Song 3.142

It wasn't easy, but nothing is...no!

It's good to see that the other has returned to semi-regular blogging and I find it an excellent read, as well as inspiration to get my own sorry ass in gear and do some blogging myself. But I also must say that I am shocked at the other's decision to ditch MSN and switch to Yahoo!! It's a mad world, but he has good reasons.

Just checked up on my blognotes and besides the latest entry to the Joaquin rate list (which will be done some in the near future...as soon as I remember how to re-link that particular post), there is really nothing new to report.

As mentioned, old comp is on the fritz, but luckily we discovered it's still under warranty so it shall be fixed this week!!! Then hello return to insane downloads south central! I've also been trying to knock off all the remaining films I have left. The latest session included Mean Girls, Enemy At The Gates and Equilibrium. All were absolutely brilliant, then again it's about the 4th time I've seen Mean Girls and it has lost none of it's appeal. I think I may add it to my all time faves right after this post! People think it's just a teen movie, but it is actually probably the most accurate satire of school yard interpersonal relationships.

With all that out of the way, it's about time I start a mini rant-ish thing about the race riots that took place in Sydney late last year.

Alright, here's the gist of the whole thing:
Cronulla Beach had long been the site for lots of ethnic gang related violence and intimidation. Then it seemed that it all reached a boiling point when several lifeguards were bashed. Talkback radio hosts (which in this country consist of many rich white old right wing men who have no concept of reality) fanned the flames of hate with racist rhetoric being echoed across the airwaves. After that, sms messages began circulating in the community that "Australians" should re-take the beach from "wogs" and "lebos" (lebanese people), by force if necessary. This got the state Government riled up and they told people not to pay attention. However, lo and behold, fear and stupidity won out and 5000 people congregated at the beach. This would have been ok if that was the end of the story, since they should be allowed to protest. However, they decided to get drunk and then assault anyone who looked remotely ethnic. This got extremely out of hand, and police as well as ambulance officers were needed to rescue people, and in turn they also bore the brunt of the violence. The crowd had draped themselves in Australian flags and chanted racist slogans. That evening, gangs started attacking residents and property in coastal areas. The day after that, lebanese youths roamed the city creating havoc at night and an emergency session of Parliament was called so that new powers could be given to police to lock down suburbs. This carried on for a few days but eventually everything quietened down.

The scary part is that some of the crowd involved in the main riot were identified as members of various white supremecist groups. Not only that, the Prime Minister then went on to say that race had nothing to do with the riots and he wouldn't say that anyone who used the Australian flat to protest had done the wrong thing. This absolutely disgusted me, and just made it obvious that he supported the actions of the crowd, and was just really a testament to his government's anti-multicultural policies. But it's good, I guess if I ever become a super fascist and need to commit a serious crime, I'll just drape myself in an Australian flag and I'm going to use that as a defence, and it's going to fly, just you see.

However, I'm not saying it's the fault of one side. There is gang violence in Sydney all over the place. There has been reports of gang rapes, shootings etc for many years over there, and I think the community has just had enough. People can't go to some areas for fear of being beaten, and that's really not satisfactory in a supposedly free society.

This begs the question of assimilation and multiculturalism, and whether it can effectively work. This is the problem. The crowd that day think that the shared values or what it means to be Australian effectively means being an anglo saxon white. There are more immigrants from Britian and Ireland who come to Australia more than all the other countries put together. However, they are widely accepted as being Australian and there are no qualms about it. But any other ethnic group is treated as ethnic. You cannot be Australian. You are Italian-Australian. You are Chinese-Australian. There is no British-Australian. No Irish-Australian. For them, it's just Australian. From the outset, there is already an assumption of difference and acceptance depending on ethnic groups. Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, while regarded as being the indigenous people of Australia, aren't really considered "Australian" by the wider community. This is something that makes no sense. They are treated just as unjustly as any other minority ethnic group. It really is crazy, since Europeans were the second people here and are in reality immigrants. If people are stupid enough to say that since taking land by force makes it legitimate for them to call themselves the only true owners of land, I say that it's also legitimate for gangs to create violence, because in their own twisted minds, they're doing the same thing.

Ethnic people are excluded. They are seen as exotic and mysterious, more of a novel concept than a real person who has feelings or is human. Yesh, there is a natural maybe even genetic inclination to stick with people who look like you, but beyond that, there is something higher which binds us together which we all know tells us that we're all the same. More education needs to be done in schools and so on on this topic.

What's also disturbing is that there always seems to be a need for people of ethnic backgrounds to prove that they are good people. Why is there an assumption that they aren't? They must be shown on the news, writing in newspapers that they are just like everyone else. We need to drop these god awful stereotypes. Go down the street, asian person? Drug dealer. Black person? Criminal. Middle Eastern? Terrorist. Mediterranean? Rapist. I know it goes around, because there's an assumption by a lot of the minority community that white Australians are racist. If we're not careful, that's going to become a stereotype for white Australians everywhere. We need to put an end to stereotypes, because we all know they're just utterly illogical and insulting. People need to start educating themselves about other places, other people, other cultures. Or else they'll never grow beyond what they see on tv or in the movies.

Of course there is a problem with assimilation, people may not speak the same language. But going further, people don't have the same skin colour! Hello!! That's a problem that cannot be rectified, thus a problem will always exist. Humans are just inherently fearful of anything that's different. This is hell-arious considering nobody seems to remember that we're all the same. I don't have the solutions for this, nor do you. But you know who does? WE all do. We only have to want it. Alright, that's enough of that unpleasantness behind us!

I think my next entry will be concerning the rate list, so you can all look forward to that.

Before I go, I must say that I just got the full version of the theme song to "Tommy Lee Goes To College". It's Good Times by Tommy Lee and it's off his album Tommyland. It's an absolute gem of a song (well of course, Dave Navarro provides the delicious acoustic chops), and I demand that people listen to it! Have a nice day folks!