THE LAUNCHING OF ETHIOPIAN COMMUNITY DOWNUNDER

                   Simeneh Makonnen, founder of Ethiopian Community in 1985.

I thought founding of the Ethiopian community would be a significant contribution, not only to Ethiopians, to the Australian mainstream culture, to establish and introduce a new multiracial migrant community on its own accord, adding to some of the already existing multicultural communities in Melbourne.
I continued to sustain a steady friendship with some of the Ethiopian migrants at the Hostel in Springvale, especially, with former Ethiopian National Soccer players Solomon and his brother Ermias Wondimu who have managed to flee, with two of their fellow players, when they were sent overseas with national teams to play soccer. I drive all the way to Springvale some weekdays and almost every weekend to meet and spend an enjoyable time together, which was a memorable & life changing rendezvous. As our friendship continued to flourish, they introduced me to their fellow national soccer players, who they also migrated with, Sisay Kebede and Lema Kibret along with other close friends of theirs. We continued to enjoy each other’s company and started to discover the life styles of Melbourne outings.

Flanked by former Ethiopian National Team brothers from left Solomon & on the right Ermias Wondimu

Few months later, I popped up a hearty feeling spontaneous question, while we were enjoying the moment with other close friends, about forming Ethiopian community by gathering everyone at a meeting. They were excited and agreed about the concept overwhelmingly & decided to plan a meeting place outside the Enterprise Hostel centre where few of the migrants already moved by renting after they have secured work.

I organized everyone to spread the word that a meeting will be held at Wareham Street, off Springvale Road, Springvale, where some of our friends live who I met during my course of discovery. I amicably call this place the second Enterprise Hostel centre because it was a gathering venue for everyone, every week, to enjoy a home like friendship and escape from the day-to-day stresses of life and find ways to integrate with the Australian way of life.

In my part, I contacted Bedellu Detsa who has been living in Australia before everyone else. I met Bedellu somehow somewhere earlier as we both live in close proximity while he was living in the suburb of Preston where he was still attending Latrobe University.  I told Bedellu about my intentions of forming Ethiopian community and about the meeting which was scheduled on Sunday and invited him to come and take part.

I wanted Bedellu to come to the meeting to support, share and use his life experiences in addition to mine in order to mentor our fellow new comers and persuade those attending the meeting about the ultimate importance of establishing our community. Bedellu accepted my invitation with less enthusiasm stating the difficulties of forming a community of multiethnic groups. I encouraged him that at least we can start to form the foundation and then we will deliberate ways of sustaining it. This is a true story.

In 1985, the enthusiastically awaited scheduled day of meeting, to establish Ethiopian community, at Wareham Street, Springvale has arrived, but only friends, acquaintances and very few people of diverse Ethiopians, perhaps less than twenty, showed up. Regardless of the small number of people at the meeting, after very happy moments of Sunday afternoon informal but dynamic discussions, we all agreed to schedule another general & centralized meeting location for everyone to attend.

The Pan-African place on Smith Street Collingwood which was operating by assisting Africans in the past was recommended as being a free venue to have our next all inclusive general meeting. Bedellu and I were provisionally designated to disseminate the information and thereby assemble the general meeting.

In 1985, a little less than a year after I arrived, I embarked on making a lifetime success story by establishing the first Ethiopian Community Association in Victoria. The general meeting was held at the Pan-African place on Smith Street, Collingwood, with new attendance of more than thirty, different Ethiopians, at least six, ethnic groups, all inclusive gathering. Bedellu & I chaired the meeting to take its course with spirited and civil dialogues. After a very constructive, important discussions and election of committee members to run the community, the meeting was finished without any altercations as the participants were from diverse Ethiopian ethnic groups.

From left former Ethiopian National Team player Sisay, myself, Foggi & far right RIP Alex TRAM (known as)

The elected committees were Bedellu Desta as President, myself as a secretary, a treasurer, a publicity officer & two support members of the committee. I immensely valued my position which will suit my ability to organise all the duties and responsibilities with a principled democracy built on a foundation of the values of tolerance, cooperation and compromise to serve and embrace a diverse groups of Ethiopians indiscriminately.

As I remember, there were people from different ethnic groups who were elected as committee members to serve the community at the beginning until, gradually, they continue to drop out either deliberately or inadvertently as a result of various reasons such as ethnic nepotism, denigration, divisiveness, mishandling, politics, irreconcilable differences and lack of cohesion in the community.

