mission launched a campaign to replenish their run-down stocks of food, noting that prior to covid they estimated “10 percent of Kiwis experienced food insecurity on a regular basis.

“Due to covid-19, it believes the figure is now closer to 20 percent – or one million people – who do not have enough good food to eat on a weekly basis.”

And today it’s being reported that the government’s two-tier welfare payments have come to an end.

Finally, what’s to be done about poverty and inequality, given this government has no great interest in being transformational on this issue? According to veteran leftwing commentator Chris Trotter, “it’s time for some ‘earnest struggle’”. He argues that Labour will only ever carry out leftwing reforms if they are forced to.

Trotter wants to see less reliance on appeals to Ardern and Robertson to “be kind”, and more mass marches down Auckland’s Queen St.

Dr Bryce Edwards is a New Zealand-based political scientist of reliability and prominence. His analysis and commentary is regularly published on EveningReport.nz. This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Adi Ana Civavonovono in Suva

The estimated financial cost and economic burden of diabetes in Fiji reached a staggering $124 million (NZ$84 million) in 2014 with health experts sounding an urgent need for people to relook at their lifestyles and eating habits.

Dr Jone Hawea, a medical doctor and codirector of the Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprise and Development, did not mince words when he told participants at the Media and Diabetes Advocacy Workshop in Suva last week about the reality of the disease he tagged as an “ongoing disaster”.

According to Dr Hawea, the total yearly financial cost of diabetes in Fiji in 2014 took into account factors such as the total productivity cost for patients and carers and excluded estimates such as private health care costs, out of pocket expenditures and other tangible indirect costs which were difficult to obtain.

“So you can imagine, the true financial cost is therefore very likely to be higher, a high estimate of about $180.3m,” he said at the Holiday Inn.

“Diabetes has the single highest impact on productivity of all non-communicable diseases in Fiji.”

He said diabetes imposed a huge financial and non-financial burden on Fiji’s economy, adding the latter amounted to more than 56,000 years of life lost because of ill-health, disability or premature death.

-Partners-

“Diabetes is largely preventable, so a large portion of these enormous and unnecessary costs can be averted,” Dr Hawea said.

Tangible solutions
While opening the workshop, Assistant Minister for Health Alex O’Connor said the gathering of media professionals and partners in health and wellness programmes was a platform to find tangible solutions to combat this major health issue.

“About 15 percent of Fiji’s adult population have diabetes and another 15 percent have impaired fasting glucose – these are people who have high blood sugar and are at risk of being diagnosed with diabetes,” O’Connor said.

Journalists from print and broadcast media as well as student journalists from the University of the South Pacific, civil society and non-governmental organisations, and the Fiji National University were part of the one-day event, which was organised by Diabetes Fiji in conjunction with the Ministry of Health.

Adi Ana Civavonovono is a final year journalism student at the University of the South Pacific reporting for Wansolwara News.

USP Journalism Programme’s final year student Adi Ana Civavonovono interviews Fiji’s Assistant Minister for Health and Medical Services Alex O’Connor at the Holiday Inn in Suva. Image: Wansolwara News

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Dhio Faiz in Jakarta

A demonstration held in Jakarta by hundreds of students and youth from the Papua Student Alliance (AMP) and the Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-WP) ended peacefully.

The action last Friday began at 6.30am with a march from the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Jakarta) offices in Central Jakarta to the offices of PT Freeport Indonesia.

The protesters only got as far as 20m, however, before they were blocked by hundreds of fully equipped police.

An advocacy team from the LBH Jakarta then asked police not to break up the demonstration by force with a guarantee that the rally would proceed peacefully.

The police then gave the protesting groups a time limit of until 11am to hold an action in front of the Megaria bus stop.

The protesters, accompanied by the LBH advocacy team, were eventually able to hold a peaceful action in front of the Megaria bus stop.

-Partners-

During the action they read out a six-point statement.

Close Freeport demand
First, they demanded the closure of the Freeport gold-and-copper mine in Papua and called on the government give the Papuan people the right to self-determination.

Next they asked for support for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) to join the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the United Nations.

Finally, they called for the Indonesian people to support Papua’s struggle for self-determination.

After reading out the statement and giving flowers to police as symbol of peace, the protesters began disbanding.

They also cleaned up the left over rubble from the rally then returned to the LBH Jakarta offices.

Translated by James Balowski for the Indoleft News Service from the original CNN Indonesia article. Delayed publication. The original title of the article was “Aksi Tuntut Pembebasan Papua di Jakarta Berakhir Damai“.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

OBITUARY: By Murray Horton

John Miller (1929-2016) died in Christchurch in November, aged 87. John and Leonida (Leony) have been members of the Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA) since 1994 (PSNA hasn’t published a newsletter since 2009, so we count anyone who was a member in 2009 as being a current member).

