“Why is the world so unfair?

Why all the economic injustice, those brutal wars, the everyday corporate cruelty?

The answer: Psychopaths.

That part of the brain that doesn’t function right. You’re standing on an escalator and you watch the people going past in the opposite escalator. If you could climb inside their brains you would see we aren’t all the same. We aren’t all good people just trying to do good. Some of us are psychopaths. And psychopaths are to blame for this brutal, misshapen society. They’re the rocks thrown into the pond.

Some psychopaths are serial killers which ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies, they ruin societies.” (Jon Ronson: The psychopath test.)

Listening to various commentators and reading about the war in Gaza, there seems to be from Israel and the USA very little said about the nearing 40,000 fatalities recorded and no doubt many more deaths yet to be discovered, buried under the rubble of the homes people used to live in and the many more who will suffer from the inflicted starvation and health conditions brought about by the brutality of that conflict. It is almost a whispered afterthought in some reports, the focus seems to be to justify the action because of October 7 last year, as though the desperation of the Palestinian people started that day. To her credit, Kamala Harris did state that the suffering of Palestinians needed to stop.

The situation in Gaza and in the West Bank is a direct of the psychopathic leadership of both the current and previous Israeli leaders, and of course having a faithful, uncritical following.

But to restrict the focus on Israel, or even just on leaders committing such horrors in the name of some nationalistic goals is being dismissive of the damage psychopathy has rendered through the history of colonialism and capitalism, self serving politicians and self righteous religious leaders.

To come to even a cursory understanding of the damage inflicted by psychopaths, we need to find a proper definition which covers a bit more ground that the shower scene in the Hitchcock movie Psycho. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary a psychopath is ‘a person having an egocentric and antisocial personality marked by a lack of remorse for one’s actions, an absence of empathy for others and often criminal tendencies.

Jon Ronson in the book cited above quotes a twenty point test; the Hare PCL-R checklist which, when applied to a person, answers (or observations) credit a 0, 1, or 2 score for each point. A score of more than 30 identifies the person as being psychopathic, although some researchers prefer a cutoff of 23 points.

But even considering the brief dictionary definition and then looking at the impact of psychopaths on society across the fields of corporate, political and religion, we can make sense of prevailing economic and social conditions.

Colonialism and Capitalism

The foundations of modern day capitalism and the global economy each of us is so heavily involved in (try imagining live without capitalism for a moment) has its roots in colonialism, the development of new products and the ‘discovery’ of new lands, the enslavement of people to work those lands. Think for a moment about the coffee or tea to start the day, products of colonialism, sugar, tobacco, cotton. All products we consume every day, became popular, exotic, during the colonial era, changing diets and fashions throughout colonising Europe.

Throughout the history of colonialism and capitalism which grew out of it, the interests of those who had the capital were foremost. Take a look around some of the mansions which host the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, many of those estates were the result of wealth generated through colonial expansion. The billions of pounds sterling King Charles gets are the ongoing fruits of colonialism. Mansions in The Netherlands were built on the wealth generated by the returns on investment in the Dutch East Indies Company, VOC, and elsewhere throughout Europe fruits of colonialism are evident. The people who had the capital to invest reaped great rewards, but those who generated the wealth were ‘cannon fodder’, just tools used to generate dividends. returns on investments.

In Britain, the coupling of the enclosures for increased agricultural production saw peasants who used to work on the estates evicted and provided a ready, cheap workforce for the factories of the newly developed mines and factories. The increase in wealth saw the rise of a middle class and a growing divide in the distribution of wealth, with those at the bottom of the social strata left to somehow or other exist, and should they ‘break the laws’ which protected the newfound wealth of those above, they were sent of to the colonies to work off sentences, pretty much as slaves. After the American war of independence in 1766, the colony of New South Wales was used for the dumping ground of the undesirables.

Is today any different?

Today we face a ‘cost of living crisis’. But is it really? Or is it just going back to business as usual?

