Dark Victory
April 16th 2010 08:32
:
Dark Victory | Tampa
Link: www.racismnoway.com.au/
Now is a good time to reflect on some of the issues that have been raised over the years in relation to so called boat people. It is important to have a clear opinion, whatever your opinion is. In terms of politics, it is so very low to use these situations to an advantage.
To create fear and mistrust in the community. To create fuel for discrimination. It is simply not good. David Marr and Marian Wilkinson's incisive work Dark Victory is certainly worth a look if you have the time and the mind to read something detailed and clear that gives you ample warning about the ways we Australian's may have been manipulated around these issues in the past..
On the whole Dark Victory lifts the lid on the Howard Government's ways.
We ultimately are the one's who have to make our views clear. I'm currently working on a production of a play written by David Williamson; Influence. The play mixes up a few characters and stirs a pot that is as volitile now as it was when the play was first written five years ago.
I think, possibly, in so many ways Australia has grown a little faster than it should, or should've been keeping up with at least. We have a great deal of people here who have been invited by the Government to come and have residency based on their situation. Friends of mine were 17 years in detention in their country before they were able to come here on humanitarian grounds. My friends from Bhutan; the youngest is 17 years old. He was born and raised in the camp.
His favourite food, the whole families favourite food is rice and anything green to put with it. It is what they know. And there's nothing wrong with rice, but - mix it up a bit. There needs to be more than rice in a diet for growing kids. Back to David Williamson's (last) play Influence.
A talk-back radio shock-jock carries on, he is the main character, on air he talks about Australian values, encourages callers to phone in, come on air and talk, share their experiences and views. They all essentially express racist negative views about Arabs. That's the spin. The play exposes a good deal of the deeply rooted racism that is established here.
The speed the country has grown, and education surrounding the new people, cultures, values; under the guise of Multi-Culturalism hasn't kept up with the reality of the situation on so many levels.
We have so many cultures among us, and they are in so many cases cut off from us simply by their lack of English. The must often spend years before they can learn the language, the older they are, often the slower it takes. In the meantime they are vulnerable.
One part of reality being that there are plenty of young people here from around the world who are trying to fit in but have Buckley's chance of doing so because their language skills are so limited and learning takes so long. Mix that up with the desire to get things done, start and make a life for one's self among the young these days, and it's a hairy path.
They so often get (or feel) trapped into their own cultural group by circumstance. They are accussed of not trying to blend, when they are doing the best to do so. Eventually I think many of them buy into what is a global, but heavily American influenced cultural state of mind, not really Australian. And any way, what is Australian after all? Is it 'Australian Culture and Values' - definitive simply because it's two hundred years old? Obviously not because the Aboriginal Australians were here a hell of a lot longer than that and their culture continues to fight for survival.
It would be so wrong if we did not have a clear and open debate about all of these issues in a way that was productive and called for transparency in political processes. Whatever it takes to find ways of accommodating the people who are really fleeing difficult situations.
Fancy having your 17 year old son live his whole life in a detention centre camp? Imagine arriving in a new country where by the colour of your skin you are hated? By what you are wearing? I don't think people who are opposed to racisim speak out against it enough - is it possible to do so?
To create fear and mistrust in the community. To create fuel for discrimination. It is simply not good. David Marr and Marian Wilkinson's incisive work Dark Victory is certainly worth a look if you have the time and the mind to read something detailed and clear that gives you ample warning about the ways we Australian's may have been manipulated around these issues in the past..
We ultimately are the one's who have to make our views clear. I'm currently working on a production of a play written by David Williamson; Influence. The play mixes up a few characters and stirs a pot that is as volitile now as it was when the play was first written five years ago.
I think, possibly, in so many ways Australia has grown a little faster than it should, or should've been keeping up with at least. We have a great deal of people here who have been invited by the Government to come and have residency based on their situation. Friends of mine were 17 years in detention in their country before they were able to come here on humanitarian grounds. My friends from Bhutan; the youngest is 17 years old. He was born and raised in the camp.
His favourite food, the whole families favourite food is rice and anything green to put with it. It is what they know. And there's nothing wrong with rice, but - mix it up a bit. There needs to be more than rice in a diet for growing kids. Back to David Williamson's (last) play Influence.
A talk-back radio shock-jock carries on, he is the main character, on air he talks about Australian values, encourages callers to phone in, come on air and talk, share their experiences and views. They all essentially express racist negative views about Arabs. That's the spin. The play exposes a good deal of the deeply rooted racism that is established here.
The speed the country has grown, and education surrounding the new people, cultures, values; under the guise of Multi-Culturalism hasn't kept up with the reality of the situation on so many levels.
We have so many cultures among us, and they are in so many cases cut off from us simply by their lack of English. The must often spend years before they can learn the language, the older they are, often the slower it takes. In the meantime they are vulnerable.
One part of reality being that there are plenty of young people here from around the world who are trying to fit in but have Buckley's chance of doing so because their language skills are so limited and learning takes so long. Mix that up with the desire to get things done, start and make a life for one's self among the young these days, and it's a hairy path.
They so often get (or feel) trapped into their own cultural group by circumstance. They are accussed of not trying to blend, when they are doing the best to do so. Eventually I think many of them buy into what is a global, but heavily American influenced cultural state of mind, not really Australian. And any way, what is Australian after all? Is it 'Australian Culture and Values' - definitive simply because it's two hundred years old? Obviously not because the Aboriginal Australians were here a hell of a lot longer than that and their culture continues to fight for survival.
It would be so wrong if we did not have a clear and open debate about all of these issues in a way that was productive and called for transparency in political processes. Whatever it takes to find ways of accommodating the people who are really fleeing difficult situations.
Fancy having your 17 year old son live his whole life in a detention centre camp? Imagine arriving in a new country where by the colour of your skin you are hated? By what you are wearing? I don't think people who are opposed to racisim speak out against it enough - is it possible to do so?
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