SD on 21/6/2007 at 19:18
(
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2108122,00.html)
Quote:
Pornography and alcohol will be banned for Aborigines in Australia's Northern Territory, the country's prime minister, John Howard, announced today.
Aboriginal leaders immediately attacked the plan as "disgusting and paternalistic", saying they were not consulted and that they objected to restrictions on how indigenous people spend their welfare benefits.
John Howard has really outdone himself here! I know him and his party are an incorrigible bunch of racist old bastards, but this is almost beyond belief. It's like something from apartheid-era South Africa.
Swiss Mercenary on 21/6/2007 at 19:41
Personally, in most cases, I'm not overly moved by the plight of the disenfranchised natives, considering the amount of money poured on to initiatives designed to 'help' them.
At this point, I'd rather see the government write out a fat check to each one of them, and let them be on their lands, or whatnot. After that, let them drink, or drug themselves to death, or whatnot, or whatever it is they want to do. If they want hands-off, they should get hands-off, rather then having money poured to them for the rest of eternity.
Kolya on 21/6/2007 at 20:51
If the situation is as they described in the article, what choice do they have?
But a law (rule?) that's designed to only affect a certain part of the population is alarming, to say the least. They really should enforce it on everyone who receives welfare. It wouldn't hurt. Not sure if it's practically possible though.
I don't think the problem will "solve itself" in the way Swiss Mercenary mentioned. Apart from it being a cynical proposal, those people would still be there once the "fat check" is spent and fall even lower on the social scale, leading to the same kind of problems there are now, only worse. What's next? Lock them up?
Lansing on 21/6/2007 at 20:59
Sounds like they're tackling the wrong problem. Child abuse is not caused by alcohol, but in this case it sounds like it's a facilitator. Defining a law to one area or to one set of people is only going to be devisive and is only going to increase the problem in the long term.
Zygoptera on 21/6/2007 at 22:37
They had (may still have, for all I know) a ban on liquor sales to aborigines in certain areas of Queensland. Worked brilliantly, assuming it was intended to supplement the incomes of the local police who happily sold booze to them themselves. Every once in a while they'd arrest a bunch of aborigines for drinking, confiscate their booze and then... sell it back to them when they were released.
Swiss Mercenary on 21/6/2007 at 22:53
Quote Posted by Kolya
What's next? Lock them up?
Treat them the same way we treat everybody else from then on.
Kolya on 22/6/2007 at 00:07
Just for a few seconds imagine you had grown up in an aboriginal settlement. Where 3 out of 5 children are sexually abused, so chances are you were one of them. And you live in an improvised hut with ten or more people, lots of them hard drinkers, the man who abused you might well be one of them. Your parents never cared much for sending you to school. So you lose the job in town and go back to the settlement. And chances are you become a victim of violence again, or maybe you stab someone for a change because you don't want to be a victim all the time. No one here dreams of being a doctor, lawyer or anything, they dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard.
And then one day a man from the government comes and gives you 300 dollars. Says: "Here son, build yourself a future. Because that's the last money you'll get from us. From now on you're on your own."
And you try to think what that could mean, because you were always on your own and you never had a future. Instead by then you are so fucked up you spent it on booze. Just like your friends, your father and everyone else.
Your own fault. Everyone's responsible for themselves. And if your starting position was worse than that of the white kid who's in college by now, that just means you should have worked harder to get somewhere.
(Facts and examples taken from Wikipedia: (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians#Issues_facing_Indigenous_Australians_today) Aborigines today)
flexbuster on 22/6/2007 at 00:36
Careful, Kolya. Reminding people that people's lives and decisions are actually subject to cause-and-effect relationships (as opposed to being the direct result of Your God-Given Will (TM)) might not go over well with them.
SD on 22/6/2007 at 01:09
Quote Posted by Kolya
Your own fault. Everyone's responsible for themselves. And if your starting position was worse than that of the white kid who's in college by now, that just means you should have worked harder to get somewhere.
Are you blaming Aborigines for the fact that they've been repeatedly shit on by white Australians? That's pretty funny, man. And tragic at the same time.
The answer to social problems is not to introduce social injustices. No matter how bad things are, this is no justification for installing disgusting racist measures like this.
Howard stands to lose the next election, and this is typical conservative strategy when things are going badly: pick on a disadvantaged minority - the weaker and more disliked the better.
Quote Posted by flexbuster
Careful, Kolya. Reminding people that people's lives and decisions are actually subject to cause-and-effect relationships (as opposed to being the direct result of Your God-Given Will (TM)) might not go over well with them.
pathetic
Gestalt on 22/6/2007 at 01:45
Kolya was being facetious, most likely.
