Showing posts with label restorative justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label restorative justice. Show all posts

Australia - work with the wisdom of the land.

I think Australian folk must now look at the situation, and understand that those areas that are damaged, the homes, businesses, the families and communities that suffered so greatly during the recent forest fire season (extended) need to be very much involved in and directing their recovery.

Government, The Australian State must provide total support, but not direction.


Bill Mollison, a man with a plan.



The Colonised, and a man with a plan, backed by a gun, he having being assimilated into the colonial system such that he guards his chained brothers, that they might not escape.

It is the lives of those people, in that land that must, given the context, set out future policy that will affect them directly - their autonomy and their love for the land has never been more important.

The State can and should maintain oversight, in it's role as a supporting agency -  this recovery work will need to be studied as it rolls out and adjusted as results emerge, and the local people must therefore have all of that information and be the core decision making group on overall policy as it affects them, their lands, their children into the future, and they deserve free unfettered access to the best skills and information available to support their decision making and efforts.

Local deliberative democracy.

Take a billion from each of Australia's billionaires - and weight it so they more they have, the more the contribute, so someone with 4 billion could drop half a billion someone with 14 billion could drop 2 billion, and not really be put out. 

The Australian Government has plenty of cash available, it's called Taxation and State borrowing..

So too does it's Oligarchy, if they paid all their taxes fairly.

Give each of them an award, a medal and some honourable title for helping out. Assuage their narcissism, and get that cash.

There's plenty of cash, and it doesn't need to be a profit seeking investment.

"Any profit taken where harms of any kind have been allowed, and the costs of resolving those harms has been deliberately or accidentally avoided, is a deceit."


The profit is happy people on happy land, developing a sustainable local economy.

They Australian folk really ought to be working with Aboriginal Culture and studying the dynamics of their cultural land sensitivity.

The Australian farmer, what ever is farmed must be supported to be re-skilled in perma-culture as one of many ways to engage proven tools of ecological rehabilitation.

 The spirit of community that is already there, and move it into the 21st Century, to create a culture of healthy land and healthy peoples.

In essence, all this to arrive again, and to meet the already here, and integrate into this ancient culture that is a relationship, rather than a skin colour or a ceremony, a living relationship with an abundant land.

Reverse the damage of 1788.

The introduction of healthy land use will necessitate bringing more people to the land to hand tend, instead of machines and robots and bio-cides.

The Australian State needs to cede Aboriginal title where there are existing Aboriginal communities on traditional lands. Let them be, for they are totally a valid lane tenure polity.

I am saying this direct to you, the folk of burned Australia, your friends and families, your neighbours and compatriots and commatriots.

This could help build the bridge among rural Australia that brings you back to the people you did not heed, to meet again, this time as sharers, carers, nurturers, rather than the descendants of conquerors, colonisers and settlers.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

A Rejection of the Concepts of Victim, of Apology and of Reconciliation

A Rejection of the Concepts of Victim, of Apology and of Reconciliation


Apology is often taken as meaning remorse. But there are situations when it is a DEFENCE of an action,  as in apologia or apologist.

The etymology of the word APOLOGY is revealing : "defense, justification," from L.L. apologia, from Gk. apologia "a speech in defense," from apologeisthai "to speak in one's defense," from apologos "an account, story," from apo- "from, off" (see apo-) + logos "speech" (see lecture).

The original English sense of "self-justification" yielded a meaning "frank expression of regret for wrong done," first recorded 1590s, but it was not the main sense until 18c. The old sense tends to emerge in Latin form apologia (first attested 1784), especially since J.H. Newman's "Apologia pro Vita Sua" (1864).

Thus when the Church or State Apologises, it is adopting a position that defends it's current status. 

As eternal institutions of political power they understand their intended meaning of the words they use. They are the source of our legal language, and the Law is created in the first instance to perpetuate and  maintain their status and power, and to avoid the necessary consequences of their actions when they cause harm to people in pursuit of retaining that power.

This can be observed in with the way both have responded to the emergence of living witness evidence with regard to Residential School Systems in Canada and USA, which have existed since the 1860s, in which Aboriginal children have been incarcerated by force, brutally harmed in systemic fashion for more than a century.