I was furious and strongly appalled to write this article, as simple and clear as possible, because of the news circulating around time and again misinforming the public about the exact anniversary date of the community’s establishment in 1985.

I see incorrectly represented information at the immigration museum and other local departments and I, here, try to enlighten the public with concise evidence how, where and when the community was formed.

I believe the committee members who have been elected to work for the community have either irresponsibly displaced the original documents of meetings including those original records & the elected members in 1985 as I have specified earlier or deliberately or disrespectfully changed to 1986 for self-promotion & personal gratification.

Unfortunately, my premonition being the latter, I just want everyone to know the truth, nothing but the hard truth without naming & shaming anyone, 1986 was the year newly arrived members have been elected to serve the community and they would like to ponder that the community was formed on their watch. I’m sorry that somebody made a huge mistake by putting the entire one year ahead for daylight saving instead of putting an hour foreword. Sorry guys, that’s very funny! Well, maybe for some. Those people should be liable for contempt perverting the course of history, but no one is pressing charges for mistakes of the past as long as acknowledgements are endowed. 

I always sought a common ground even among differing; hard line opposing political views and opinions. At other times, I may display that line of the forlorn idealist intellectual, one who appears deeply in observation due to the multiple problems and tragedies of this world and the ever present suffering of humanity all around us. But I was always with that ever present infectious smile on my face not to disappoint everyone and an ever radiating optimism and hope about the future of our community and people.

One of the greatest weaknesses is our patriotism Ethiopiawinet which has been the ideology of  bygone era of choosing someone with noble & high profile personality connotations (chawa saw naw, ye taweke saw naw, egele tiru saw naw, ke yet naw, ye egele lij naw……; zaare ayee seram….). Time and again, the community has created idealized, acquaintance-based and heroic beliefs of individuals as leaders, sprinkled with absolute flattery, praise and nepotism, which we have inherited, instead of competency and merit. Let us remember that every time we do this, we are producing identical seed and mentoring future autocrats to do the same thing again and again.

I served the community I longed, founded and stood for up until, my final year, 1990. There is a hard reality that most of us in the older generation in our community have been unable to face. That reality is we need to learn to get out of the way. Let's give the younger generation a chance to lead and help them to develop from the sideline if required. After all, it is their future. We can be most useful if we help them learn from our mistakes and guide them to greater heights. If there is one thing universally true about young people, they love their freedom more than anything else.

I am a tenacious and steadfast advocate who is not easily deterred. So, I offer the same advice, again, now, that the political game has transformed and despite the repetitious responses among the leaders of the community that nothing has reformed and things are continuing as before.

In spite of many setbacks and adversities encountered during my service to the community, I treated all Ethiopians equally, regardless of political, ethnic, and other differences. I embraced the community that provided an  environment  to work together not only to compete in elections but also in formulating comprehensive programs, encouraging broader representation of all Ethiopians expressing their views and demands in order to improve our services to the community.

One of the many Ethiopian New Year Day Celebrations in Melbourne

 

During my services to the community some of my duties and accountabilities include:

• Served the community as Secretary and President consecutively until 1990
• Maintained administrative duties by working with elected management committees
• Provided culturally sensitive humanitarian assistance such as death in the family, various legal issues and other support deemed necessary for members of the community and beyond
• Acted as community broker to obtain full assistance from local councils to facilitate and strengthen services within the community
• Arranged registration of membership and maintained record keeping of community members
• Prepared and presented written funding submissions to local governments
• Liaised with human service provider organizations in relation to improving and sustaining delivery of services
• Designed a united all Ethiopian original logo, wrote and articulated objectives, internal rules and regulations of the community

 

ORIGINAL LOGO 



• Prepared, wrote and submitted objectives, rules and regulations of the community to the office of Incorporation
• Organised and chaired periodical and annual meetings of management committees and members
• Assisted migrants settling in the culturally diverse Australian way of life in setting up their ideal business
• Proposed, prepared and facilitated community programs and maintained it until goals were achieved
• Assisted migrants with interpreting/ translating in various tasks such as law enforcements and welfare agencies
• Contributed to the personal development individuals to understand significant barriers in gaining a sustainable employment, housing, communication and promotion material to assist, improve services and opportunities
• Attended regular forums of local governments and functions regarding all issues ranging from immigration and detention to community funding at Migrant Resource Centres
• Organised cultural activities for the community such as celebration of Ethiopian New Year, sport and recreation, visual art shows and participation in the Australia Day and Moomba festivals
• I was there at every event, public meeting, every demonstration calling for Ethiopian unity, for freedom, justice and the rule of law to prevail in Ethiopia.
• Liaising with local media outlets.                                                                                           

AN AWARD RECEIVED DURING THE SERVICE

Read more on the name change story that helped a lot of people to reclaim their name at:   https://timeforchangesociety.blogspot.com/2008/04/self-revelation.html

Here is the interview given to THE Age Newspaper reporter. Some of the comments were not correctly addressed and he took it out of context, particularly, about the number of languages we speak and the lack of Ethiopian female’s migration issues at the time. 

