Professor Wladyslaw Bartoszewski died in Warsaw on Friday 24 April 2015. He was 93. He was one of the great heroes both during and after the Second World War leading the fight against Nazi and Communist tyranny and then contributing the rebuilding of democratic Poland, including as a Polish Foreign Affairs Minister.

He was born on 19 February 1922, into a Roman Catholic family living in a Jewish neighbourhood in Warsaw and took up journalism. He took part in the defence of the city from Nazi forces in 1939. After Nazis took the city, Mr. Bartoszewski was among several thousand Poles rounded up. He became one of the first prisoners at the new Auschwitz concentration camp, bearing number 4427, but was released after less than a year because of pressure by the Red Cross.

He joined the underground Home Army’s fight against the Germans, in its Information and Propaganda Bureau under the pseudonym Teofil, the name of a character in a favourite novel, and fought during the Warsaw Uprising. He was most noted for his wartime work with the Council for Aid to Jews, code named Zegota, which saved tens of thousands of people from Nazi capture and assisted the ghetto uprising. It was for this work that Israel named him Righteous Among the Nations, a honour given to non-Jews for saving Jews during the Holocaust.

After the war, when Poland fell under Soviet domination, he returned to journalism and joined the Polish People’s Party, at the time the only opposition to Communist rule. He was accused of being a spy and spent nearly 10 years in Communist prisons before his release in 1954 on grounds of poor health. A year later, the government informed him that it had determined that he had been wrongly sentenced.

He remained a thorn in the government’s side. Because of his writings and opposition activities, he was forbidden to publish in Poland for four years beginning in 1970.

In 1980 he became an early member of the Solidarity trade union, which spearheaded the movement to overthrow Poland’s Communist government, and was briefly imprisoned again.

After the collapse of Communism, he was Poland’s ambassador to Austria in the early 1990s and foreign minister under two presidents, Lech Walesa in 1995 and Aleksander Kwasniewski in 2000 and 2001. During this period he was credited with playing a key role in a post-war diplomatic triumph: the forging of a close relationship between Poland and Germany.

At a 90th-birthday celebration at Warsaw’s Royal Castle, Mr. Bartoszewski was presented with a medallion by President Bronislaw Komorowski inscribed, “To the one who dared to be disobedient.”

In 1993 Prof. Bartoszewski visited to Australia at the invitation of the Australian Institute of Polish Affairs and I as president of the ACT Branch of the Institute and my wife Hanna have had a pleasure of hosting him at our Canberra home and to accompany him to many meetings at Parliament House. The interview he gave during the visit for SBS radio is available at:

http://www.sbs.com.au/podcasts/yourlanguage/polish/episode/407891/Prof.-W-.-Bartoszewski

Professor Wladyslaw Bartoszewski meeting  leaders of the Polish community in ACT at Dr Sev and Hanna Ozdowski residence in Canberra in 1993.

Warm invitation to all to join me at the next University of Western Sydney open Forum be held on Wednesday 3 June at Parramatta South campus in Building EA, Room EA.G.19. Refreshments will be served at 5:30pm with the forum starting at 6:00pm.

Our guest speaker on the night is Michael Ebeid, CEO and Managing Director of SBS, who has 25 years’ experience in senior roles across the technology, telecommunication and media industries.

To register, please visit http://www.uws.edu.au/equity_diversity/rsvp

A biography of the speaker and more information on the Open Fora series are available at http://www.uws.edu.au/open_fora

I look forward to seeing you on the night.

I am pleased to have been asked to organise the ‘Advancing Community Cohesion’ Conference. It will be held at The University of Western Sydney Parramatta Campus from 15 July to 17 July 2015 with support of  the Australian Government Department of Social Services, SBS, Department of Immigration, Australian Multicultural Foundation, Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils, the Scanlon Foundation and many others.    This Conference will examine international best practice for dealing with national and local issues regarding social cohesion. It will explore philosophical questions and more pragmatic aspects of community cohesion in diverse societies. The Conference will also examine the key national initiatives in place to advance community cohesion within Australia and will search for new direction.

The Conference will bring together leading decision-makers, thinkers and practitioners in multicultural affairs to discuss and debate key issues and national initiatives in place to advance community cohesion within Australia and search for new directions.  By attending this Conference, participants will be able to: 

• engage and network with key leaders, decision makers, thinkers and practitioners in  

             multicultural affairs;

• establish relationships with key players in this field, including Australian and international

  experts on  social cohesion;

• discuss and debate national and local issues regarding social cohesion, including exploring its philosophical and pragmatic aspects in diverse societies; and

• gain knowledge on possible successes and initiatives aimed at addressing difficulties and  

           challenges in advancing social cohesion.

