I don’t know about you, but when someone who’s hurt me or a loved one
tells me to “move on,” or “move forward,” and hasn’t made amends, I get
a little tetchy. But I get a little curious too, the way one does when
one is told
not to look at something.
Recently, a friend sent me a link to a beautifully scripted and
filmed video featuring Australian Salvation Army Eastern Territorial
Head, James Condon, called “
Dealing with Regret.”
Jimmy’s video was a warm, intimate ramble in the style of FD
Roosevelt’s fireside chats. Jimmy says he has no regrets in life. I’m
sure we’re all happy for him (with the possible exception of anyone who
may have been harmed by Colin Haggar, perhaps).
At the end of the video, though, Jimmy explains that he’s often had to tell people: “
You need to let go of that and move on.”
He admits moving on isn’t easy (he’s only human), but reassures us that
God is there to help us. This riled me, because if you’re a victim of
the Salvation Army, or love someone who is, you can be pretty damn sure
the
Salvation Army isn’t there to help you. Not properly.
Anyway, I was a little angry by the end of this video, but curious
too. What’s this “moving on” business and why did Jimmy place such heavy
emphasis on it?
So I had a look at a couple more videos, and found another, related,
one, this time from Lt. Col. David Godkin, dated 18 June, 2014. Dave is
the Salvation Army’s new Secretary for Personnel, a post held earlier by
Major Peter Farthing of ‘someone’s not a paedophile if they do it once’
infamy, the genius behind the now discredited ‘matrix’ model of
financial restitution to Salvation Army children’s homes victims, and
counsellor for 18 months to Colin Haggar. Farthing is now effectively
Australia’s Salvation Army child protection spokesperson, in his
official capacity as Royal Commission [into Institutional Responses to
Child Sexual Abuse] Response Coordinator.
Dave’s video was called “
Don’t Look Back.”
Dave’s own touchingly honest personal revelation was that he
sometimes struggles with letting go of the past. Fortunately, Dave also
finds solace in his religion, for which we are all just delighted. Like
Jimmy, though, he was emphatic in his advice to others. Dave says Christ
wants us to “
move forward” and “
let go of the past.”
I don’t know who these videos are aimed at, but can take a wild guess.
The Salvation Army in Australia would like it if everyone it’s harmed “moved on” (read: “shut up”).
It’s not too comfortable with people who don’t just shuffle off and
who stand their ground in the face of the organisation’s cruelty and
negligence towards them. The courageous Ralph Doughty, who’s an
inspiration to me, is a case in point. There’s been quite a bit of
people standing up and refusing to shut up lately, what with
- The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse;
- A pesky media presence asking hard questions of an organisation
accustomed to the blind faith of everyone but those who know the truth
behind the brand;
- And now (horror of horrors), the attention of the NSW police
squarely focussed on people at the very highest levels of the Salvation
Army in Australia.
The Salvation Army is feeling a little besieged, it’s clear. I’m sure
the Salvation Army is really fed up with all the wrong kind of
attention. I recall poor Jimmy whining earlier this year that he’s
feeling a bit
“aggrieved”. But I have absolutely no sympathy
for him, the Salvation Army, or for his and the organisation’s attempts
to deflect detractors by asking them to “move on.”
What the Salvation Army needs to understand is that people it’s hurt are fed up with
it.
I’ve also been on a personal quest to find out exactly what’s behind
the Salvos’ apparently new approach to “restorative justice,” hastily
announced on the 23
rd
of June following the Salvation Army’s latest appearance at the Royal
Commission. I have some very detailed questions about this too, and
Salvos’ lawyer Kate Eastman’s
assurance
that the Salvation Army is now going to “accept responsibility” for
what it’s done is not enough. At the minimum, I want to know
what
these principles are. Some time ago, I asked for a copy of these
principles via my family’s solicitor, John Ellis. There was no response.
Five days later, I emailed Peter Farthing directly, demanding a copy of
the principles by 5 pm tomorrow. I will be lucky to get an answer.
On Thursday this week, I meet with Peter Farthing, David Godkin,
Salvos Legal lawyer Luke Geary, and possibly others from the Salvation
Army to obtain
justice
for my father’s, Lewis Blayse’s, family. We’re having a “restorative
justice” conference at John Ellis’s offices. But I don’t know what the
“restorative justice” principles are. How then can I speak to the
principles? How can
anyone who’s going through this process? I
should have been given these principles a long time ago, and I’m very
angry that I haven’t. I told Peter Farthing that this is a matter of
procedural fairness. But it’s a matter of broader importance too: there
are others going through the Salvos’ “restorative justice” mechanism now
too. Do
they have copies of the principles? I’ve asked around, and can’t find anyone who does.
