12 April 2026
My name is Rev. Dr. and Pastor Ray Minniecon from Scarred Tree Indigenous Ministries at St. John’s in Glebe. I am a descendant of the Kabi Kabi nation and the Gurang Gurang nation of South-East Queensland. I am also a descendant of the South Sea Islander people from Ambrym Island
I stand here today not as a guest in this nation, but as a voice of the oldest living culture on Earth. I stand as a custodian of Country.
I stand as a witness to what happens when empire calls itself righteousness.
Because we know this story. We have lived this story. We have buried our ancestors inside this story.
When colonisers came to this land, they did not come empty-handed, they came with Bibles in one hand and weapons in the other. They spoke of peace while enacting dispossession. They spoke of God while denying our humanity.
So, when the world now watches the violence unfolding in the Middle East. When we hear justifications wrapped in theology, power dressed up as divine will, and manifest destiny, we recognise it.
We recognise the language. We recognise the logic. We recognise the lie.
Let me be clear:
There is nothing sacred about domination.
There is nothing holy about occupation.
There is nothing of Christ in the killing of children.
And I say this as a Christian.
Because the Christ I follow was born under occupation.
The Christ I follow was executed by empire.
The Christ I follow said: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” not the conquerors, not the colonisers, not the ones who claim land in God’s name.
We must name what is happening. Not hide it behind polite language. Not soften it for comfort.
This is not just conflict.
This is the continuation of a global system where powerful nations decide whose lives matter and whose lives are expendable, in pursuit of their greed.
And that system is the same system that declared this land terra nullius.
The same system that removed our children.
The same system that still refuses full justice for First Nations peoples today. So do not ask us to be silent.
Do not ask us to be neutral.
Because neutrality in the face of injustice is complicity.
Today, I stand with all people of conscience—
with Shane and David and Lucille Rigers, with Emma Davidson,
and Sue Baglow and with Emad Soliman – Convenor of United Voice for Justice and Peace, who I have asked to read my speech today. And with all who refuse to let violence speak the final word.
And I say this to the world:
Peace is not the absence of noise.
Peace is the presence of justice.
Peace is not negotiated through bombs.
Peace is born through truth.
Peace is not controlled by governments.
Peace rises from the people.
From the mothers who refuse to bury more children.
From the elders who remember a different way.
From the young who say, “Enough.”
And from us Indigenous peoples who have survived the longest war on this continent and still choose to stand for life.
We carry a different law.
A law of relationship.
A law of responsibility.
A law that says: land is not owned; it is cared for.
People are not enemies; they are humans like us, made in God’s image.
If the world had listened to Indigenous wisdom, we would not be here.
But we are here now.
So, the question is not whether we can make peace.
The question is whether we have the courage to dismantle the systems that profit from war.
Because peace without justice is just another form of control.
And we reject that.
We call for:
An end to violence.
An end to occupation.
An end to the use of religion as a weapon.
And we call for something deeper
A transformation of how humanity understands power.
Not power over.
But power with.
Not domination.
But dignity.
Not empire.
But kinship and understanding.
This is our offering to the world.
Not from theory but from praxis and survival.
Not from ideology but from truth.
And I say this finally:
The Creator did not divide humanity into those who are deemed worthy of life and those that are seen as disposable.
That is the work of empire.
So today, we stand together; not as spectators; but as witnesses, as resisters, and as builders of a different future. A future where peace is not declared by governments but lived by the people.
Let justice rise.
Let truth be spoken.
Let peace come, not through silence but through courage and true human dignity and true human unity.
Rev Dr Ray Minniecon