THE Age Newspaper Interview (Click to view)

See the AGE NEWS paper site:

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/120484000/

The NYALA African restaurant first opening in Brunswick St, Fitzroy, is being publicized about their new business venture at the time. Restauranteurs Ermias and his brother Solomon Wondimu were happy to be reunited with their sister Seble to join them in launching their one and only Ethiopian Restaurant business in the most livable city.

 

The community was also exemplified an important role in resettling and assisting its country’s folks and fellow Africans who are detained at immigration centres and other problems they’re confronted with in integrating in their new home.

                                                            THE Age Newspaper Copy

This was an interview I gave to THE Age Newspaper protesting on behalf of Kifle Assefa, an Ethiopian, who was on hunger strike in disputing his case while in Melbourne immigration detention centre. In those days, it was a good time to protest to get a sympathetic public if your case was as valid as Kifle’s one. Imagine the hassles asylum seekers are going through in today’s timeslot.

I hope you have enjoyed reading the untold story so far. This is a true story not only that I was being there, actually, accountable for its inception and foundation. This is absolutely not what some of the members and readers probably think that I’m crying for self-promotion & appreciation. Far from it; I say to those who already know me and new fellow Ethiopians, regardless of whatever conclusion you may draw that I have never expected gratitude & don’t intend to. Although it is a natural and ethical inclination to be appreciated, more importantly, I do things because it is the right thing to do and my personal satisfaction is more important for my conscience than appreciation by others.  
Next see THE COMMENCING OF AFRICAN SOCCER CLUB DOWNUNDER at: https://timeforchangesociety.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/the-commencing-of-african-soccer-clubs.html

Peace & Good health

Anyone having comments or questions about the article can do so. 

THE START & END OF MY JOURNEY

Leaving behind my family, friends and treasured collection of possessions at a tender age of self-discovery was a tough undertaking. However, unlike some of my countrymen and women who have left our country under difficult circumstances travelling day and night in unbearable situations in order to escape being caught by border securities, I’m grateful to fly with one of the best African Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines. NOTE: Click on all images to see it LARGER.

 With brothers top & bottom left with mum sitting close to me & Friends on the right.

I left Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1976, flying with Ethiopian Airlines, aka “The New Spirit of Africa”, with three of my workmates with an anticipation to experience the foreign life that we have learned and heard so much about, first arriving in Athens, Greece as our first destination.
Although, I thoroughly enjoyed the glossy lifestyles and the experiences of being away from homeland for the first time, I felt disenchanted and sensed melancholy as a result of homesick despite the fact that I was with my great home buddies and enjoying out and about discovering Athens by day and night.

  

                                      At one of our friend’s weddings, standing 2^nd from left.

I’ve enjoyed the tourist city immensely and met so many Ethiopians who came before us living there. While living in Athens, I regularly attended the newly formed Ethiopian community meetings with my friends and also helped establish a soccer club called Nyala (an Ethiopian icon, goat-like animal found in the Siemen Mountain Ranges of the country) Ethiopian Soccer Club. During and after my time, the community continued to flourish with plenty of young Ethiopian students going to school either through scholarships or privately and migrant residents that were living in Athens.

After spending over two years in Athens, I knew it was impossible to go back to Ethiopia because of the unsettled transitional period with the new revolution taking power from the longest reigning monarchs at the time; leaving behind my old and new friends, the beautiful love at first sight of Athens life, I, again, made another journey destined to make a new & better life in the New World commonly known as USA. Remembering about the stories told by my countrymen that have been there before me, I assumed I was also going to the moon because of my feelings being over the moon for going to America, at a time of the satellites taking off to the moon, my crossing the Atlantic Ocean to live in a country that we've learned so much about more than our own. 

Well, it was in 1978 that I left my love at first sight city that opened my eyes to all things different than I used to and leaving behind, again, friends and everything that I loved and arrived in New York. The next morning, I was taken to the airport to catch a flight to Los Angeles and then to Bakersfield, California, where my sponsor lived. When I arrived, I was greeted by my sponsor Mrs. Siechert. She took me to her place out on the city side where she lived with her husband, two sons and daughter. They’re a member of the Mennonite’s church. I lived with them for few months until I finally moved out to my own rented flat after I found myself a car wash job by day and a dishwasher at a restaurant by night. It was between this unsettling time that my Australian girlfriend, Margaret Miller, who I met in Athens, in 1977, while she was travelling around, we’ve stayed together for few months, but she went back home in good terms to see each other, again, came to visit me in Bakersfield, Ca, in 1979 and after few months we got married in jubilation. However, we both couldn’t find jobs in Bakersfield; we decided to move to a bigger and better city like Los Angeles San Francisco. We decided to visit the two cities by visiting them and we decided to drive down to LA, first. While visiting the Hollywood glamour city, its zoo and more, the air was very unhealthy and couldn’t breathe properly and we wanted to drive out of there soon and again, drive all the way to San Francisco. We got to SF and we’ve rented a hotel in Polk St up until early 1980s and we moved out to a better and bigger place, in Pierce St, SF, in preparation for our first baby. 

I thought life was hard on my own with no jobs and yet to finish school, I found myself in a deeper karma, having two kids and going to school with no close family that can help sometimes. This is why I decided to move to Australia with my family. 

 Although there were very few Ethiopians in the SF Bay Area where I lived, we occasionally met when the famine news was first broke out in our country to organize consultations for the public in order to appeal for help with any donations deemed necessary to help back home.

Leaving USA

After living in the USA, getting married to my Australian girlfriend, making great transformation and having my own family, I moved to Australia. Read more story at: https://timeforchangesociety.blogspot.com/2017/07/believe-it-or-not.html

Here we go again! Life goes on! Right? I’m on the move, again! As they say there is light at the end of the tunnel & having been travelled through it thick and thin, long and hard by transforming at every hurdle, after living over six years in the US, leaving my old and new friends, again, having just been graduated, just when I started to get over my homesickness, yet starting to get used to the country I was thrilled to see, where I thought I was destined to settle being married and having two daughters, made my last nomadic trip in a civilized world, this time with my family, what would be my last journey through long & difficult tunnel, eventually, to see a sturdier and illuminating light at the end in a faraway country better known as ‘Downunder’, arrived in Melbourne, June 15, 1984 and finally rejoicing with my family who have arrived three months earlier.

Without going into detail, I said sturdier because of the reality of disparity in the Australian way of life, specially, how the indigenous people and African migrants were treated in the mainstream living standards; illuminating because those hurdles were the motivating force in my conviction to persevere and triumph over those shared difficulties without renunciation.

                                        My Family in AUSTRALIA

At times, I began to doubt if there is real light after the end of the tunnel and this was just a motto to boost the downtrodden. As discernment was moved to its point of implicitness in Australia, encouraged by the motto and keeping my audacity of hope, by putting aside my immodesty, years of education and work experiences I have accumulated over the years; Alas! I started working on various industrial low paying jobs starting all over again to support my family.

To make the long story short, having been through those hard tunnels, after working in the industrial and corporate sectors, at present, I am very proud to be among my fellow African business vendors by owning a printing business and I couldn’t ask for a better place than living close to my three grown up daughters all having their own families.

Few months after I arrived in Australia, having the thoughts of one lone new African, I found out that I wasn’t the only one discovering the taste of Melbourne lifestyle. I started searching if there were African migrants, especially, Ethiopians, living in Melbourne. After a thorough search through phone books, contacting migrant resource centers and immigration departments, I was told there were huge numbers of Ethiopian refugees residing at the Enterprise Migrant Hostel in Springvale area.

The Enterprise Migrant Hostel in Springvale was an institution which provides accommodation and comprehensive settlement services for migrants and others.

     Ethiopian community celebrating our New Year in Melbourne, AUSTRALIA

I told my family with excitement and I could not contain myself for another day and wanted to drive to Springvale to see my fellow Ethiopians. As soon as I got to the center, I parked my car and while walking to the office, I saw groups of people watching soccer games, in a small park, competing against each other and I went over to see them. When I got there, everyone (Ethiopians & Somalians) was gathered to meet & greet me thinking that I was just another newly arrived migrant. I introduced myself and watched the soccer game in a long time since I arrived in Australia. Eventually, after the game was finished they took me to their dorm for continued amorous discussions.