I’m
not ready to “move on.” My father entered the notorious
Salvation Army Alkira / Indooroopilly Boys’ Home in the late 1950s a
sensitive, gentle, and already traumatised little boy. The horrors he
witnessed and experienced at the hands of monsters like Lawrence Wilson
and Victor Bennett left him totally and permanently disabled as an
adult. He woke every day of his life in horror thinking he was still in
Alkira. He never received adequate compensation, and the impacts on his
family were never properly acknowledged by the Salvation Army. His
clearly expressed wish for compensation for his family for his
“psychological death,” expressed in the 2004 ABC Four Corners program “
The Homies,” was never met.
Unlike Jimmy,
I have a profound regret, and I struggle to
sleep for the pain of it. I regret that I never went in swinging at the
Salvation Army while my father was still alive. Dad said there was no
point, and I regret believing him. Perhaps if I’d been stronger and
braver, I could have helped him get the justice he and his family
deserved? Perhaps we could have had a better life together if I had?
Perhaps I wouldn’t have had to see him live out the last years of his
life in poverty and desperation. I couldn’t do anything as a child, but
there were 21 years of adulthood when I could have fought for him, but
didn’t.
It’s too late for me to do what I should have done for my father, but
not too late to do something to fulfill his wishes for his family. It’s
not too late for me to try to do something that might help people
who’ve been harmed the way my father was and are still alive, and their
families. The Salvos’ compensation to victims in Australia, for abuses
of the most horrendous type, averages around the $30,000 to $40,000
mark. The Salvos’ treatment of victims and their families has been
callous. And it’s not changing its ways.
Enough’s enough. Victims of the Salvation Army and their family
members need to be given specific details of the new “restorative
justice” principles. How can there be public debate about whether they
are appropriate if no-one knows what they are? How can we assess their
validity if we don’t know who was consulted in their preparation? Were
victims and families consulted? If so, how many? Which people? Exactly
what harms are being addressed and how? Are the Salvos going to pay lost
wages to kids used as slave labour? Will they be covering all medical
costs required to people entering their senior years who suffer
increasingly from injuries inflicted upon them in childhood by monsters
shielded by the Salvation Army? How much will the Salvation Army pay for
tuition to children denied educations in Salvo homes? There are dozens
of related questions that I and others have, but the Salvation Army
doesn’t seem to think the public has a right to know the answers.
The people who were horrified to learn that abuses by Salvation Army
personnel of children are not “historical” but still occurring also
deserve answers to the questions put by Sarah Dingle to the Salvation
Army, and more. Victims whose perpetrators are still alive and continue
to escape punishment deserve real answers. People who know that the
Salvation Army is still intimately involved with children and young
people through its youth programs and are worried about that deserve
real answers too.
Enough’s enough:
- I’ve had enough of stupid, meaningless emails and press releases from the Salvation Army.
- I’ve had enough of watching insulting videos that imply that there’s
something dysfunctional about demanding justice and accountability.
- I’ve had enough of the Salvation Army failing to answer important questions put to it.
Victims and their families, and the Australian public, deserve better.
On Wednesday 2 July, I’ll be standing outside 140 Elizabeth Street, Sydney (
Salvo HQ), from 9 am onwards. Waiting. Waiting for James Condon, Bruce Harmer, Peter Farthing, David Godkin, or
anyone
senior in the organisation to stop hiding behind press releases, brick
walls, and lawyers, and start exhibiting the transparency they claim to
embrace.
I will be demanding that one of these people, preferably James Condon,
come down to the front of the building to answer, in full view of any media representatives who might be present, these questions:
- When will you issue full and detailed responses to the questions posed by Sarah Dingle and where will you publish them?
- When will you publish the new detailed principles of “restorative
justice” you apply to victims and their families and when will you state
which victims / family members or other people were consulted in their
preparation?
- When you will admit, if you can’t answer these important questions,
that the Salvation Army no longer deserves the trust of the Australian
public?
If there are no good answers provided, I’ll be asking one more question:
“When will all Australian governments, federal and state, cease
funding this massively taxpayer-funded organisation and do whatever it
takes to keep the Salvation Army 1000 miles from any young person until
it proves itself worthy of our trust?”
Read more here:
Aletha Blayse
www.whiteshieldappeal.org