More than a quarter of all Australians were born overseas, and a further 20 per cent have at least one parent who was born overseas. This is nearly half of the Australian population, reflecting a rich diversity with over 260 languages spoken and more than 270 ancestries identified.  I invite all interested in community cohesion – students and academics alike, as well as members of our diverse civic community, to share your views and to gain insights from their fellow participants.  I look forward to your contribution to the ‘Advancing Community Cohesion’ Conference deliberations and being part of important network that aims to shape Australia’s future. 

See attached conference docs

ACC2015 – Conference Flyer    ACC2015 – Sponsorship Opportunities

After the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos in Santiago de Chile withdrew as the host of 6th International Human Rights Education Conference (IHREC) in December 2015, I wrote to the international human rights education network to seek seeking a new host.  I received a number of proposals including from Burma, Canada, Gambia, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Uganda, UK and others, but the most viable proposal was received from the University College Roosevelt, Utrecht University in Middelburg, the Netherlands in cooperation with the Human Rights Education Associates (HREA).

Today, as Foundation Convenor & Series Coordinator of  International Human Rights Conference Series I am pleased to announce that the 6th International Human Rights Education Conference will be held at the University College Roosevelt (Utrecht University) in Middelburg, the Netherlands, from 16-18 December 2015.  Professor Barbara Oomen is the Conference Convenor, together with Frank Elbers of HREA. A Conference Call will be circulated shortly. Prof. Oomen can be contacted at:  B.Oomen@ucr.nl; and Frank Elbers at:  frank.elbers@hrea.org

 The University of Western Sydney, HREA and the Australian Council for Human Rights Education agreed to partner with University College Roosevelt in support of the 6^th IHREC.  The conference website and a call for papers will be developed shortly and circulated to the human rights education community.

 I am also pleased to announce that the 7^th International Human Rights Education Conference in 2016 will be hosted by the Human Rights Centre, Faculty of Law (Centro de Derechos Humanos, Facultad de Derecho) at the University of Chile. Dr Claudia Cárdenas, Director of the Human Rights Centre will be the convenor of the 2016 conference.

Thank you to all of you who have put forward proposals to host the conference and see you in December in the Netherlands.

Dr Dmytro Khutkyy, Fulbright Visiting Researcher, University of California-Riverside, USA and  Head of Sociological Strand, Electronic Democracy Project at Center for Innovations Development, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine has addressed the UWS Open Forum on Tuesday 5 May 2015.

The Forum has been recorded and it will be broadcasted on TVS on:

Sunday 24-May   6:30 PM

Monday 25-May 12:00 PM

Tuesday 26-May 11:00 PM

For more information visit: TVS International and Current Affairs

Below there are some useful sources about the situation in Ukraine.

Reuters special report http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/10/us-ukraine-crisis-soldiers-specialreport-idUSKBN0NV06Q20150510?utm_source=facebook

Seven reasons the conflict in Ukraine is actually a Russian invasion                                   http://euromaidanpress.com/seven-reasons/

EuroMaidan newsletters http://issuu.com/karabashi/stacks/07fe697da3a349c0b4bbb21136ffc5bd

Moreover, here are my papers about Eastern Ukraine, pro-European orientations, and EuroMaidan, presented at academic conferences – if you would ever need an easy and quick access to the data.

Khutkyy, D. (2015, February 2-3). Structure and Dynamics of Public Opinion Concerning the Situation in the East of Ukraine. Paper presented at the International Conference “A Quarter Century of Post-Communism: Interdisciplinary Perspectives”, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. Retrieved from https://www.dropbox.com/s/j8jpqw4e5oygzte/Khutkyy%20Eastern%20Ukraine%202014%20NZ%20%28eng%29.pdf?dl=0

Khutkyy, D. (2015, February 27). Pro-European Attitudes in Ukraine: Witnessing the Dramatic Increase. Paper presented at the International Symposium “Strategic Narratives of Identity: The EU, Europe and the World”, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. Retrieved from https://www.dropbox.com/s/ajgfts8qimo1ivv/Khutkyy%20EU%202014%20%28eng%29.pdf?dl=0

Khutkyy, D. (2015, April 1-4). Ukrainian Maidan 2013-2014: Participants’ Attitudes and Public Opinion. Paper presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, Long Beach, California, USA. Retrieved from https://www.dropbox.com/s/xgp01c263uuq17c/Khutkyy%20Ukrainian%20Maidan%202013-2014.pdf?dl=0

See attached:

UWS Open Forum Eastern Ukraine