The Pied Piper You write

'The indigenous people should be honored.' On what basis should they be honoured? The fact that they were here first? That means the Greeks should honour me because I was here before them. The Lebanese should honour the Greeks etc etc.

All people should be treated as human beings. You should not be honoured because of your skin colour. You should be honoured if you are honourable. I would have no trouble honouring Noel Pearson because he deserves it. If you are a drunk and into crime whether you are yellow, brown or black you deserve to be treated as a human being but not honoured. Saying that a person should be honoured because of their skin colour is erroneous as saying a Priest should be honoured because of his robes. People who beat their wives and live in drunkedness don't need to be honoured.

PP writes..” The indigenous people should be honored”
OK mate, exactly WHAT did you have in mind? How do we “honour” them?
There’s an indigenous bloke sitting outside my flat right now, banging some sticks together, “humbugging” for his next drink He’s an alky, I know him well. He did time for assaulting his wife and kids, several times. So, in practical terms now, HOW do I do it?
Should I go out and fall to my knees before him? What do I say? Should I bring him inside, suggest he removed his stained trousers, have a shower, seek treatment for his scabies? Surely that’s infringing his rights? Being condescending? Trying to impose my values on him?
How does one “honour” them?
Or are you only concerned with the rhetoric, not the actuality?
I just LOVE all these people with their fine words and Ideals, yet no interest in what’s actually going on “out there”, no interest in trying to deal with real, blood-flowing, piss-stained, tear-filled reality. It’s not pretty, people, not pretty at all, and it can hurt you.
I am disgusted with the fact that in the 21st century a nation such as ours allows these conditions to exist among the indigenous, while prosecuting anyone else who lives as they do, purely in fear of being called racist by people with “Ideals”. It actually is racism of the worst kind, as bad as Apartheid in SA, permitting the abuse and destruction of a people purely because of their skin!
Oh, and as I read it, most people were upset about Mr Ward because he was a human being! Race had little to do with the disgust and anger, other than as a cause of his treatment. It actually made me a little prouder to be an Aussie, to see here and hear elsewhere the rejection of this event

The Pied Piper
I returned few minutes before from my work. Thank you for your suport. One time I went to Sydney and I asked an old woman for a street. She said me "no english!" I said her "me Greek, no english too!"
and she said me "You Grecko, you brother!" She was an Italian migrant.
Later I asked a young man for the train station and he said me "I am going there" and asked me to go into his van. On the road he tried to put a CD with music but he made a mistake and he put the wrong CD. On the CD was a muslim prayer! He was a lebanese muslim. After 10-15 minutes I asked him where is the train station and he said me"you are a good man. we are going to airport" (I said him that I was going to airport for Adelaide)and he took me direct to airport, to ther side of the Sydney, for free!. The Italian old woman and the young Lebanese man the ONLY thing they wanted was understanding, acceptance and respect. I gave it with few words, with my body language and from one minute to the other they become friends as if we knew each other for years!

Belly, "But is in your view this research finding anything we did not know already" YES! I hoped, I thought I was wrong! Now I know that we realy have a problem, that we must try to find the best solusion for this problem. The race discrimination costs, hurts, destroys lifes, families, children! The cost from the race discrimination will transfered to the next generations.
Let's promote the understanding and cooperation between australians, the mutual benefits, the common future
Belly
This problem is not only mine, but yours too, this is a problem for all australians! We must try all together to solve this problem.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

My spell checker is American I think. Hi Runner, I get your point and no you shouldn’t honor someone who is a drunk and beats his wife. But don’t expect him to honor you for handing him the bottle and kidnapping his kids beforehand.

You could always of got them off the alcohol and made them a prouder people though, worthy of honor. Maybe the fact that they were here first and never bothered anyone else is a something to be appreciated. Maybe that they were here for so long is something special and unique. The fact you didn’t sign a treaty is something you should be eternally grateful for.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25687111-421,00.html

Who is Noel Pearson?

People do honor priests because of their robes though; they are accorded a certain respect here yeah?

Am I using the wrong word? You know what, I think having hoards of kids over time has made me see most things at a different level, might be childish or ideal but talking about racism is like repeating lines I have said countless times.

He had it first so leave him alone.

She didn’t know it was yours and is sorry she broke it.

Look this bit isn’t broken you can still play with it.

I don’t care if you really want it this is not good for you.

If you share this you will have more fun.

Doesn’t matter what the neighbors kids are doing they just haven’t learnt to play nicely yet.

Oh you keep doing that and I am going to cook you in the oven and have you with apple sauce.

Err – forget that last one.

Hey Antonios, Hey Belly… Bless you both.

Leigh
I did not read any study about race discrimination in other countries, no, I read for USA they have less race discrimination, But I know from newspapers, plus from my experiences, I traveled in 50 countries and I lived for long time in four countries, I know in most countries of the world the race discrimination is worst!
Leigh
Australia made HUGE steps to the right direction the last 60-70 years. You know from 1901 to 1954 no one non anglo saxon became australian citizen! Then we had realy hard race discrimination in Australia BUT because we made so many steps forward it does not mean that we solve the problem. WE HAVE TO DO MORE STEPS FORWARD, WE HAVE TO SOLVE MORE PROBLEMS RELATED TO RACE RELATIONS AND RACE DISCRIMINATION.
Leigh the future of this country depends from the relations between the various minorities in australia. Soon or later no one nationality will have majority, all nationalities will be minorities. You know it. In realy after 100-150 years the European background australians (british, greeks, italian etc) will be minority in australia. Read the birth rates. WE, THE EUROPEAN AUSTRALIANS MUST IMPROVE OUR RELATIONS WITH THE NON EUROPEAN AUSTRALIANS, WE THE CHRISTIANS MUST CREATE MANY BRIDGES WITH THEN NON CHRISTIAN AUSTRALIANS NOW! Do you understand what I say to you Leigh? Now we are strong enouph and we can give the right solusion to the problem. If we do not do anything to solve the problem , if we victimize innocent people, the problem will biuld up and in the future with different synthesis of population, with many wounds from the past the solusion of the problem would be more difficult and worst for our grand children. I do not understand you! Do you hate your children and grant children? Why do you try to transfer the problem to them? Are a scary man? Give me your hand and let's try the maximum we can do for our children and grand children, for the future of this country.
DO NOT WORRY, I AM A FRIEND!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Noel Pearson, in my view, is the best voice of Aboridginal people alive today, he is also one of them.
WASP White Anglo Saxon proderstent not racist just a very well known way of discribing me.
Maximillion, I agree with much of your posts here, including your view some of this countrys worst racists are, our first Australians.
But its education or lack of it not spite that drives those few.
My nephews kids are good ones and from that group, one of my sisters has such kids, all good well educated and comited to improving their peoples lives.
AS give it a rest, you offend too many, in 1970 driving a truck this country bumkin tried to be friendly to 20 young men from your country about 20 years old in a factory my load was going to .
We laughted and joked in sign more than speech, but they chanted the few words in English they knew, only too well.
Aussie Girls are sl#$>s.
I knew, they did not understand how offensive that was, and that they had different life learning than me.
Still now I do not think of them as racist but uninformed and unwise? yes?
You my friend can be unwise, and are often here in print.
But your heart is good, you care for others, maybe too much sometimes.