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."
Muslimwoman said:
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:
17th Angel said:
Every man, is accountable for his own actions... I have NO part of it... So don't put that bull on me.
greymare said:
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....
Muslimwoman said:
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
This week a 10yr old girl was raped by 9 (men and teens).
