I am ashamed to be Australian

[greymare]

I know 17th and I love you for it. I just feel disgusted thats all and I understand what you are saying. In my world we will have a group of people that right wrongs no matter whose authority condones it and you my knight shall be my champion. arise "SIR 17th ANGEL" OF DERRING DO. The peoples champion ...... Mr 1derful....

[17th Angel]

It is indeed a terrible thing, but such a horrific act isn't on your hands... I can understand to a degree what you mean, but you're a good person

[Muslimwoman]

Huge big hug for Grey.

It is horrible when your 'community' does something offensive or stupid, I feel it within Islam (you know which bit), being British (the stupid political decisions) and back home in Egypt (the corruption and treatment of women) - boy my life is full of guilt.

As 17th says, you are not responsble for the actions of those men and yes you should petition the government and say you, as a citizen, do not accept this. It doesn't stop what happened but hopefully if enough people speak out it will not happen to another girl or if it does the men will be appropriately punished (hopefully strung up from a tree).

I feel for you. xxxxxx

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by 17th Angel

Hell no it does not, They were humans, they were males... They spoke English... I have all that in common but what they did has nothing to do with me, and does not represent me..... Just because they are Australlian, it doesn't represent Grey........ Every man, is accountable for his own actions... I have NO part of it... So don't put that bull on me.

What I am saying is that it does represent all of us in as much as we are a part of a global colonial system which has degraded entire populations of people for hundreds of years. That colonial system has created the conditions in which Aboriginal Australians live, and is therefore, in large part, responsible for the social problems that have sprung up. Yes, the men who raped this girl are guilty. Yet it is not as black and white--pardon the pun--of a crime as it would be if it had happened in a cosmopolitan, Eurocentric area. What we have in this case are indigenous people who have committed an atrocious crime against another indigenous person. The social system that would have mediated, punished, or even prevented such abuses, has long since broken down and been colonized by western, Eurocentric values. Therefore, the crime falls under the jurisidiction of a Eurocentric court, instead of being resolved within the native community, as it once may have been. In addition to that, we all hear about it through TV and newspapers and make our cultural-laden value judgments, get outraged, and call for justice.

Yet when I think deeply about it, I have the idea that justice for these people ended a long time ago. The call for justice that we make, as civilized westerners, serves a lot of purposes. It allows us to further separate ourselves from "the savages" and say "I would never do that, they should be hanged."

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

the men will be appropriately punished (hopefully strung up from a tree).

Oddly, the terror of this act impacts us in such a way that we move our focus from empathizing with the victim of the crime, a ten-year old girl, to separating ourselves from and hating the men who raped her, and from there again to empathizing with and supporting each other for having such big hearts and courageous wills:

Originally Posted by 17th Angel

Every man, is accountable for his own actions... I have NO part of it... So don't put that bull on me.

Originally Posted by greymare

I know 17th and I love you for it. I just feel disgusted thats all and I understand what you are saying. In my world we will have a group of people that right wrongs no matter whose authority condones it and you my knight shall be my champion. arise "SIR 17th ANGEL" OF DERRING DO. The peoples champion ...... Mr 1derful....

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

As 17th says, you are not responsble for the actions of those men and yes you should petition the government and say you, as a citizen, do not accept this. It doesn't stop what happened but hopefully if enough people speak out it will not happen to another girl or if it does the men will be appropriately punished (hopefully strung up from a tree).

I feel for you. xxxxxx

Maybe the solution doesn't lie only in punishing the perpatrators of crimes like this, since they are, in my analysis, also victims of colonialism. We've already established that throwing money at the problem doesn't work, and that some of the most "educated" people in Australia have failed to produce answers. What can we do? I don't know. I think a good place to start is trying to put events like this into a larger social and historical perspective, and to educate ourselves about how we are indeed embedded in colonial systems, no matter the color and content of our hearts.

Somehow I feel like the intimate details of how I live my individual life are what's important here, in as much as I can dissociate myself from the cultural forces that keep people, animals, plants, and minerals colonized. But since we are so entrenched in a colonial, exploitative system, complete dissociation is impossible, and I come back to feeling a little bit responsible for every atrocity in the world, which keeps me analyzing how I spend my money, what I eat, where I eat, where I work, and even the thoughts I think. It's the toughest job I know, but I love it. It's a refining process, and allows me to see that yes, I may be embedded and responsible, but at the same time I am a conscious being, able to analyze and make changes.

What change I can make in my life that will prevent colonized people from acts of sexual violence and community- and self-destruction is well beyond me at this point. I do know that pointing fingers at other victims, however, will not bring a resolution that I like. At this point, maybe awareness and empathy are the best I can do.