Saying 'I am sorry' has no meaning unless there is material action to back it up, unless there is a clear indication that whatever transgression occurred will not occur again.

And in cases where the harm caused is beyond remediation, then accountability demands corrective measures be applied to those Institutions. Corrective measures mean open, honest accountability, reparations, and the return of what was stolen in cultural, economic and political terms.

The etymology of the word VICTIM "living creature killed and offered as a sacrifice to a deity or supernatural power," from L. victima "person or animal killed as a sacrifice." Perhaps distantly connected to O.E. wig "idol," Goth. weihs "holy," Ger. weihen "consecrate" (cf. Weihnachten "Christmas") on notion of "a consecrated animal."

Thus the ancient roots of the word suggest a meaning that makes the creation of a 'victim' within the context of a consecrated 'sacrifice', reasonable, or acceptable.

The concept of sacrifice is in itself the measure of a price worth paying (by those who make the sacrifice... not by those sacrificed,... of course).

As Madelaine Albright or Tony Blair have asserted. That neither have been roundly condemned by the majority of mainstream media, let alone the courts speaks volumes of the acceptance of the 'consecrated sacrifice' mindset that permeates Power.

To be labelled as a victim then carries this hidden meaning,  as in one who has not survived a trauma, in that the trauma extinguished the life of the person... and what must be remembered is that often the Survivor bears the scars of the trauma, indelible marks that last a life time that cannot be readily erased, even if they can, to a certain limited extent, be lived with

So let me make this very clear for all : I was not so much a VICTIM as I was VICTIMISED - a defenceless, innocent and beautiful child harmed and brutalised by priests, nuns, teachers and others who bullied me.

The person victimised is not a victim, rather she or he is a victim of - the action of another person is the driving force of the status of those who are harmed to meet the perdeived needs of the brutaliser.

The use of the word victim as a noun typically implies weakness, rather than vulnerability.

I bear the scars of the abuse inflicted upon me, and  to some degree I have been able to recover.

 The more the Society that permitted and perpetuated that abuse (mine and that of the Iraqi people, and all who suffer needlessly in wars pursued by Governments, that of the Aboriginal Children forced into Residential Schools, that of the children of the poor forced into Residential Schools) denies and obstructs Survivors calls for restorative justice, the more likely it is that others will suffer as we have, and I cannot countenance that, because I know what that suffering was like, and I would not wish it upon anyone.

Restorative Justice is what we want, not verbal apologies and settlenents......

Restorative Justice means public trials, jail sentences, files opened and Institutions that are harming children be openly, transparently remorseful and prepared to commit in toto to prevention of any further abuses - it means that Society speaks and acts to protect all the children, and does so forcefully.

To demand accountability for criminal behaviour is not abusive. It may be seen as punitive, and perhaps there's an argument for making incarceration less inhumane, yet such is the nature of causing harm - there's a consequence that MUST BE PAID BY THE CRIMINAL and that must also protect Society and in our case, all our children, from any future abuse.

Likewise, that oft used word, Re-Conciliation, comes from the Roman Empire.

It means to ‘make friendly’ again. Let’s make-up!

Reconciliation : From Latin reconciliatio (“a re-establishing, reinstatement, restoration, renewal, a reconciling, reconciliation”), from reconciliare

Consilio is to do with being at home or amongst friends.

Roman reconciliation was the practice of Rebels being brought to Rome, after their rebellion had been crushed, and the rebel leaders were made to prostrate themselves and admit of their 'treachery', to become friends again with the Emperor, and then ritually strangled,or so it is told. This act then brought the lands and the peoples the rebel leaders came from back into the Roman Empire's family. It re-established Rome's authority.

It is important to understand the power of legal terms when used by Governments and States, for within their mindsets these masked meanings loom large, as we see in the various attempts of those who have been harmed, brutalised and degraded by the actions of State and Church make any attempt to reveal the crimes, and press for Restorative Justice and the treatment meted to any who dare to do this work.

Feet are washed, Inquiries held to white wash the incidents, green-washing PR campaigns are funded and promoted, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions are set up, and in each case, their primary function in material terms is proven to be to protect the status and power of the abusers and their  old power Institutions.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe



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