permaculture

[Pacific Edge Permaculture + Media <pacedge@magna.com.au>]

> From: 1earth permaculture <permaculture1@start.com.au>
> Reply-To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2002 21:25:45 +1000
> To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Subject: Re: plants db - indigenous
> 
> Marcus wrote:
>>> She also talks about 'latant racism' which is an underlying
> attitude in the white society... It is latant by begrudging them what
> little support they are finally receiving, not even saying 'sorry' for
> the past because of possible litigation, or even condescending saying
> "I support a treaty and reconciliation" but then doing nothing at all
> in you own life to live up to it.
>> 
> Russ wrote:
>> How do you know that people who support a treaty and reconciliation
> are doing nothing further? Isn't that something of a broad assumption?
> Where is the evidence?
> 
> Russ, I'm sure that you will agree that some people say "I support
> reconciliation" but still in practice won't do anything that changes
> the status quo of white domination and imperialism.

When it comes to Aboriginal societies, which is what you were talking about
Marcus, it really is a case of 'white domination'.

But there is a tendency among many - especially in our society - to always
blame 'whites', as if white people (instead of naming people by their
colour, let's give them their proper name - 'Westerners')  were the source
of all evil. 

While I do not seek to deflect blame away from Westerners where it is due,
let's take a broad view and realise that 'domination and imperialism' is not
a characteristic of the West (and of the white people who make up most of
its inhabitants) alone...  let's for a moment consider Chinese domination
and imperialism... or Islamic domination and imperialism... Japanese
domination and imperialism prior to and during the Second World War or
Russian domination and imperialism. They have all been pretty hard on
indigenous populations, such as the Ainu of Japan, the Chinese at the hands
of the Japanese. 

What I want to create is a perspective and to get away from this 'white
guilt' foisted on us by some in the indigenous rights movement - as I have
said, if we really want to help Aboriginal people gain their human rights,
then guilt is a rather self-indulgent and disempowering basis to do that
from.

I think from your experience in politics, Marcus, that you will realise that
people feel powerless to create change and that, today, people are flat out
making ends meet financially, dealing with unemployment/ underemployment,
family crises, downsizing/ takeovers of their places of employment and the
confusion in their minds and the feelings of insecurity (see the work of
Hugh Mackay, Mackay Research) coming from a decade and more of economic,
social and technological change. How can they do anything about 'white
domination and imperialism'? Where do they get the time?

Marcus, the point about people like you, with your media background in
politics, and me, with a background in an environmental business journal,
development education and freelance work, is that we have the privilege to
explore these topical issues and to pontificate on them in public, even when
that pontification assumes a provocative 'devil's advocate' format as mine
sometimes does. 

Most people do not have that privilege, however, and the more contact  I
have with 'ordinary' people in the mainstream of Australian life, the more I
appreciate the limitations they cope with. This really is a society under
stress, at last for that 40% of the Australian population Mark Latham
identifies as in the challenged middle, and the 30% he identifies as being
the number who are seriously challenged by employment/ income/ standard of
living/ poverty issues (for non-Australians, Mark Latham is an Australian
Labour Party member of parliament and perhaps, with Barry Jones, the Labour
Party's leading (only?) thinker).

> I'm also
> referring to such things as politically incorrect speech and thought
> and actions - it's going to take some time (if at all) for those
> things to disappear.
 
> I noted that you said earlier that you are not always politically
> correct in speech and writings (shazzbutt, either am I!).  I urge you
> to reconsider this though when working as a journo, activist or
> commentator on something as politically and culturally sensitive as
> indigenous affairs.

Unfortunately, due to other responsibilities I'm not now in the position to
write on these things as I have been in the past (I guess that's why I'm
putting time into participation in this forum, as a way of exploring these
things again).

Political correct speech and writing - yes, I understand the motivation
behind these things and have sympathy with a motivation that I comprehend as
being that of treating people fairly. I believe that I have done this in my
work in the past where I gave coverage, sometimes in the face of criticism
from business interests, to voices these people would consider less valid
and marginal. 

What I find objectionable about political correctness is that is seeks to
impose rules on what and how an issue is discussed and, in the worse cases,
is used to censor discussions, to bring closure to them by labelling people
'racist' (the ethnic lobby has been good at this in the past) - a form of
control and one which, for many in the media, has made the word 'racist'  a
throw-away work to be disregarded.

