Teen age children have been out on the streets protesting against the invasion of Gaza by Israel. Once I was an ignorant young teenage supporter of Mao Tse Tung and the communist party in China. Naïve idealism, at best.
Most of my schoolmates were uninterested in such things as world politics but for some reason a few of us were. I was influenced by a fellow student, one Morag Mason whose older brother was studying at Monash University, which was probably the most politically active Melbourne university back then. I was given a copy of Mao's Little Red Book. I didn't read it. I was too busy sitting on top of my wardrobe chanting Hari Krishna. We loved the Ford Cortina with the peace sign tail lights.
I don't have a problem with you if you are moderately religious, religion is just not my thing. Australia was riven by the Protestant and Catholic divide and even in my young years, I remember being at the 'mixed' Trafalgar swimming pool, hearing my older school mates chant Catholic dogs, sitting on logs, eating maggots out of frogs. The Catholics had a verse to chant to call back. Children are led by adults and there weren't Catholics in our family. Nothing was ever said, but we were just different to them. Even so, my parents were good neighbours with the Catholics on the farm next door to us, just not quite friends. Young people would simply not understand the Protestant/Catholic divide of my childhood. I think after the election of God Gough Whitlam, the divide just disappeared. Catholic or Protestant became of no interest to anyone.
What we all wanted was world peace. Isn't that what the ignorant Australian children are protesting for. They seem to be unaware of the murder of innocents in Israel, the rapes and the abductions by Hamas. But by golly, isn't Israel having revenge against the innocent people of Gaza, dead person score way in Israel's favour. Israel has oppressed the people of Gaza for so long.
The ignorant children here are not protesting against Israel. They are protesting against the killing and the injuring of children of their own age. Even as I was so ignorant, as they are, we all hate war and the killing of humans, especially if we feel empathy.
Religion causes so many problems in the world and this graph is interesting, stolen from Bob perhaps. I take a little pride in Australia being red on both counts. Let's keep it that way.
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Lets keep it that way indeed. And if we can, spread it.
ReplyDeleteOh, please, please spread it!
DeleteEC, New Zealand is a bit of a standout and I guess that is because of the high Islander Mormon population. The Irish Republic not being very religious makes no sense to me, so I can only guess the Irish have rapidly abandoned their religion in this century.
DeleteOh that I could Debby.
DeleteI am surprised by your past being a follower of Mao who is a failed scholar in Qing dynasty that ambitions to be an emperor again (Well he did it in a different form in the end). History seems to be always about conflicts
ReplyDeleteI wasn't really Roentare. I had yet to think for myself and I was influenced by others, and clearly we were wrong, but it didn't seem like that at the time. The youth had such high and unobtainable ideals, as did the youth followers of Mao in China.
DeleteIt is tragic, the amount of evil that is done in the name of religion, isn't it? And good on you for caring.
ReplyDeleteSandra sandracox.blogspot.com
It is tragic. While the protests may seem to be pro Palestine and anti Israel, like all things middle eastern, it not that simple. One day or terror, killings (ongoing) and abductions has drawn what many think is a response too strong.
DeleteI am ashamed of my country's response in this whole business. Israel is being condemned by the world, and rightfully so. That being said, I would never see my opinion as a reason to attack a Jewish person. Yet people are doing just that. You also have the backers of Israel attacking Palestinians. Half a world away! It's insanity. We should all speak up. However the violence is over the top and unjustifiable.
ReplyDeleteDebby, much of governmental responses are simple politics, that is which side to support depending how many Palestinians or how many supporters of Israel can they win or lose votes from. My government is no different to yours on that count. It is much harder for British PM Sunak with a huge number Muslims in the country, I should think well outweighing the number of Jews.
DeleteBoth sides are guilty of murdering innocent civilians; children slaughtered,m women and men raped and tortured. It's not a good look in any light.
ReplyDeleteI do want to make it clear I do not in any way support Hamas. I do not think I stated that as emphatically as I needed to.
DeleteJust to use some black humour Bob, do you have details of these male rapes? Too soon? 'In any light', is quite correct.
DeleteDebby, that was quite clear to me and of course it is not something you and I would disagree about.
Delete"sitting on top of my wardrobe" a euphemism for being high?
ReplyDeleteI find it funny that so many millions say they want world peace, yet it never happens. The warmongering few are pulling all the strings.
River, no it isn't. I was only about 14 or 15 and there seemed to something about being elevated when chanting and that was the only place I could think of. Perhaps I was levitating in my mind. I may have done it twice and nirvana never happened and so I got bored. It is a pity for us to never have experienced world peace and we know we never will. But it has been thus for every generation.
DeleteAs long as kids are brainwashed by parents and teachers and religious leaders we are doomed to the ongoing pissing contest between the megalomanic few.
ReplyDeleteAdd governments to that Merlot. A pissing contest is a good analogy.
Deletelet's spread it please Andrew. And yes as youths we fought so much and I still remember protesting the awful Vietnam and Cambodia massacres. We are a sorry species who murder babies and children and their parents "collateral damage."
