attitudes towards violence and punishment

I suspect its because our attitudes in some ways stem from English ones, but have been strongly influenced by American TV and changes in where people live and grew up (not to mention how they grew up).

I read this morning in an Australian newspaper that stabbing wounds were up to nearly double what they were the previous year. People make all manner of complaints about the police needing to be there, but perhaps the reality is we can't have 10% of our population as police officers. It would also be ugly.

In conversation with some police officers over the years I hear time and again that they see juvenile offenders getting bolder as they get experience with what to their eyes is the weakness of the law with them. They see them repeatedly and see how they change and note who is going to get into what sort of trouble. Often they are right.

They are told "it will all change on your birthday" but they already know from several years that its all just talk... until their birthday, by which time its too late.

I fear we're sending them messages which are way to complex for their minds and their social network to comprehend.

Back to that article however and one of the contributors makes an interesting point:

In Singapore, carrying a knife as a weapon including kitchen knives without authorised permission is punishable by 6-months jail and 6 strokes of the cane. Over there you can walk safely in nights as compared to Melbourne. What do you think is the difference???

People have long lamented the changes in our system to remove corporal punishment. I think that its strange that our law enforcement officers are able to shoot you if you do not comply but we recoil in horror at the thought of someone getting a spanking for being a brat or an asshole.

Perhaps we should be looking at the rantan too?

If we are stipping the power to discipline children from the parents, who is taking it up?

racism: old baggage or new?

Back when I was in college studying to become an engineer there was a diverse mix of race in my class. Vietnamese, recent Pommie immigrants, Greeks and of course (probably mainly) Australians.

Now the funny thing is here that the Greeks in the class (who would identify them selves as Greeks) were actually born in Australia to parents of Greek origin. The other funny thing is that these boys would say things like "Skippies are fun to play with, you can fukk em but but you only get serious with Greek girls". Presumably these "greeks" would in reality be Australians who were simply of Greek ethnic background. Skippies are of course the non-Greek Australians.

I never thought too much about it back then, cos well ... if they felt that way then hey ... but now I feel "shit, that's quite a racist thing to say".

Especially after all the recent stuff about "Australians being Racist" (and I cop a little shit about this being an Australian and being overseas and traveling through India) I think that it might be time to put some facts on the table, you know, before things get out of hand.

I for one, would love to see it reported what ethnic background are people from who are "curry bashers" in Melbourne.

For instance, today I read this in the Australian:

A survey or more than 500 international students found those reporting violence frequently identified the perpetrators as "groups of alienated young men".

interesting ... and ... there seems to be a few reports from others in the media that it would seem that other than multi-generational Australians are the culprits for some of the attacks.

I think it would be very informative if we actually had data from the Police to see if there is any basis to seeing if there was perhaps an ethnic group or another is involved in this. If this was the case then why should I cop shit as an Australian because some dickhead who calls himself an "elbownian" or whatever be allowed to take out their race hate and I get the blame?

If someone has racial or cultural baggage from "the old country" I don't want that to become our baggage as Australians now thanks all the same.

Further if we have such a situation, we really need to understand it and address why people from this or that ethnic group are feeling alienated.

Personally I think that from such an analysis we could look more carefully at what our problems are internally as a country and attempt to address them (or at least look honestly at them).

Living as a foreigner in a foreign country (I live now in Finland) I can understand the desire for groups to prefer mix socially together, however I've very clear on one thing: this is Finland and I do things the way Finns think they should be done.

This by the way has nothing to do with racism, while I believe that I in my small way do things which enrich Finland; at the end of the day if I don't like it here I need to go home. Even though I have residency.

The same should be true in Australia, and having 3rd generation kids of Immigrants still identifying themselves as Greek or Italian or whatever is just odd. Ask youselves why you're in Australia? If your parents left their homeland (and do not underestimate how hard this is) they did so for a reason. NB Life was likely to be better in Australia.

A Russian fellow I met in my work once said to me that he does not want his children to pretend about Russia. We came to Australia because things do not work properly in Russia, we don't want to bring that with us to Australia.

I have a number of Korean friends in Australia, and I totally love their influence on Australia. But you know what ... they're not wanting to make Australia into Little Korea. Sure they still eat Korean style food (heck, so do I), but they want to live a different life.

I see that it is all too easy for the children of immigrants to hear fantasy tales about "life back home" and try hard to remember the old country. Well that's great, but remember why you're here, because despite its flaws its actually better in Australia.