                                  MY TIMELINE, AS IT HAPPENED

After a long day, I left making new friends and promised to see them again & came back home to my family feeling exhausted but refreshed and told them how my day was filled with joy with my new discovery and told them about my intentions to form Ethiopian community in Australia as my partner is aware of my experiences of community involvement, in Greece and America. By doing so, the perseverance finally pulled me through the tunnel, I felt I settled in with ‘no worries’, and my journey eventually came to an end, ‘Downunder’, at the bottom end of the world feeling on top of it.

MY PAWSITIVE PARTNER

Read the actual story of the beginning of Ethiopian Community: http://timeforchangesociety.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/the-launching-of-ethiopian-community.html

Peace & Good Health

DANGER OF COMPUTER LIFE

A few days ago I saw a worrisome headline when I look over & opened my local newspaper; I say look over metaphorically, because I typically only consume information through screens.

“Television Linked to All Kinds of Risk,” it said, going on to explain the connection between watching television and an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Hey! It's alright, I’m too busy to watch much TV, I thought.

But the study makes clear that it’s not just TV that’s detrimental. It’s sitting and staring for long periods of time at any screen in general. In fact, this was just the latest in a long line of studies showing that sitting – that silent, cozy killer – raises the risk for heart disease and early death fortified with less or no physical activity.

 So, while my daily half-hour work-out probably won’t do me in, the very essence of my computer-based lifestyle just rising. As someone who cares about health nearly as much as I care about the Internet – oh so deeply – this was alarming.

It’s enough to make one wonder whether the past few generations’ aspiration toward “sit-down” work might have been misplaced. For the past 50 years, people have been flocking to colleges in order to better themselves and, in many cases, to get high-powered office jobs.

What’s more, young people have increasingly sought their fortunes in big cities, a dream that worsens traffic congestion and lengthens commutes in running late city transports.

More and more, it seems that everything about the idealized urban life – the hip urban setting, the mid-size car, the creative and overvalued white or blue-collar jobs – may be great for our wallets and minds, but not for our bodies it seems.

A 2010 editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that sitting interferes with the body’s ability to regulate glucose and fat, which may lead to obesity and heart problems later in life. At least, my lower back switch goes off, if I’m sitting too long, making me unable to continue until I get up and drink a cup of coffee then able to recommence my connection.

Long commutes, like those from your house just outside of town to your office in the “big city,” are associated with lost sleep, stress, poorer food choices and, usually, more sitting.

Then there are all the other nasty externalities, like the recently-reported increase in near-sightedness associated with artificial indoor lighting.

In light of all this, it would be surprising if any truly healthy careers remain. If such a thing did exist, it would probably involve physical activity for the lucky uncreative and undervalued white or blue-collar jobs, living near work and seeing natural light from time to time. Nevertheless, before you quit your office job and get back to nature, consider that fishers, loggers and steelworkers have some of the highest rates of fatalities of their own.

It seems an organic farmer or suburban yoga teacher can probably start planning summer vacations earlier than the rest. But for the rest of you, it appears even the comfortable confines of office buildings don’t protect you from the creeping health perils of modernity.

However, there are obviously reasons why people aren’t abandoning the corporate ladder to go restore their cardiovascular systems by stocking shelves at the Gap. Many office jobs provide cognitive benefits that are so great you’re willing to ignore the dermatological fat growing on your midsections. The buzz we get from finishing a demanding project can make up for our lacking (physical activity) the physique of a Royal Caribbean dancer.

Since we all can’t quit and move to Sunshine, the best alternative for us indoor screeners is to re-think our ideas about work and recreation (physical activity). Companies should be heeding the warning calls of scientists and incorporating more physical activity into work places. It’s a start, but there are plenty more examples out there including walking meetings and having ridiculous but amazing treadmill desk.

There’s also the option of moving closer to work to avoid those soul-crushing commutes or hopping on a bike to make the commute function as exercise time. City planners also should do more to make sure we have the bike lanes available to do it safely.

And if we just can’t escape our endless days of sitting, there’s always the option of taking up a productive but physically challenging hobby. After a week of hard sitting, a weekend of building houses and social activities would make any dream office job seem even dreamier. My finally suggestion would be make no mistakes or excuses to do physical activity.

THE PREPONDERANCE OF RACISM OVER MULTICULTURALISM

We are now in one of the most truly prophetic moments in the history of Australia and around the world. The poor and very poor are sleeping with self-destruction. The working and middle classes are struggling against paralysing pessimism and the privileged are swinging between cynicism and hedonism. Yes, these are the circumstances that people of conscience must operate under during this moment of national and international truth or consequences.

