Hi and thanks for visiting. I know there are any number of sites that comment on everything to do with social justice and responsibility but perhaps we need something that really focusses on the true issues with intelligent debate. I finally decided to do something about it when I read some of the absolute nonesensical commentary by very uninformed, judgemental and I presume, comfortable middle class bloggers.
Like any country, Australia has serious social problems and like any country the people in these challenging 'social classes' make easy targets. Tabloid papers always portray the negative because that's what sells papers and the readership generally take it all in and form opinions based on editorial bias. It's got to change if we ever want to address the problems; look how long it took us to even accept that aboriginal people are the traditional owners of this land. It took nearly 200 years to even acknowledge them as citizens of the country in 1967; they have solely occupied this land for over 40,000 years. What gets me is when we federated in 1901 our justice system was naturally Westminster which is British and I know some lawyer is going to contadict me but quite an ancient law exisits called 'Adverse Possession'. What this means is if a person occupies land for 12 years or more and they have taken care of it; guess what it's theirs. This actually happened in a very affluent part of London in just the past few years; the council tried to move on a 'tramp' who had occupied a piece of 'public' land for about 20 years but the good folk of London stood up for him and now he's a multi millionaire.
A similar event took place in the High Court of Australia in 1992 when the wise old wigs ruled that a man called Eddie Mabo was the traditional owner of the land he and his ancestors had occupied for quite some time. You see the traditional owners never saw the need to draw up boundries; I'm not sure but I will suggest it anyway, as a 'hunter, gather' people who moved on when their needs required it they may not have sank foundations and draw up deeds but they did leave evidence. Artefacts from weapons to paintings but also a spiritual attachment to the land. Unlike us, the culture only takes what it needs; may be we can learn a thing or two from people like this. We naturally and rightly supported the state of Israel in 1947 which after 'WW I' the 'League of Nations' ratified the 'British Mandate of Palistine' to give the displaced Jewish people back their homeland after 3,000 years and the UN made it happen after 'WW II'.
'Mabo' recognised 'Land Rights' but at the time the paranioa fed by the tabloids was completly unfounded and totally ignorant; people actually believed they would lose their homes if an indigenous person decided to stake a claim. Some 16 years later not one single person has lost their home but at public events we acknowledge (occassionally) the traditional owners with a 'Welcome to Country' speech which thanks the traditional owners for 'allowing' us to occupy and use their land. Now how traumatic, controversial or even threatening is that? What I do wonder though is, will it take 3,000 years for our indigenous people to truly be given their homeland and accepted as part of the community? I doubt it; they will be given back bits and pieces like the Americans sometimes do with the Indians but how long will it take until we even reach the dizzy heights of New Zealand and Canada who have taken their responsibilities a little more seriously? Again I don't know but tell me what you think.
I have digressed somewhat from my original topic and why I finally started my own blog. Last night I watched a film called 'Bra Boys' for the third time because it gave me hope and inspiration and when it finished I 'Googled' them. The 'Bra Boys' is a doco/film about how a 'gang' actually became a family and the difficulties they still face because society won't accept them. They actual save kids and absorb them into the world of surfing saving many vulnerable lives along the way. What I read blew me away and I wrote the following and posted it; now I want to share what I said with you and leave it at that for a short while.
Some of the comments I read hit me like a metaphorical sledge hammer; I couldn’t get over some of the absurdly uniformed judgemental opinions but then I realised why. It’s simply ignorance and a typical middle class response to a subject where the entire knowledge base is drawn from tabloid journals with their own agenda.
I have always had a compassion for those who haven’t had the same opportunities as I but admit I too have been judgemental; this fundamentally changed when I became a teacher, forty and a single father of two. I started off in middle class schools but I had a burning desire to work with kids who don’t have the same opportunities as my own do. It was quite a shock; I worked in schools which were virtually ‘white’ to schools that were ‘Asian’ and everything in between. I am at a challenging school which on occasion’s experiences events and situations which were totally new to me.
Australia isn’t all leafy eastern suburbs where kids go on to do better than their parents. I think the class system is no longer so much about money but values; I suppose even where we live bring us back to values because of similar ideals and we feel awkward in an environment that doesn’t resemble our own. I’m not saying this is judgemental; it’s just who we are and the values we were brought up with. I detest violence and until I commenced working in ‘known’ areas had never experienced it. Amongst several violent experiences I have been assaulted while walking to get lunch because I didn’t get of the crossing fast enough for a speeding driver.
What I want you to try and understand is we are a product of our environment and parents; it’s called socialisation. But now all the fuss is about a group of surfers labelled a ‘gang’ which is trying to lift itself from these stereotypical labels we give them and the vulnerable young who may have parents who on occasions have also failed them out of what they realised was a perpetual cycle of an underclass. I also encourage you to do some reading on ‘generational poverty’. These ‘Bra Boys’ are showing some of the most at risk that a ‘gang’ does not have to be about crime, poverty and some kind of despot group who inflict harm on the community. If they were middle class they would be a club or society, even a ‘surf club’ but because of who they are and where they come from they are a ‘gang’. We need to be better informed and understanding.
Thanks
Rusty
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