The post war period, 1945 to 1975 was called, in French, ‘Les Trente Glorieuses’, the thirty glorious years. Those years were an aberration. What we are witnessing now is a return to the amassing of wealth by the owners of capital, it is more than the Marxist term, ‘the owners of the means of production’, it is the share holders, the stock market players, the venture capitalist who set the rules today.

Recently in the Senate enquiry into the Coles/Woolworths duopoly it became very clear that the return on investment was the most important number to the CEO’s and board members of those enterprises. Similarly, in the recently published book, ‘Hard Labour’ by the journalist Ben Schneiders, the author and researchers who worked with him saw blatant evidence of wages theft, mainly in retail, restaurant and fast-food industries and in the supply chains used to provide produce for resale. In cahoots the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, a union affiliated with the Democratic Labor Party in the 1950’s and later when they (re)joined the Labor party, were instrumental in having workers under-paid thousands of dollars. Sweetheart deals saw that the agreed wages were a bit higher than the minimum wages set at the time, but penalty rates and overtime rates did not apply. Workers were encouraged (compelled) to work overtime, and night shift workers did not enjoy any loadings. Membership was compulsory, with union fees deducted from pay.

In the restaurant industry some chefs in the most expensive, upmarket eateries worked up to 60 hour a week without overtime, their contracts were for 40 hour weeks. Maccas in Australia was the only Golden Arches group to encourage union membership, every else where the golden arches are present, the attitude is decidedly anti-union, and the pay and conditions not good for workers. Wages stagnated while profits soared. The union effectively handed Mc Donalds a very substantial kick back. As soon as the ‘deal’ ended, the union was effectively locked out.

Profits went overseas to parent companies or to tax havens, so no profits were paid to the Australian Tax Office.

Politics

Last month all PAYE income earners got a pay rise… or paid less tax. The stage three tax cuts happened and they hit the pay packets. It was part of a grand plan to level out the income tax system. Marginal tax rates have been adjusted so that the highest rate for those earning $135,000 or more pay a marginal rate of 37 cents in the dollar. Those earning between $45,000 and $135,000 pay a marginal rate of 30 cents in the dollar for each dollar over $45,000. The savings at the lower end are marginal over the previous rates, but for those earning the ‘big bucks’ the savings are substantial.

During the post war period, ‘Les Trente Glorieuses’, the top marginal rate in Australia was 75% and dropped to 60% into the 1980s. The period of the Thatcher-Reagan years, from 1979 to 1990 saw a great shift away from workers, restructuring the global economy to benefit the owners of capital, the ‘trickle down economy’, and since that time an erosion of wages and an increase in corporate profits.

Much of the politicking was aimed at reducing the influence of unions. In the latest iteration, unionism is not compulsory, but when pay and conditions contracts are negotiated, even those who are not union members benefit form the improved conditions.

Some of those contracts, including the QANTAS EBA saw the wages of new recruits being substantially less than long term employees. Wages are then increased on a percentage basis, so the discrepancy is permanent.

Religion

In 2013 The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was established and it was found that in many church based facilities, child sexual abuse occurred. The saga of predatory behaviour by trusted members of the clergy and the ways in which perpetrators were allowed to continue, moved from parish to parish, was a shock to the entire community. During the enquiry many accusations were made and legal battles have continued to seek justice for those who were victimised. The cases have drawn on and on, delays called as some church bodies wait for those accused to die so there will be presumably no case to answer. Even an Archbishop was accused, imprisoned and rereleased on appeal. The acceptance that there was wrongdoing is denied repeatedly, obfuscated over or dismissed.

Apart from the horrors that were exposed during and since the Royal Commission, corruption in churches throughout history have seen the deaths of many millions of people who have disagreed with the tenets of one church or another. Religion is a very lucrative game, and those in power protect their cash cows fiercely.

