The politics of hope

Pointing to the noble Egyptian cat seated royally on a blanket on the lounge, another woman tells a volunteer: “She’s a charity case too. My daughter found her abandoned in the bush and took her in. I wanted to get her desexed but it costs too much. Would you like to take a kitten?”

One member of Vinnies, referring to the punitive way that single mums were being treated, told me: “I feel like I must be from another planet. Am I the only one who can see that these women are already doing it tough and that these new welfare laws hurt them rather than help them.”

No mate; you’re not from another planet. You’re from the same planet as the Prophet Isaiah, who said: “Woe betide those who enact unjust laws and draft oppressive legislation, depriving the poor of justice, robbing the weakest of my people of their rights, plundering the widow and despoiling the fatherless.”

Today, the people who asked me to write this are out delivering Christmas hampers. With their hands they’re performing acts of charity. With their hearts they’re hungering for justice. This is their politics of hope.