Closing remarks: Shelley Reys and Sue Roffey, Convenor, NSPD

Shelley Reys: In closing I'd just like to say that there's been some really interesting comments throughout the discussion today, and one of those is that we need to question, and to always be aware of what's going on in our environment, both in our local neighbourhoods and towns, and in our country. We also need to have solid debate, and we need to have that debate regularly. I'd like to thank all of the speakers before I hand over to Sue. (Applause)

Sue Roffey: Before I go into the formal thanks, the last forum that we had included Donna Mulhearn, who was originally in Iraq as a human shield, and is now in Baghdad running an orphanage. And amongst the things that we put on the sydneypeace website is her journal, her story about being there, and it's worth having a look. We will also be putting up your questions. I just want to read a little bit, a short extract of her "Road to Falluja".

"Fallujah is a bustling city of 350,000 people. Bigger than Newcastle, smaller than Sydney. The road to Fallujah is one of the main highways west from Baghdad, so the town receives a lot of through traffic from cars, buses and trucks doing the trip from Baghdad to Jordan. So driving towards Fallujah on Tuesday on a highway that was empty of any other vehicles felt eerie to say the least. We soon realised why. An American military checkpoint was blocking the highway and not allowing most cars through. We approached the checkpoint with caution – the head American soldier saw us he looked relieved and broke out into a smile. “Hey, some foreigners, where ya’ll from?” Our ‘foreigner’ status meant our cars were not even searched and we were invited out to chat with the soldiers while we waited for clearance to travel the road. “So you’re going to Fallujah? We’ve killed a whole bunch of ‘em there,” Sgt Trapner announced with pride. “I’m jealous you’re going to Fallujah where the action is,” another soldier added."

"I realised the war has totally de-humanised these soldiers. They were boasting about killing people, who they didn’t even consider to be people. We continued to chat with the soldiers, they gave us water and they seemed sincerely happy to talk to foreigners. In almost every sentence they express ed a deep hatred towards the Iraqi people. They clearly held no respect for the people they have come to ‘liberate.’ An ambulance came along and then turned away - they'd seen the checkpoint and were worried about what trouble might occur. “Good, we don’t want anymore of those bastards getting through,” a soldier said as he watched the ambulances turn away.

Donna Mulhear was pilloried, labelled, chastised for being on the road to Falluja, by both Alexander Downer and John Howard on the news. The news repeated them saying that she was stupid, and immoral, and I think it really worries me about the society that we have here in Australia, if somebody who is actually in Iraq on a compassionate mission is the one who is labelled, and we are left wondering what Alexander Downer thinks and believes is valuable and important and the right way to be.

Not only was Donna labelled and pilloried, but so were all the people who objected to the war, and people who are questioning what is happening now in Australia.

I'd just like to thank the people here on the panel tonight: Kerry, Kevin, Aden and Marise. Thank you very much. I think what we're doing here is to try to say that democratic debate is something that is important and something that needs to happen here, and I'm very grateful to them all for being here tonight. (Applause)

I'd also like to thank Shelley very much for being here tonight, she stepped in at the last minute when Phillip Adams was pulled out on an international assignment. Thank you very much Shelley. (Applause)

We'd like everybody on our e-mail list, if you're not already on it, and we'll keep you up-to-date on everything else that North Shore Peace and Democracy are doing. And we'd like to remind you, if you'd be so good, if you haven't already donated something - it doesn't come free, these evenings, and we very much appreciate your contribution to that.

I'd like to say that we have a hope that the Secrets and Lies that we've been talking about will be replaced eventually with respect, transparency, humanity, and proper representation. Thank you all for being here.

© NSPD 2004. Last modified 09/05/04.