The sense of superiority by claiming ‘salvation’ and then taking that message across the world during colonisation, either accept this new religion or die a gruesome death, bringing a message which included a set of laws, the Ten Commandments, and without any sense of irony stealing the land, raping the women and killing those who dared to object.

As with the colonial and capitalist wielding of power over politicians to gain advantage, the religious leaders too have their influencers with politicians, ensuring tax breaks for churches and financial support for schools to ensure those who can afford the expensive private school education have the best schools, while the public school system struggles with often inadequate facilities and poorer support programmes.

The clock is being wound back to ensure there is a pool of desperate people looking to survive.

It looks like the psychopaths are in control... again.

How quickly at times we judge people just because they may not look or act or be like us, (like me?).

Judgementalism: Having a judgmental attitude or behaviour, tending to form opinions too quickly, especially when disapproving of someone or something. (Cambridge English Dictionary).

Judgement: The ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions. ((Oxford Dictionary).

Justice: The quality of being just, impartial or fair (Merriam-Webster).

A conversation with a friend this morning. He’s angry. It appears that all those feel-good Maori names, street signs, alternative names for towns and landmarks in New Zealand are being removed. The anger isn’t because that names are being changed back to their English names, but that they were ever given Maori names in the first place. Not much good trying to explain that they were there first, that just doesn’t cut it. Besides, all the Asians are coming in taking it over now. So should the names be changed to show the Asian immigration and the effect that is doing? No, he’s glad he’s here now.

But then we have this thing about being on this country or that country. In our case, Whadjuk country, and Perth is the Burrell, part of Whadjuk country. My friend bristles at that too.

Talking with others, we see so many things people object to or have issues with, that people do not believe what I know to be ‘truth’, whatever cultural hangups I may have. Seeing people of different races suddenly appear in the neighbourhood, Somalis, Muslims with those letterbox dresses, different languages being spoken. It can be so jarring, so uncomfortable.

I sometimes went to work during the football season wearing a beanie or scarf of my favourite football team, and a colleague would express his contempt for the team I supported, bloody losers! There is only one team to support. Right?

It seems we have this innate thing that measures all we see by the standards we would like to uphold or have others uphold even when we have difficulty living up to those standards. Or the football teams we support, even which football code is actually football!

(Just as an aside, the original definition of football was a game played with a ball on foot, as opposed to polo which is played on horseback, by that definition, even cricket can be considered football.)

And in political discourse these differences become points of crisis, somehow amplifying the ‘Not like me’ as being bad, or at least ‘not good’. It seems we have a wall built around us, an impenetrable wall that rejects things we judge to be bad, and by implication, that we epitomise what is ‘good’. If only the rest of the world was just like me. Life would be perfect.

Or would it?

Judgementalism. We see things through our lens, we want things to be just so, just as it is prescribed in whatever orthodoxy ‘I’ subscribe to.

Every now and again, seemingly less frequently that it used to be, I get a YouTube video of some angry person bewailing an anti-something or other rant. A recent one was the Prince of Iran joining Trump and British Nationalists to fight (in caps) ISLAMISTS.

It seems the Prince would like to sit on the Peacock throne like his daddy did.

I pointed out that I thought it was interesting, the Prince fighting the Islamists, that draconian bunch who now control Iran, having replaced his father’s draconian rule which gained autocratic power after the British and Americans removed the democratically elected Iranian government. It seemed nationalising the oil resources policy was not a good thing, so the National Front government had to go. Democracy is not good when the nation’s natural resources are claimed as national resources. But there was no return comment. And that is not unusual. I get the angry YouTube videos and even when I ask what my friend really thinks about it, there is no comment. There is no engagement, no giving of himself, as though that does not need thinking about, in other words, there is no judgement, no considered thought regarding the angry diatribes.

It is easier to hate when the diatribe is accepted as truth.

And that’s the thing in all those matters that we subject to judgementalism. Accept without question that for example, Russia has every right to take back Ukraine since it had been a part of the Russian Empire since Catherine the Great in 1793 and had finally gained independence after the fall of the USSR in 1991. It belongs to Russia, no matter what the Ukrainian people think! (I was tempted to mention Israel/Palestine here but … mmmm).