I believe that nothing of public value is to be gained by politically
correctness (as different from, say...  sensitivity in addressing particular
communities... as a media worker with political experience you will know
that you put the same idea into different terminology for different
audiences) and that media workers best serve the public interest when they
discuss delicate issues openly, honestly and robustly. While this doesn't
make media workers popular... well, popularity is not the name of the game
and if you are a bit sensitive about it then you do not become a journalist
(or a politician).

>  As we learnt in the Word & Text course at uni,
> certain types of discourse bring their own genre and jargon, and to
> not use the appropriate jargon can bring cries of 'confrontational' or
> 'insensitive' even though the overall meaning of your text is actually
> supportive.

Yes, as above. But self-censorship (in the worse cases) to comply with
someone else's idea of what should be discussed and how it should be
discussed can be dishonest - surely it is little more than giving control
over the subject matter and terminology to a particular group of
protagonists. 

As you know from your work in media management, promoting the use of
particular words and phrases affects how the public perceives and thinks
about things, and political correctness is part of this process. I think
media workers can use robust speech and writing while being fair to all
people in an issue. Public discussion about sensitive issues can be hurtful
and while we should seek to minimise this, I don't see how it can be
avoided. You will know from your political advisory work that discussions
about things such as indigenous rights is often set up by politicians in
terms of win-lose.

The problem is that the discontent with political correctness has been
hijacked by people like the prime minister and Pauline Hanson and used
against those promoting it. In doing so, these politicians represent a
substantial body of thought in Australian society - and we know that Pauline
has successfully voiced many of the fears in Australian society, including
that over globalisation (of which she was about the only political voice
against it) - including many media workers who saw the motivation of the
politically correct as an attempt to control their work. It was the
missionary zeal of the politically correct, their finger-pointing and
blaming, that created this backlash.

As for the indigenous rights lobby, it should have a case that can stand on
its own merits without recourse to political correctness (surely it does
this simply on the basis of human rights alone).

 
> Russ wrote:
>> To simply label these people I assume it is me because I made that
> statement 'condescending' is a real put-down of people ...
> 
> Actually no, not referring to you, I was speaking in broad terms.

Thanks.

> (BTW, I'm accredited for CHOGM, so if anyone is coming to protest,
> please leave the workers alone - some of us are on the inside, working
> for the 'greater good' - LOL)

Can I support this request? People working for change on both the inside and
the outside are needed.

There was nothing like seeing on television news the blockading of the
interested public (not all supporters, some simply citizens interested to
hear her) from Pauline Hanson's (One Nation Party) election meetings a few
years ago to prove to the public mind her allegation that who opposed her
were unreasonable... that those who called for 'tolerance' were, in fact,
the most intolerant.

Ditto the blockade of the G7 meetings. Naomi Klein (author 'No Logo') is
right when she says that those social movements need to organise themselves
on a higher level to make further headway.

> Russ wrote:
> Stating " ...but then doing nothing at all in you own life to live up
> to it" does not take into account the fact that, in contemporary
> Australian society, people are time-poor. What do time-poor people do?
> 
> Ah yes, but it takes the same amount of time to be compassionate as it
> does to be this-ist or that-ist.  I'm not talking about people taking
> the time to do community work (leave that to the pros)

Well, as someone who has worked with communities I believe that a
grass-roots approach often achieves more than 'leaving it to the pros'.
Sure, pros do have a valuable role, but saying that people should leave
community work to the professionals is to disempower them and to reinforce
the retreat from community we see all about us today.

What I was saying in my comment above was that people find it impossible to
devote time to things like indigenous rights or to other causes because of
the pressures of contemporary urban life. Where do people like my partner
find time - travel and working time take up 13 hours of her day - and she is
typical - there simply is not enough time, especially when people have
families, studies or other responsbilities to devote to things.

Supporting causes by donations of time is largely the luxury of activists
without responsibilities...a luxury which sometimes makes the activist
impatient with the public and further alienates the public from them.

Marcus... I wonder if we've talked this issue out now? If the discussion
becomes simply one between the two of us, then maybe others on the list feel
that it exhausted and, if that is the case, maybe we should bring it to an
end.

..Russ Grayson