There are huge racial inequality in a country promised to practice what it preaches─ Multiculturalism. For black people unless they are on TV, where chances are remote, sports personalities, which still has a lesser value than their Caucasian (sometimes called rather), counterparts, their chances of success and recognition are inconspicuous. That’s why even graduates are confined to driving taxis; work in all kinds of risky security guard jobs, doing mundane house cleaning routines, working day and night shifts in factories. Most country people don’t even see a black face from one week to the next. I see black faces cleaning the streets & trains, emptying bins and mopping up the spills in shopping centres.

I am saddened to see (not because of the jobs they are doing) the hopes and aspirations of these black people are hampered by discrimination. Racism, showing great weight, dominance and superiority, is becoming even greater now than the obvious (whites only service venues) of bygone eras.

A blunt research study of intelligences of racial differences conducted by (white race) researchers raised a question of its reliability and validity in the twenty first century.

These excerpts are taken from PDF p.39 (Education Review http://www.edrev.info) Theory of Racial Differences in Intelligence review book by Dr Girma Berhanu, Professor of Special Education, University of Gothenburg, Sweden:

(Likewise, Helen Meekosha (2006) wrote how race is used in Australia to refer to non-Anglo peoples from non-Caucasian genetic stock. For instance, the Chinese were banned from immigration to Australia because, it was argued, they were detrimental to the political economy (undercutting wages and employment standards), but also because of their biosocial impairments (they were incapable of understanding ideas of equality and democracy). As the anti-Chinese campaign grew during the late 19th century, race and disability became intertwined, as in the following editorial from The Bulletin, a radical nationalist weekly in Sydney:
We claim to be a civilized people; we claim that one of the reasons we should exclude the Chinese is that they belong to an ‗‗inferior‘‘race; we claim to be the inheritors of centuries of intellectual and moral culture. . . . Centuries of culture have superimposed the artificial and civilized man upon the bedrock of naturalism, and the civilized man is a stickler for justice; for consideration for the weak and the undefended, the oppressed, the imbecile and incompetent. (Anon 1888, in Meekosha, 2006, p. 167)

The increase in racism must be placed in the context of the crisis of the capitalist way which benefits from racism, using it to divide and confuse the people about the reasons for the economic and social crisis of the system. Because the system is in crisis, there is an increase in the intensity and complexity of the ongoing ideological war on social unity and the principles and practice of equality.

The racist use of the crime issue, rising racist and police violence, deepening discrimination, criminalization, attacks on immigrants, increasing poverty, homelessness and unemployment, an increase in stereotypes in the mass media and environmental racism all indicate the depth of the crisis. It’s even harder when the government and people’s representatives repudiate that racism exist

“I do not accept that there is underlying racism in this country”. John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia (1996-2007) in 2005. “I do not believe that racism is at work in Australia”. Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia (2007-2010) in 2010. More than 87% of Australians agree that there is racism in Australia and more than 86% said that racial prejudice is prevalent and something should be done to fight it.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/police-appeal-for-help-in-river-body-case-20110718-1hlcj.html and http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/lost-for-answers-20110723-1huc0.html and http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/police-face-fury-after-death-of-african-man-20110716-1hjjc.html  What do you think?

Here is a different episode, equally heart wrenching, of 6 Australians volunteering to experiment their prejudiced ideas of refugees and asylum seekers by “living it up” (putting their feet in … shoes) like them for twenty five days.

http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/goback/episodes/detail/episode/4216/season/1

If you want to distinguish and believe you need not look further than, besides from discrimination in employment, the filtration, renunciation & parochialism in presenting the news, entertainments, and acknowledgements of successful black people ( from Obama to various artists and celebrities) on public media such as (remarkably) TV and Newspapers except for ridiculing and abusing their achievements.

The following is (pictures of ) one of the few reports by the Melbourne, Herald sun, newspaper likening President Obama to Osama during the president’s victory in killing the Al-Qaida leader at his hideaway in May 2011.

Double click on image to enlarge for viewing

Black people’s treatment seems maybe marginal in Australia not because blacks here have a better position (huge academic and economic disparity), but the black population is very low comparing to America and Britain. When you reach the hotels of these countries, your blood pressure will go up (at least mine) when you see blacks greeting by opening the door, making the beds, cleaning the lavatories, washing dishes in restaurants and wiping the tables, cleaning cars at carwash and serving you at unisex barber shops.

