heat wave

heat in summer. its never the nicest thing. seems to bring out the worst in people. take for instance riots on the beach. It seems everyone decided it wasnt hot enough just lying there. no. some people needed to get a bit phyiscal too...

race riots.

there seems to be several versions floating around. not surprising given how inaccurate & down right wrong the press can be. But there does seem to be some aggreed on - dare i say - 'facts'. two lebs injure a life guard. so some people decide to reclaim the beach. with violence, of course. And so some lebs decide to return the favour & protect their colour. with violence, of course. and so the police decide to stop the riots. with violence of course.

Any use of violence is only done to halt a percieved posibility of violence from the other group in question. Such a flimsy excuse. But then again a thin cover is all thats needed to legitimise actions when things get hot. And when issues of race & nation are rasied things get hot. Stickily hot.

too may fears & emotions mixed together. all sides are misrepresented by the press. it stalls any true understanding of the situation. (perhaps this is the greatest violence of all - if we cant ever really understand whats going on how do we solve the problem?) Latent issues are ignored and only the manifested expressions of those issues are dealt with.

the violence the police issue is most devistating & most hipocritical.

pseudo political spiels either complain about this as being the real face of 'racist australia' or as a hicup within a essentially multicultural society. pseudo politicans play name games, while socialists call a rally. a pesudo political action, no teeth to the bite. no content to the form.

Real thought, engagement of the differently afftected people of society remains ignored. Both perpertrators and victims go on being perpetrators & victims. Policicians hope to buy up the votes by giving the best subjective description to the bystanding majority of australia.

Scince the world trade centre's went blam, one thing is obvious - the religious strategy of tackling racism & opression has failed. As too has the political strategy, half arsed as it was to begin with.

Maybe before we think up anything else to do, before we fix the world, we should take some time out. Be a bit anti-political, be a bit anti-religious. Maybe go down to the beach and have a sit down in the sand. Look at the people dashing around. And, at some point say 'Hi, how are you?' to that stranger near by...

maybe learn something, understand something, then doing something...