As Jim Consedine explained in his obituary for the Catholic Worker publication The Common Good, John Miller visited the Philippines in 1983, when it was being ground under the heel of the Marcos martial law dictatorship.

He married Leony, returned to New Zealand, and their daughter Cory was named after Cory Aquino, who became President when the world famous People Power movement swept the Marcos regime out of power and out of the country in 1986.

John remained passionately interested in the Philippines for the rest of his life and he always attended Christchurch public meetings addressed by Filipino speakers that PSNA toured through NZ on a regular basis.

The photo of John that accompanies this obituary was on his funeral programme. He was wearing a “Free All Political Prisoners” T shirt and it bore the names of the major human rights group Karapatan, and of SELDA, the group representing the victims and families of the Marcos martial law dictatorship.

I suspect he probably got it during PSNA’s 2004 NZ speaking tour by Marie Hilao-Enriquez, a leader of both Karapatan and SELDA and herself a martial law detainee.

Political prisoners
Unfortunately, neither political prisoners nor the vile Marcos family are consigned to the past in today’s Philippines.

They are both very much front and centre under the new President, Rodrigo Duterte.

This other photo was taken just last weekend by my wife Becky, who is currently in Manila on her annual Christmas visit to her family. It was taken at a rally to protest against this month’s burial of Ferdinand Marcos (who has been dead since 1989) in the National Heroes Cemetery in Manila.

The shirtless young man (a stranger to Becky, who took the photo) has names written on his back. They are of victims of the Marcos martial law dictatorship.

The top one says “Liliosa” – Liliosa Hilao, who was the most high profile female murder victim of that regime (in the early 1970s).

Liliosa was Becky’s maternal aunt and Marie Hilao-Enriquez’s sister. This stuff is still very current in the Philippines – it has never been resolved.

Anti-Bases Campaign
I also knew John in another capacity. Although he was never a member of the Anti-Bases Campaign, he came on ABC’s Waihopai spy base protests more than once.

He came with the Christchurch Catholic Worker contingent. ABC, although an avowedly secular group, has had a long and productive working relationship with Catholic Worker.

Three of its North Island members – Adrian Leason, Peter Murnane and Sam Land – were the famous Domebusters, who deflated one of the spy base’s domes in 2008 and were acquitted of all charges by a jury.

They are the stars of the excellent current documentary The 5th Eye. (If you haven’t seen it yet, join us at the upcoming Waihopai spy base protest. We’re showing it in Blenheim on January 28).

John was already an old man when he came on the Waihopai protests but he burned with youthful passion whenever he spoke there and even more so when he recited one of his own poems (Jim Consedine, who co-presided at John’s ecumenical funeral, jokingly said: “John had 400,000 poems”).

His whole demeanour and tone of voice changed when he launched forth – he became an orator, with a declamatory tone.

To mention John without mentioning religion is like mentioning Christchurch without mentioning earthquakes. It was central to his being.

Evangelical enthusiasm
His funeral was a Catholic/Methodist joint production (definitely a first for Becky and me and, I suspect, for a lot of the others attending). In her eulogy, Cory said she asked him once: “Dad, what do you do for fun? Dad replied “I go to church”.

“But what do you for fun, Dad?” Dad replied: “I pray”. At that point, Cory said, she gave up.

John was a passionate Christian pacifist and a man with great evangelical enthusiasm.

He was a neighbour of ours, living in the next street, and would regularly turn up unannounced (his record was five times in one day) to tell me about something he’d just read in the radical Christian press or to generally share the Good News.

As a friend said: “John doesn’t do small talk”. He regularly tried, and failed, to get me along to one of the various churches he regularly attended. (I’m a long lapsed Anglican and Presbyterian, married to a long lapsed Catholic).

At times he could be a bloody nuisance (it is not an easy road being an unapologetically public religious practitioner in a heavily secular society), but his motives and commitment to peace and a truly radical Christianity could never be doubted.

I’ve met plenty of other Biblebashers, too many of them on my own doorstep, but John was one with a difference, he was a progressive Biblebasher, albeit one with a striking resemblance to an Old Testament prophet.

He and I were on the same side.

Rest in peace, you zealot for peace. My deepest condolences to Leony and Cory (whom I’ve known since she was a child).

Murray Horton is a social justice campaigner, organiser of the Anti-Bases Coalition (ABC) and Campaign Against Foreign Control (CAFCA), and a stalwart of the Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa.