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| ABC Four Corners: Australia's shame |
Dear Malcolm (my prime minister) and Barnaby (my elected representative for the New England notwithstanding that I live in the Hunter),
Where do I start? I don't know where to start.
What hope is there for a nation that has such a blatant disregard for life?
Our scorecard is abysmal: we mistreat ...
- our environment
- our dogs
- our cattle
- our women
- our asylum seekers
- our human rights commissioner
- our elderly
- our children
... and all of this has all been conducted on your watch, in fact countless Australian govenments' watch ... for decades.
We have had endless Royal Commissions into our various atrocities but nothing ever changes.
And here we are again in what seems like some hideously macabre 'Groundhog Day' loop this time regarding our children.
Oh it's all too easy to wave your magic wand and declare
Behold, I do believe we'll hold another series of Meetings-That-Take-Forever-And-Achieve-Nothing now that I've chatted to the Human Rights Commissioner whom we bullied and threatened but just a while ago ... oh chortle chortle, a mere trifle now that we need her imprimatur... but how will any of what you're proposing improve the immediate lives of those poor children whose images were broadcast on ABC television last night?
The sheer agony and terror we witnessed on their faces, and their bodies and their spirits, should haunt us all forever because let's face it, we all stand guilty of turning away and letting this happen ... namely because some of 'us' keep on voting for the likes of you, making you our elected representatives, only for you to subsequently permit this brutal treatment to happen in our name.
How dare you.
This dark and cruel episode is yet another example of a systemic national and cultural government fail.
The children's so-called crimes, which landed them in that dickensian reform centre, were nothing compared to the torture and 'crimes against humanity' that were incessantly meted out to them.
Yes, these state-sanctioned 'crimes against humanity' inflicted with such an obvious intent to cause suffering must make us all hang our heads in shame that:
(1) these children were terrorised at the hands of people who were supposed to be looking after them
(2) we endlessly vote for such cruel governments that allow such physical and psychological suffereing to happen.
We have a problem, Malcolm and Barnaby, and you and we are it.
(Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister also emailed, facebooked and tweeted, and this blog post cross-posted to Scone Blogger's Blog)
And of course, "our Indigenous people" - I say that because many of the same carceral forms of sadistic treatment occurred up here as well, starting with the so-called "residential schools" where every little thing the children brought from home was thrown away, their hair shorn, their languages forbidden, not to mention ordinary and at times sexual sadism.
ReplyDeleteWith the same terrible consequences as in Australia.