Comments on: Surf Wars/Turf Wars

By: Blondie

Blondie — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 09:24:40 +0000

I won’t be original and go also, with “well said!”. I’ve tried to explain a similar outlook minus the racism experience for myself, to my dad who is a little narrow minded.

I was always the curious anglo non-aussie kid trying to find out about a friends’ cultural backgrounds, and telling the ignorant buggers who want to pick on something different to bugger off. Lucky I was taller than them

By: jason

jason — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 02:39:18 +0000

great piece of work mate, and the fact that im only reading it now makes no difference.

all that aside id like to add that i feel that alot of the later escalation and other racial violence is flamed so to speak by the press. we all know there is racism out there, i sadly admit to doing it when younger (and although unaware of the hurt and anguish i caused, im still deeply sorry for it, but i aslo don’t expect to be forgiven. obviosly as i grew up i realised my mistakes and said sorry where i could).

the one thing that the press should be held accountable for (they will argue about this) is i belive that they should leave race out of the reports to the public. any use of race being brought to the attention of the public in a situation that can and has incitted the pubplic to further acts of aggression towards itself is a civil breach of ethics, and they should therefore be held accountable for the obvoisly criminal activities that their poorly thought out public address has created.

mentioning a person or a group of people by race, catorgorises and teaches us to think of each other as a set of different races, which leads to problems at a later date.

they could have quite easily reffered to the group as a excitted mob or anry mob of people (being careful here, need to also take out youth and young men, as this can lead the futher problems). at no point should mention of race/gender/age or many other disscriptive features be used in a situation as the one that triggered the events. esspecialy if they where going to show the footage, we ourselves can see, we don’t need them to reinforce in our minds, our hate/unhappiness in a certain race/group of inviduals.

anyway i could go on, but i wont.
jason

By: zoilist

zoilist — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 17:09:11 +0000

Wow! Pretty powerful stuff here mate, definitely can agree with alot of the stuff you talk about going backwards over the last couple of decades!
one night following the riots after work my sweet lil sis was catching the train home back to Parra and some c##ksucker had the temerity to shout out to her ‘hey wog-girl, go back to your own country!’. This being directed at a smart, educated professional born and raised in Sydney, who has more Aussie patriotism in her little finger than most of these rednecks have in their body! Thankfully my sister displayed a cool head, whereas if I were there I would’ve gotten medieval on his ass!
I guess tolerance means not castrating these wankers when they turn 18.

By: Tatulda

Tatulda — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 17:26:21 +0000

Good stuff, Pete!
The good will prevail in the end. It always does. And more so in Australia. With all its imperfections, it is still one of the best countries around …
I am an optimist and would advise everyone to try follow one Russian “classic” which reads something like: “Do you want to be happy? Stop waiting and do it!”
It may lose something in translation, it now sounds a little like being taken out of a NIKE commercial but I very much believe in it. And I am happy to note that it seems to me that IG also has a similar philosophy in life. The only way to live it, I would say !
See you soon and best wishes for Christams and the New Year to you both !

By: Steph

Steph — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 10:34:01 +0000

Brilliant post. If somebody such as yourself, who has lived through racism can still have a tolerant view, then there is hope for others who haven’t.

Well said.

By: Imaginary Girl

Imaginary Girl — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 06:29:49 +0000

Well said, mi amor!!