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The Forum > Article Comments > A sad reflection > Comments

A sad reflection : Comments

By Stephen Hagan, published 23/3/2006

Ignoring an elderly, sick lady lying on one of our city streets is a sad reflection on Australian society.

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It was only a few years ago when a visiting whitefella from the country collapsed on the footpath of a major Brisbane roadway at about 9.30am. And it took him 3 hours to die with the hideous pain of a coronary, as people drove by, walked over him and looked the other way.

This is not a race issue, it is an urban issue. It rarely happens in a country town and once, in what some call the 'bad old days', it rarely happened in Brisbane. There is something about the anonymity of metropolitan life that enables the mind to screen out any inconvenient moral obligation or confronting image.

This anonymity allows people to say to themselves, "I can step over this dieing person and no-one will know that I did it". This capacity to compartmentalise events in their day means they can act with extraordinary indifference with no cost to themselves. It is the essence of the urban notion of 'privacy'. A notion that has little meaning, and even less value, in a country town or remote community.

And the breathtaking irony of it all is that the metrononymous can then dismiss conservative country voters as having a lack of 'social conscience', some sort of moral deficit, for failing to vote for policies of welfare largesse.

And lets not be deluded here, Auntie Delmai was outside a university, where the voting patterns would be very similar to the readership of this web forum. That is, more than 25% green, 55% ALP and only about 15% conservative.

And they have the gall to lecture farmers on sustainability and intergenerational equity.
Posted by Perseus, Friday, 24 March 2006 10:55:51 AM
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"Metrononymous"? no, it is 'metronymous' Perseus. It's a hazard to use big words to promote oneself as being erudite but in reality a mask.

Anything again Perseus to promote a schism between the non-caring urbanites and the mendicant minority in the bush. No, this posting is about a poor lady that suffered because society is conditioned to the outcome of alcoholism etc that makes many of her communities and places like Hall's Creek uncomfortable places to be. Have a talk to the rural community that you champion.

This is a very sad story but only a reflection of a conditioned urbanite community tired of the expressions of a race of people who cannot integrate well into the white community which has bent over backwards to help, support and give dignity to.

That lady is simply a victim of conditioned indifference.
Posted by Remco, Friday, 24 March 2006 11:27:26 AM
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I think that the folk passing by the sick lady have been de-sensitised. In the "new" Australian culture we are no longer fellow travellers but indifferent rationalists.

For instance: Homelessness is accepted as being a part of our culture. Some of the people who walked on by are probably racist but more likely the majority are classist or some condition (beaten) that a neo-logists haven't invented yet.

In my own experience, whilst working night shift, I have pulled up on the way home on a number of occasions to help seemingly unconscious folk. Three occasions come to mind. First, late at night I noticed an apparently unconscious person on the side of the road. I pulled over to help. When I gave the fellow a light shake to rouse him he jumped up, took a swing at me and ran off screaming. He ran full bore down the road and straight across a highway - and was just about cleaned up by a Kenworth. Gee. I am Rancid but not that rancid.

Second, another time I pulled over to see if an old mate was okay. He was at the wheel of his old EJ Holden which was parked in the middle of a dirt road that led to our farm. He was as drunk as a punk and we got him and his car off the road so he could sleep it off without the milk truck cleaning him up in the morning.

Third, just recently, a young lad had overdone it. On my early morning walk I noticed this very big person laying in his own vomit on the footpath. I very tentatively touched his cheek (he looked dead as his cheeks were pale as) and he was cold. I was worried that I would get the crap beat out of me. My point is that years ago that thought would not have entered my mind. Nevertheless, he, a Catholic, seemed surprised that the "evil" people on the corner gave a damn. Anyway he was fine and now we are not 666 just 66.6 of evilness. (Incarnations)
continued
Posted by rancitas, Friday, 24 March 2006 12:12:48 PM
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Finally, as a teenager, I (yes superior Rancitas) passed out from dehydration on a median strip. A Salvo picked me up and took me home and got me on my feet. I was treated as one of their family for a few days until they located my folks. That assistance was a great example at an impressionable age.

I would like to see a survey of the rationalisations that went through the minds of people who regard an elderly lady lying on the footpath as an acceptable situation. That's right - I forgot, in our "new" culture there is no excuse for people "like that" not "pulling themselves up by the bootstraps". Bit hard when you have a blood clot blocked an artery.

George Orwell said: "If you can feel that staying human is worthwhile, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them."

Fight, fight you'll never win. (Reflections)
Posted by rancitas, Friday, 24 March 2006 12:15:37 PM
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I was told recently by a freind on the phone many miles away that theyhad seen a man (white) while on their morning walk laying undera sprinkler at the beach at 7am who looked dead or unconcious.
I asked did they check him out and get help,they said,"No,didn't think of it."

Our society is not racist, just hard ,when you think of it anyway all animals and birds are racist too,just watch them only accept their own kind and defend their territory .

Getting back to Hall's Creek in WA we were there some years back and there was 400 Aboriginal Christians out of a town of 800,they were beautiful people as we sand worship songs together to God .

There has been many miracles in Hall's Creek, even the dead raised to life many time sin the name of Jesus
Posted by dobbadan, Friday, 24 March 2006 2:17:36 PM
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How pathetic that many of the posts assume that Aboriginal people are inherently incapable of managing money. Chris Skate and old Bondy (I forgot onetel, sorry) did a far better job of fleecing folk. Why, when one looks at the great rip-offs, isnt't there an assumption that white Australians are incapable of managing money etc.
As for the level of christianity expressed by some, I wouldn't like to be you when you finally go to meet your maker
Posted by Aka, Friday, 24 March 2006 6:05:34 PM
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