Moreover, if you happen to be there for business meetings, you will see blacks as guards at the entrance, at receptions and restocking the vending machines. However, at business meetings you will, most probably, see almost all the delegates you sit with are whites (Caucasians) virtually everywhere and most of the time. No wonder blacks do all kinds of legally and ethically improper acts of misfits from changing their names and nationality to changing their course of personal history trying hard to fit in and accepted for any opportunities available in order to obtain skilled and professional employment probabilities.  Please, read more what one, among the many, African refugee has to go through in order to acquire employment with his profession: www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/refugeeturns-to-tricks-after-100-failed-job-applications/story-fn6bfm6w-1226097109013

If there are professional jobs that are advertised, surprisingly, all the jobs are taken by whites and a rainbow of races can then chase after the left overs to no avail. Without  very good contact references, even with better than average qualifications and achievements, working class and professional graduate black people know, instinctively, that they’re no better off either in town or countryside to secure jobs or rent a simple flat and house for their families.

There are no sustainable employment networks^* and there are more whites in the country sides to fill the jobs because racism runs endemic right through our society.

Reducing and mass layoffs have wiped out many of the past gains against discrimination in the workplace. As the economic crisis deepens, new forms of economic racism are making themselves felt.

Massive unemployment, poverty and homelessness are its most direct and vivid result. Unemployment rates among Indigenous, African and Asian workers are twice those of whites, long-term unemployment is also particularly severe. Economic racism's repulsiveness is particularly seen in its impact on Indigenous and black children, close to half of whom live in poverty.

Australia’s past white only policy is embedded in and influences every aspect of social, economic and political life. This is what is meant by institutionalized racism.

Institutionalized racism is the combined economic, political, social, cultural, legal, ideological and other structures that exist to maintain the system of inequality.

As a set of institutions, racism is infused in the very foundations of our society and is inseparable from the economic foundations of Australian culture. The racist wage gap is the most fundamental feature; both in terms of the super profits produced by the super exploitation of racially oppressed workers, and the additional extra profits created by the fact that racism divides and weakens the working people and drags down wages for all workers.

Racism is affecting the live of the person that is different, but also all people. I don’t want to seem alarmist, but I am just reiterating what’s already out there and our society is in denial.

Institutionalized racism has economic, social, political, ideological and cultural forms, and denies equality, justice and dignity to all people of colour.

Poverty and racism has become a deadly couple. Thus, there can be no effective fight against racism without a struggle against poverty. And there can be no effective fight against poverty without taking on the struggle against economic racism and for equality.

We have witnessed the breakdown of the social systems that nurture our rootless children not just the two out of five black and brown children who live in poverty, but all children in Australia who live in lack of services. Young families terrified by the stress of separation destined to kill each other, families and their own children. We are talking about the state of young people culturally unprotected, with no safe berths; these children have no cultural armour to protect them while navigating the terrors and traumas of daily life. Young people need a community to sustain them, so that they can look death in the face and deal with disease, dismay, and despair.

Culture, in part, provides people with the tools and resources to toughen themselves against adversity and convinces them not to kill themselves or others. This is the reason why I am preoccupied with a sense of bittersweet. At the moment in which we must look defeat, disillusionment, and discouragement in the face and work through a sense of the bittersweet keeps alive some sense of possibility, hope, agency and resistance. We have not been too successful in persuading people not to commit suicides or kill others from street to corporate thugs, people of colour, women, youth, the working poor, the unemployed fellas, gays, lesbians and those who are being unfairly targeted.

This is what happens in moments of cultural decay. This is what happens in moments of cultural breakdown. Moreover, to talk about cultural resistance at this time means to ask: How do we analyse this present moment and discern some sources of vision and hope? I look at culture from the vantage point of freedom for all. None of us are going to be here that long. Culture moves us and helps create the structures of meaning, feeling and purpose that keep the deep traditional democratic human interaction alive.   

As bad as things are, we have faced worse conditions. We have always had courageous people willing to stand up and tell the truth, expose lies and bear witness to love and justice. We still have people who say they are willing to build on this tradition. “There is a price to pay for speaking the truth. There is a bigger price for living a lie”, Cornel West.

As our society faces deeper and deeper crisis, progressives are beginning to be heard again & again vehemently. People are looking to a variety of different voices, and visions for leadership and direction, about how we can overcome these situations locally and globally.

For too long, Australia looked to the far away Monarch for change. We have looked to Hawke, Keating, Howard, Rudd and Julia. Apart from making history for her and Australian politics, Julia still has to overcome the hurdle in becoming the first woman PM in a country where change is still elusive to come by.