Or it is easier to hate Islam and Muslims because of the way Islam treats women. Or enforces draconian laws such as hanging people who ‘wage war against god’, whatever that means, or promote Sharia Law, forgetting that we live in a country which does not have a state religion, in fact this is a secular nation where freedom of religion is mandated by law. And the laws of the land take precedence over religious laws.

Or easy to look disparagingly at the turban wearing, bearded Sikh man as though he must be a terrorist or something else that cannot be good. I was stopped recently by such a man, Guru Singh, a man who asked me for advice a few years back, regarding the education of his daughter. He knew I had been a teacher and we talked about which school I would recommend for his high-achieving primary school-aged daughter and how to encourage her into her next phase of education which will lead to later opportunities. He stopped to thank me because his daughter has got into the desired school and was setting the world on fire as she is working hard and achieving great results. It turns out that this man, Guru, is a hardworking, doting husband and father, a man who values the family he has and the freedoms of living in Australia. Look past the turban which contains his long greying hair, look past the beard, listen through the accent and just honour the man who is worthy of respect. And definitely not the ‘terrorist’ as a leading hand had branded him when he first came to my workplace.

Or to go to a concert featuring music from the Middle East or Persia, listen to refugees who have made this country their homes because their lives were in danger in their countries of birth, Iranian, Iraqi, Palestinian, Lebanese joining a group of classical musicians to present some of the most amazing sounds imaginable, and afterwards delight us with tea/coffee and finger foods from far off places.

The ‘judgement’ of difference, to look at those people as human beings, to talk with them, to understand the hardships, the dangers they have faced to be here, the sacrifices they have made, the incredible enhancements they make to our culture. To understand how privileged we are that we can enjoy the freedoms these people do not have in the lands they have had to leave.

So we have looked at judgementalism and judgement, now we need to consider justice.

The impartiality, the fairness that proper justice demands is more than a legal proposition, it is more than a punishment ordered by a judge in a court of law, it is also the reward or punishment we administer to ourselves and others through or judgement and judgementalism.

Punishment can be the fostering of division, of promoting discord, of a failure to accept the diversity which is inherent in our humanity. Punishment is the violence we see in racial discord, the ugliness of seeing protesters seeking fairness, seeking the best humanity can offer being called out as haters, called out as Antisemitic, disparaging people who are not like us, failing to acknowledge that the land we walk on is part of the indigenous world we invaded, failing to see those people as somewhat less than human.

The rewards are far, far better.

To be stopped by a person who asked my advice, to talk with him about his family, his wife and children, to revel in the achievements of his daughter brings me great joy.

To listen to strange, hauntingly beautiful music from people who have travelled halfway around the world to find a safe haven here and bring with them such beauty, such warmth, such friendship, to listen to their stories of pain and loss, and appreciation that we have given them a safe place to live, to bring up their families, to bring with them the bits of culture which so define them.

To spend time with Aboriginal friends to relate to the land we live in, see it through eyes which respect the land as the origin of who we are, that we are in fact part of this land, that every fibre of our being has come from the land and will return to it. (And yes, I do mean ‘we’, since everything we eat, or use has its origin in the earth.} That the land is ‘mother earth’, far more than just a resource to be monetised.

As we feel the discomfort which judgementalism brings, we need to think through the emotions and fears to reason, to consider, to empathise with those who are not like us. To consider judgement, to make decisions which are sensible, which consider the humanity we share with all those around us, those who are different (and aren’t we all different, isn’t that part of the wonder of who we are?).

And through judging fairly, impartially we can live a life which is somehow fuller, enhanced by the beauty and wonder those we feared can offer us.

But it all must start with ‘me’. That cannot be imposed by anyone else.