Australians are far too afraid to speak honestly and in truth we seem to be culturally unable to have meaningful debate (looking around I'm not sure which cultures do support this). To have a working multicultural society I believe we need to:

• embrace dialog, have discussion
• be able to accept that things are not absolute; X may be better at home, but maybe Y and Z are better in Australia. If you think they are not balanced in favour of Australia, then maybe you should go home.
• respect changes and embrace the interesting things of another culture
  

This last point is something I think Australians do much better than other cultures. For instance I was working at a workplace with some Indians, they were so disappointed that Australians can't tolerate hot curry ... I said that I love hot Curry and I showed them what I was eating. It was a nice Tandoori I'd made myself. So we started eating together. A few weeks later I suggested we try "Japanese" (as I've lived in Japan and love the food). Well not only were they unwilling to try it when they did they just dismissed it as tasting horrible.

So much for that.

Racism does not mean Australians have to accept others, and by not doing so somehow makes us racist.

However just as we should (at least try to) understand the peoples who come to Australia, I believe that that immigrants need to accept our values, and the values of other immigrants too.

By looking carefully at ourselves and seeing what our internal problems are I think we can all move forward to a better future.

Complacency and fantasy: the real silent killers

Firstly I would like to express my sympathy to the family of Elliot Fletcher. It is a tragedy and having lost some of my friends (and my closest friend) in my early life I can perhaps comprehend your grief.

I read today in the Courier Mail that parents are somehow surprised at this and have expresses sentiments which in some ways contribute significantly to these problems. For instance:

Mother Natalie Smoothy, whose son attends the Catholic college, verbalised what was written on every parent's face as they gathered for a memorial service at the school on Tuesday.

"What's the world coming to is what I want to know," she said.

"How did this happen in a little, quiet, beautiful part of the world?

Elliott, 12, died yesterday after being stabbed in the toilet block of St Patrick's College, at Shorncliffe.

Reports of disgusting behavior by some people on forums like Facebook are reprehensible, but go to show just what really lurks under the surface of many nicely varnished exteriors.

I grew up in a small beautiful part of the world too, it was in the middle of the east coast of Australia (but when I got there now, I think it has been destroyed). I went to a Catholic School there and I can say that there were certainly plenty of times I feared what the older boys might do to me when I was in grade 6.

It certainly was a more quite and more beautiful part of the world back in 1975 than it is now, there were no violent video games, no news reports of horror in quite the same detail and yet people found it in their hearts to be viscous and abusive.

I can't say if its getting any worse, because I saw some things which I thought were dreadful back then too, but I firmly believe that it is in the complacency, the willful indulgence to create a fantasy of the world being a beautiful place that people then provide the environment to foster this sort of thing.

I believe that we should be able to find balance, to see the beauty that is there as well as the horror, but not by pretending the horrid is not present.

Australians seem to have a long history of pretending the horrid isn't there, and being "aghast" when it appears. I can only assume it is because the vast majority put their heads in the sand and deliberately refuse to see the horrid around them all the time. Only when it is thrust in their faces and they are pulled screaming from their comfort do they recognise it. Then suddenly it becomes "what has happend to the world"

What happened was that you saw it as it really is.

How can the mother of this child not have heard of Daniel Morecombe? People will say I am being tough here, but really, pull your head out of the sand my friend.

Folks, by doing that sort of thing you silently consent to it. You provide the environment for it to grow in.

I recall many of us at my school complaining about one of the Christian Brothers in our school fiddling with the boys on camps ... but ohh no ... we wouldn't know what we were talking about. We were just boys.

Funny how decades later the same fellow is prosecuted for just this. The messages of children are often ignored.

This does not mean that I believe that children should be treated as adults, and it does not mean that I support fully or agree with the existing situation where children are essentially used to dob in their parents if they are disciplined.


History has shown that lynch mobs gathering and menacing the streets to find a guilty person to bring to justice do nothing to solve the problem, the answer does not lie in a short sharp reaction. I firmly believe that the answer lays in vigilence awareness and action. Perhaps if you listened to the sermons in Mass sometimes you might actually hear that same message being spoken there too.

So if you feel that the streets are not safe at night, perhaps its because by sitting home on the couch in front of the telly every night, complaining about how the TV is crap, you leave the streets vacant and empty. I've lived in Japan and Finland and I can assure you that the streets are much safer in neighborhoods in both places because people are out walking around on them.

If there is a vacuum, something fills it.

So, to quote an old saying: Wake up Australia

Stop pretending we don't have problems, stop pretending and start looking and taking actions. Participate, take responsiblity and most importantly learn how to engage in dispassionate dialog with your fellow Australians to make the place better!