We are still living in the shadow of the vicious realignment of the Australian electorate, provoked by the media's negative appeals to race and gender. We have pulled ourselves deeper into a dark, bottomless ditch. Yet, if people are interested in looking for bigger picture (change), tolerant endless possibilities are evident. First and foremost, change your own attitude. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world."

Our Culture is characterized by being a post dearth society meaning that its advanced technologies provide practically limitless material wealth and comforts for everyone for free, having all but abolished the concept of possessions, by having overcome almost all physical constraints on life including disease and death by being an almost totally egalitarian, stable society without the use of any form of force or compulsion, except where necessary to protect others.

In a corporately controlled globalization, we faced an unprecedented economic redistribution of disparity from working people to the elite and the preying of the local to federal governments into public filth and private extravagance.

As all different colours of spectrum emerged from a prism, so are the human races (remember Dinknesh aka Lucy).

Imagine a world without war, poverty, misery or money. Imagine a world where all people work together in a spirit of cooperation and not competition. Imagine the safer saner world and you are closer to understanding what freedom & democracy is. A close look at our present social systems which are built upon fundamentals which produce war, poverty, murder, crime, violence, compromised healthcare, media monopoly, corporate corruption and indifference for the environment, greed, apathetic self-interest and desensitisation from others suffering, obsolete and archaic political systems based on subjective opinion (guesswork) and not on scientific and empirical certainty. Is this how we want our families (Lucy’s children) to live today?

It’s time for “liberty, fraternity and equality”. It’s time for political pluralism, tolerance of religious and cultural diversity. It’s time to end hate. It’s time to break free from the cycle of violence. It’s time to end rampant, semi-official, implicit racism and corruption. It’s time to believe even in the impossible for transparency and be part of the international mainstream.

In Australia, diversity generally means ensuring that organizations include men and women from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds. But diversity issues have sometimes sparked controversy.

Some would call it human nature for us to dislike or mistrust the unknown - be it a person, a thing or an idea.

More than a few people are guilty of enjoying the fruits of another culture while demeaning the other.

For those who haven't got a clue, diversity just doesn't extend itself to race, class or gender, it is all around us. It's in our homes, in our schools and at workplaces. It is part of our everyday life.

Despite those obstacles, in order to make Australia a better place to live and grow for generations, apology should be followed by action; diversity must be evident in our government, institutions and our own households.

Now, here, we are in 21century. Australia still finds itself looking to its descents time again to provide vision to a nation with a source of hope with no guarantee. Real hope is in its own backyard grounded in a particularly messy struggle and it can be betrayed by naive projections of a better future that ignore the necessity of doing the real work.

It’s abundantly clear that we need to adjust (change) our thinking & attitude because it will definitely be to our collective detriment if we do not. If we carry on so carelessly and wastefully into the future, our future generations will pay the price for our mistakes.

So, what I wish (I am talking about) is a real change & hope we all can cope.

^* The people who work for employment Job Networks or Centrelinks are not all to blame. There are some people who couldn't care less and others who feel the pain of others and think outside the system and generally try to be really helpful often do not last long. Because, the system does not allow them to be as helpful as they'd like to be.

Prejudice & Indifference to diverse people are at a high level when dealing with Job Networks or Centrelinks. Some public servants have neglected their APS Values & Ethics Code of Conduct for the public servant and jump lines having an attitude to judge and generalize that all clients are bludgers. When you phone for information, mostly, advices are bound to differ with each person you speak to. A total white wash!

Back in the days of CES (Commonwealth Employment Services) and early introduction of Centrelinks, they used to have forms on hand, to update client details based on a face-to-face services and interviews which would take less time than the pain of waiting through phone calls and having to browse so many confusing forms online (now).

Job capacity assessments aren't designed to evaluate anyone's capacity to work, they are a bureaucratic systems designed to block access to the assistance thereby saving a few bucks a week.

No point blaming the Job Capacity Assessor, Job Networks, nor Centrelinks, it’s all about how the system is intended to save the money and doing nothing to monitor that Job Network Services are doing nothing but money making organisations obviously hiring more people off the system (Centrelink benefit).

With my years of experiences dealing with these service providers, calling themselves non-profit organisations is a great urban myth that the profit money goes into employment services. It’s generally used (to perk their outlook up) for building improvements or new offices, cars for (job) services, building a new board room, kitchen, employing more do nothing employees from the Centrelinks’ queue and a computer training room that the clients could hardly access but used for staff meetings.