ReplyDeleteAnd PS I found your recommendation of Total Control on Sundance here and have watched the first two episodes. Fantastic series.
XO
WWW
WWW, I think 'collateral damage' damage was coined by Bush Senior? Maybe Bush the Junior. It was the first time I became very alert to soft words to describe bad things. It hasn't stopped since then. Glad you like the series and I think it deserves a wide audience. It just gets better as it progresses and have you guessed what will happen.
DeleteI have my guesses Andrew and the two leads are stunning. I've been an admirer of Rachel Griffiths for years. I am totally gripped and can relate much of what is happening to the First Nations here and of course in historical Ireland.. Colonialism is the same everywhere.
DeleteXO
WWW
When I was younger, so much younger than today! Catholic meant the Roman Catholic Church and any other religion meant protestant.
ReplyDeleteNot in these now times, it's different.
All these people that protest against the war, can't see what they will achieve.
Margaret, it just as well we never needed help in any way. We were so self sufficient. Hasn't everything so much changed during our lives, mostly for the better but not always. I doubt individual protests do make much difference, but the numbers and passion will be noted by foreign embassies etc, ie, the mood of the population.
DeleteI remember watching a movie about the protestant / catholic divide in Australia and being blown away. It's not an Australia I knew.
ReplyDeleteAs you say, protesters just want the killing to stop and that's admirable. I wish protest would work
How did you remain immune from it Kylie? You are younger. Some suburbs and some country towns were either Protestant or Catholic. Melbourne's adjacent suburbs of Richmond and Collingwood were respectively Catholic and Protestant. If you were a Catholic in Protestant country town, good luck with getting a job in your home town. Then in a puff of smoke, it all disappeared (maybe not even now at the Melbourne Club).
DeleteAndrew, my feeling is the Catholic/protestant rift dissolved when Anglo and Irish Australians ganged up together against later waves of post-war migrants, specifically (take " " for granted here please):
Deletewogs,
Lebbos,
Asians (means SE and E Asian in Oz - ask J W Howard about them),
whatever,
refugees....
(Balts and other reffos somewhere in there as well, I guess.)
You might think post-war Jewish refugees might fit in there somewhere too but I don't think they ever had such a problem. For one thing, they were rarely industrial/working-class fodder like the other waves. And Richard Pratt (a pre-rather-then-post-war refugee) was even in the London touring cast of "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll"!
MC, I suppose it did happen around the time of post Vietnam War refugees. But so far as country towns went, there was very little contact with post WWII refugees. There may have been 200+ in my level at secondary school. There was one person with Greek parents and one person with German parents. I think by the time Lebanese arrived in numbers, it was all over by then. I didn't know Pratt was theatrical. Mrs Pratt certainly is. I am not sure about Jews though. I remember my father's rather robust opinions.
DeleteYes, I had forgotten, there was a great urban-rural divide on this (apart from some exceptions like the Snowy and some mining towns). I remember as late as the 1980s an oboist from Malta I knew went to Orange to work and found it very hard. He said he felt as though he was the only wog west of the divide. (tho' different by then in the Riverina.)
DeleteSo being a city kid born in the 70s it would make sense that i dont remember the catholic/ protestant divide.
DeleteI do remember plenty of racism against different waves of migrants and my Asian ex was stared at when ever we left Sydney right up through the 90s and well into the 2000s
Bemoaning the violence on the side you're not on while excusing the violence on the side you are on, well, that's what both sides have in common in that Middle East war. And I don't just mean the actual participants in the line of fire, but also the supporters on each side here in America. It's hard-liners vs hard-liners, and that's a shame.
ReplyDeleteQuite so Kirk and that is how I view the situation. What hope is there for the two sides when there is such hard division in other countries. There may be some radicals here who support Hamas, but generally not. There is huge support for Palestinians innocents, less so for the much fewer Jewish innocents. Fortunately our Foreign Minister Penny Wong is a very experienced politician and knows how to walk a tightrope. Our government, along with that of Canada and New Zealand. Well, easier to past a para, "Canada, Australia and New Zealand on Tuesday backed urgent international efforts towards a "sustainable ceasefire" in Gaza in a coordinated show of concern shortly after the U.S. warned Israel of declining support over its military campaign".
DeleteWe never learn from history.
ReplyDeleteYou and I do JB, but the world doesn't seem to.
DeleteCorrelation does not imply causation.
ReplyDeleteTasker, while I know some history of the establishment of Israel and the end of English power in the Middle East post WW II, I can't understand your statement late on a Thursday night. Maybe clarity will come in the harsh Friday morning light.
DeleteThe killing of children and civilians trying to live in peace, is evil, no matter who is doing it.
ReplyDeleteTP, no one will disagree with you.
DeleteI wonder who made those maps and what data or interpretations they were based upon. It is interesting that Greenland is not coloured red on either map. As Americans might say - Religion sucks man!
ReplyDeleteYP, surely countries devoid of populations would be both irreligious and peaceful. Take it as a given.
DeleteI'm glad to live in one of the red countries too.
ReplyDeletePat, we are just lucky.
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