The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Australian aid: re-colonisation by default? > Comments

Australian aid: re-colonisation by default? : Comments

By Mark Thomson, published 9/11/2006

It is time to re-think the concept of aid to Melanesia.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. All
Drought, pockets of poverty, a need to put in place a water delivery infrastructure, a run-down hospital system, senior citizens in need of dental care, carers being paid as little as 64cents per day, native refugees in one of the territories etc. Australian aid needs to find its way to Australia.
Posted by Sage, Thursday, 9 November 2006 9:18:28 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Agreed, not that this means much in our present democratic set up.
A media run effort with the media controlled in many ways by the Government, a media quite prepared to use emotional inaccurate headlines for profit whose ideology is the market not people, in part fed by a Government whose attitude is typified in this article.

New or is it reimposition of old Colonialism.

Reminds me of a previous Governor General, “I will not be de de de deterred ”

Similarly we shall impose democracy and law in the interests of free trade and local security. Australia’s. As we have helped do in Iraq after defanging a hyped up tyrant, after finding no remnants of the WMD’s, the West had in the main supplied.
Here a before hand study of tribal religious and racial structure was made in great depth before embarking on our Crusade! The consequences of this study are with us still!

Comes to a crunch corporations interested may employ mercenaries to achieve our purpose as is happening in Iraq.
Nothing two way about it!
Posted by untutored mind, Thursday, 9 November 2006 11:37:02 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Mark Thompson’s second paragraph is naïve, if he really believes in his criteria for foreign aid; or, he is saying that no aid should be given.

Foreign aid is a much for Australia’s benefit as it is for the basket case countries receiving it. So, take away the requirements that Thompson believes should not be attached to aid, and there will be no aid.

Given the insults and ineffectiveness of Australia’s aid to mendicant countries in the Pacific, no aid would be a good idea. The money saved could be transferred to the defence budget to better protect Australia when sinister regimes more to the liking of Somare and Co. provide foreign aid with their conditions attached.

Foreign aid is about Australia’s security in the region. Let’s have some honesty and take steps to protect ourselves from belligerent oafs and concentrate on real defence rather than tolerating the nonsense currently coming out of PNG and East Timor, and giving them aid on top of it
Posted by Leigh, Thursday, 9 November 2006 11:59:23 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Mark, well said!
The pure dry logicians at Canberra are detached from reality. Furthermore, the think-thanks that the Howard Government relies on are more concerned with "devilopment" instead of "development" that results in "progress and mutual respect" at the end of the day.

We cannot continue to be kiddened anymore. Keep your AID for the drought and water crises back home. The subsistence people of PNG and other Pacific Islands countries will live happily off their land, sea and whatever there is left to it.
Posted by Forever Optimist PNGean, Thursday, 9 November 2006 3:38:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The shadows of colonialism are still upon us superior Westerners whether we like it or not?

1. In the Middle East we are still trying to push our superiority there in the guise of aid, or as with the Americans in Iraq, making a mess of promises of Western democratic ideals. That is why we Westerners resent Iran so much which being Persian, not Arab, is successfully going it alone with only technical help for a time from the West. But help from little Westernised Israel - No - especially as Israel has been made a far bitter enemy of Iran by America allowing the Israelies the use of nuclear weaponry. All what is now known as Western neo-colonial tactics, Choose your colonial partners.

2. Neo-colonialisn is also upon us Australians because it still haunts Melasia as well as island nations like Fiji, where more educated persons from India were and still allowed to a certain extent, clerical jobs, and even command positions in preference to native peoples. And islands like Fiji being such exciting places for tourists, it is understandable that many of those of original island stock would be more concerned about foreign command positions, than making tourist dollars.

3. Our mature-age study group has also been told by an Australian nurse who was working in Saudi-Arabia, how there is preference even among the Saudi leaders to bring in Westerners for most skilled positions rather than using their own. As bin Laden is or was a Saudi, it should give us an inkling into the reason for his rebellious activities. Overdone to our Western minds, naturally.

4. Neo-colonialism is also shown by corporate giants acting not much different to colonial collossals like the Hudson Bay and East India Companies, the latter which finished up running the whole of Ceylon with a hundred thousand British-trained native troops under company control. The American trained Contras in Sandinista were under a style of corporate control also.

When we think deeply about it, us superior Westerners haven’t really changed much, have we
Posted by bushbred, Thursday, 9 November 2006 4:51:19 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It doesn't look as though Dr.Thompson managed to accomplish much during his ten years in PNG if the current state of affairs is any indication.
It seems to me that all the aid that is given to these countries ends up in the hands of the people at the centre of the government, so we might as well just turn them loose to manage their own affairs as they did before we inflicted ourselves upon them. Then they will have no one to blame but themselves for what goes wrong or conversely they will be able to pat themselves on the back if things turn out all right.
I am not holding my breath though.
Posted by VK3AUU, Thursday, 9 November 2006 10:24:14 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy