Oppression
Saturday, January 01, 2000
I saw the TV footage of Aboriginal men rebelling against the insults of their warders. Then confronted by large numbers of armed warders, they kept on fighting. The reward for their futile courage was a cold-blooded hearing at which their sentence was prolonged. Suddenly I could understand how suicide could seem the only option.
Let’s face it, modern white man has learned to live with oppression. We know that despite the formality of court of law, and despite the implied dignity of an official uniform, we are expected as prisoners to endure personal contempt and humiliation on a daily basis – and pretend to accept it. This is an art that many Aborigines seem not to have learned.
I am not sure who is the more spiritually impoverished – us or them.
Philip O'Carroll