(no subject)
Dec. 5th, 2009 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easyI've given in and am reading the newspaper again. Oy.
UN says Aboriginal health conditions worse than Third World: "Basic needs, such as adequate housing, safe drinking water and sanitation and access to education are not being met." How can any Australian in the 21st Century be living in conditions like that?! In fairness, the government has increased spending on Indigneous health, but the UN rapporteur says the money needs to go to "Aboriginal community-controlled health services". So yet again it comes back to self-determination rather than well-meaning but perpetually ineffective paternalism. (I'm trying to find the recent Remote Indigenous Services report which outlines some of the problems, including bureaucrats sitting on data.)
While I'm grumbling, what else is blindingly obvious, and yet somehow is constantly overlooked? Oh yeah: "The first step towards peace is for both sides to stop saying 'We're the innocent victims and the other guys are evil' - which is the discourse that predominates both in the Arab world and the Jewish world. We have to transcend the blame game and move to a discourse of mutual compassion."
UN says Aboriginal health conditions worse than Third World: "Basic needs, such as adequate housing, safe drinking water and sanitation and access to education are not being met." How can any Australian in the 21st Century be living in conditions like that?! In fairness, the government has increased spending on Indigneous health, but the UN rapporteur says the money needs to go to "Aboriginal community-controlled health services". So yet again it comes back to self-determination rather than well-meaning but perpetually ineffective paternalism. (I'm trying to find the recent Remote Indigenous Services report which outlines some of the problems, including bureaucrats sitting on data.)
While I'm grumbling, what else is blindingly obvious, and yet somehow is constantly overlooked? Oh yeah: "The first step towards peace is for both sides to stop saying 'We're the innocent victims and the other guys are evil' - which is the discourse that predominates both in the Arab world and the Jewish world. We have to transcend the blame game and move to a discourse of mutual compassion."