My observations, thoughts, and self-delusions.

--P

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by Bruce Michael

Child abuse has been rife in aboriginal communities for a long time now. The previous Prime Minister, Howard had been trying to do something about it by banning alcohol and pornography.

Child sex abuse rife in Indigenous communities: report - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Child sex abuse rife in Indigenous communities: report
PM - Child abuse rife in Aboriginal communities: report

If the girl was white or the men were white, there would have been an appropriate punishment. But because of "cultural" reasons the judge was soft.

Kind Regards,
Br.Bruce

Thanks for the links. They help put the situation in context.

[seattlegal]

More about this case from news.com.au

[Muslimwoman]

I just can't be that understanding Pathless, I need to know people are punished for such violations and believe this discourages others from committing such crimes. Look at countries with lax rape laws, their rape statistics are through the roof - women in Pakistan are afraid to report rapes. In Pakistan people use the same 'colonial', 'indiginous' reasons for gang rapes and it smacks of trying to justify it. We have to work against that and give strict, even brutal punishments to ensure others see it is not acceptable.

This case in particular makes me want to heave because Australia is not a backward country but this court has virtually ignored the crime because the girl was not 'one of us'.

I can't see it as a wider issue, rape is as personal as it gets.

salaam

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

Look at countries with lax rape laws, their rape statistics are through the roof - women in Pakistan are afraid to report rapes.

The United States has lax rape laws as well. Women here are also afraid to report rapes, and still suffer much stigma when they take cases to court. Rape is an epidemic.

salaam alaikum

[Pathless]

The more I think about this thread and this case, the more it bothers me. It seems to me that what is happening within these aboriginal communities is something akin to the auto-genocide happening within inner-city black populations in America. In those areas, available jobs are demeaning and scarce, the 'welfare system' that wil referred to is in high operating order, education is poor, and entire communities are under the watchful eye of the police. Often drug-dealing is an attractive option to young people in those communities, even given the risks of jail time and gun violence by both gang members and police.

In these aboriginal communities in Australia, where is the pornography and alcohol coming from? Is there an aboriginal Larry Flint producing and distributing Dreamtime Hustler in the communities? Is there an aboriginal brewery, perhaps? An aboriginal vineyard in the outback? A nice bootleg moonshine distillery on Ayer's Rock? Somehow I doubt it. In the articles linked so far in this thread, investigations have indicated that both pornography and alcoholism are factoring into the sexual abuse and promiscuity. Yet any discussion of the sources of those two things is conspicuously absent, which is another incident of dominant European colonial oppressors conveniently overlooking any responsibility that they may have in creating this horrible situation.

Beyond that, in my readings I have come across narratives of native peoples being much less sexually repressed than Abrahamic Europeans. In both Walter L. Wililams' The Spirit and the Flesh and Reinaldo Arenas' Before Night Falls I have read about Pre-Columbian American peoples who were casual about sex among youth. In our western cultures, we find such behavior morally reprehensible, unconscionable, and offensive. To some tribal peoples, it wasn't and perhaps still isn't such a big deal. Kids have sex. They play with each other and experiment sexually. It is part of life.

I wonder if a combination of the projection of western morality and the introduction of printed pornography and readily available alcohol has led to the present problem. If so, I don't believe that westerners are in any position to take the moral high ground in passing judgment, legal or otherwise, against the perceived crimes that are being committed in these communities. Certainly the parties involved should not be punished under western laws. Perhaps a rehabilitation program could be implemented instead, developed by the elders and other community leaders, in which pornography is phased out/eliminated, alcohol consumption restricted, sexual education is offered, and respectful relationships between men and women are developed and modeled.

This may be quite impractical given the conditions, and I realize that greymare has already stated that the elders seem to squander the money that the government gives them. Perhaps then, the people should be set free from the government? Given back their land and allowed to regenerate their social traditions and self-sufficiency to the best of their ability? Perhaps the best thing western colonizers can do at this point is stop meddling.

An idealist's idyllic dream perhaps, but the best brainstorm that I have.

[greymare]

I dont think that colonialisation is the problem here. I know plenty of indigenous people that are doing as well as I am and its only cos they want to and have worked for what they have like everyone else. Ok i understand that people invading their land and taking everything over was bad for them. BUT that was 200years ago and those peoples directly affected by it are long gone. as well as the people that are responsible for it. (inother words dont blame me) The rape in question was horrific (as they all are) and the only way to guarantee that they wont reoffend is to either remove the offnding part or remove them from society. my thoughts and once again Ill probably get in trouble. bring it on i say.....

[Amine102]

This is no reason to be ashamed to be Australian.