... or it will just fall into being worse.

business and ethics

I am sometimes bamboozled by the thought processes of Australian government and business. For instance, the following topics may initially seem to be unrelated, but I'll get there:

• the so called "Skills Shortage" which is used to drive up skilled immigration levels
• the difficulty of anyone (no matter how skilled) over 45 to get a job
• the so called "jobless recoveries" of the Economy
• the desire to employ younger people in the construction industry
• the penchant of the Australian Government to pop out schemes to assist (be it Indigenous peoples or our mainstream economy)
  

Now, take the present situation of the home insulation scheme scandal. Not only is leaving people's homes in danger, but it demonstrates to me exactly what i don't like about the construction industry and why it should not be propped up and boosted ad nauseum.

Reading that above article about the electrification of homes (and not in a good way) you find that all of the deaths so far have been the young and inexperienced (so loved to employ because they're cheap and do what you tell em)

October 14, 2009
An installer is electrocuted and a co-worker receives an electric shock while putting foil insulation in the roof of a Brisbane home. A staple used to secure the foil pierces a power cable, electrifying the foil.

November 18, 2009
A 16-year-old worker is electrocuted while installing insulation at a property at Stanwell, southwest of Rockhampton. His co-worker survives but suffers an electric shock.

November 20, 2009
A 19-year-old insulation worker dies in Sydney after emerging from the searing heat of a roof space during his first day on the job.

February 4, 2010
A 25-year-old worker is electrocuted while working in a ceiling at Millaa Millaa, southwest of Cairns.

February 9, 2010
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett suspends foil insulation from the government's rebate scheme, citing ongoing concerns about safe installation.

and it would look like shoddy work practices are taking place. As an electronics technician (long ago past) with quite enough experience in crawling through ceilings I can back up that things are often pretty dodgy up there. Part of the problem is the pressure on contractors from the builder or developer.

Meanwhile the govt and media are wringing their hands about the costs of this and the bad decisions made by government, well, is anyone going to punish the idiots who essentially sent these kids to their deaths? Is anyone going to investigate why there is always a rush by shoddy operators to cash in on stuff like this (or even Indigenous housing scams)? Or isn't any of that important?

Underlying all of this is the ethics of business ... most commonly this ethic is "shaft them before they shaft you" ... and we kid ourselves we are working towards a sustainable society.

HAH

While one group argues that at least some of our International Students are attracted here to study because they will be in a better position to apply for Permanent Residency (and I have quite a few international student friends from recent Masters level University study to back this up anecdotally) another group is saying it will hurt our recovery. Another case of Ethics if you ask me ... and just where does this help many Australians?

There is always talk of recovery, often this is based in consumer spending. Well just Google Jobless Recovery and see what you get. Not easy to see where the jobs are being created, and why noone is taking on anyone who doesn't have 12 years experience. "we don't have time to afford to train staff".

Funny ... if you do some reading on IBM's Datawarehouse project for "Wallmart" you'll discover that the entire system would not have been possible without several key and highly experienced individuals who were able to direct their reporting criteria based on their own heuristic experience.

So HR trys to treat us all as a pool of replaceable parts, that can be ordered and plugged in "just in time". Since that approach seems to result in bad workplace relations, it seems that out-sourcing is picked as the solution. You know, get the "peripheral" work that isn't part of our "core business" done outside ... anyone here had problems with off shore development?

hmmm

Perhaps we actually have enough people in Australia to do what is needed ... "But the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry fears the changes" [probably of reducing a pool of exploitable labour and a balanced marketplace].

I'll leave you with a quote by Robert Williams from an address to a symposium he delivered

In the last decade, there has been a radical shift of thinking on how to measure business performance. The Strategic Scorecard (SSC) and The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) have created other measures of performance that focus on environmental quality and social justice.

Despite the above radical thinking, business failures, financial scandals and unethical business behaviour continue unabated.

This paper concludes that the reasons for this include that the TBL and SCC have not adequately addressed ethics, that profit is seen as the only goal of business, that ethics is only seen as relevant if it aids profits, and that legalistic societies marginalize ethics.

This paper argues that something more fundamental is needed to address this malaise; that something is ethics. Individuals are compelled by reason to act ethically, that is, to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do and to respect all individuals. Further, businesses are merely manifestations of individuals and therefore individuals in business must also act ethically.

This paper demonstrates two paradoxical conclusions. First, in one sense, ethics is the bottom line for individuals when dealing with any action in the class of moral actions. Second, while the bottom line for business is business, business still must act ethically. Therefore, in this more general sense, ethics is beyond the bottom line, but is needed to underlie how business should be conducted.