The war in Ukraine rolls on, seemingly an endless aggression which seeks either a capitulation or the nation’s complete destruction. This morning a report that a hospital has been bombed killing 41 civilians and injuring dozens more adding to the already horrendous toll of lives lost. The hospital treats children for cancer and heart problems as well as severe injuries.

Meanwhile in Gaza more bombings causing more destruction and death as the number of fatalities on the Palestinian side climbs to 40,000, mainly women and children. This time a UN school where people were seeking shelter from the ongoing bombardment which is reducing the last remaining buildings in Gaza to rubble.

Both Russians and Jews have a history marked with violence and oppression.

Perhaps the answers lie in their histories.

Tolstoy’s War and Peace covers the period of the Napoleonic Wars and the threat posed to Russia as the invading army progressed its bloody march on Moscow in 1812. The defenders of Moscow decided it would be better to burn the city and retreat, leaving nothing for the invaders to capture and occupy, and then with the onset of winter see them retreat in the bitter cold. Whether it was the Russian resistance or the severity of the winter which defeated the invading forces remains an interesting question, but leaving no protection from the elements forced the retreat it appears.

Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment describes life in Czarist Russia as brutal. Life was hard, poverty was rampant, corruption and desperation were the orders of the day.

In attempting to gain a warm water port in the Pacific to support the growing of the empire and with Czarist Russia seeking to expand its empire to included Manchuria and even the Korean peninsula brought it into conflict with Japan in 1904 and resulted in two naval battles, both of which were losses to the Russians and came at a high cost in terms of lost shipping and personnel. These losses exacerbated tensions between the Duma (parliament) and the Czar. and laid the foundation for political changes and the Russian Revolution.

The Revolution of 1917 and the murder of the Czar and his family was the prelude for a bitter civil war as the Red and White factions of the Revolutionary forces battled for control and the lives of ordinary Russians were turned upside down: a new political orthodoxy complete with secret police and dissent harshly dealt with.

And then there were Stalin’s purges. It is estimated that over 1.6 million people died in the Gulag Archipelago (as the author Alexander Solshenitsyn named the Siberian Prison camp system where he was imprisoned and claimed that as many as “some 40 to 50 million people served long sentences” but figures released by Soviet historians in 1989 show the total was about 10 million. Many tried in closed courts, or many more just sent, accused of dissent, whatever that means).

The siege of Leningrad (now St Petersburg) by the German army from September 1941 till January 1944 saw about 1.4 million civilian casualties and more than a million soldiers killed, with the total fatalities somewhere in the order of 2.5 million people. Of the civilians, most were women and children. Russian casualties during WWII were over 20 million.

The aftermath of WWII saw Russian influence grow in Easter Europe with Communist regimes in Poland, East Germany, and through the Baltic states creating a Communist bloc, politically opposed to that of Western Europe which embraced capitalism and multi-party democracies. These states also came under the defence umbrella of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

The fall of Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of communism in Russia and its satellite states saw a number of inept governments formed and the rise of oligarchs who essentially plundered the economy, leaving the population essentially leaderless and destitute.

Along came Vladimir Putin to save the day, with a reform agenda which included rebuilding the Russian Empire, reinstating the Russian Orthodox Church to unify the nation and give a spiritual base for the restructuring of the national identity. The rebuilding of the old empire has been a centerpiece of Putin’s leadership, regaining Crimea and parts of Ukraine. The ambition to retake Ukraine has met with resistance leading to the current conflict. Most Russians agree with the concept of rebuilding Russia, a sort of Trumpian thing to Make Russian Great Again, and in a nation where personal freedom has never been idealistically promoted. The value of human life, both on the Ukrainian side and the loss of Russian soldiers is not so much cause for alarm as it would be in countries like Australia where personal freedom is valued.

The history of violence for Jews goes back a lot further; to Roman times where the restive people of Judah were not happy having the Romans ruling over them. Also, as part of a string of rebellious groups, Jesus of Nazareth emerged as a charismatic leader and teacher, and even after he was brutally killed, his followers just kept growing in number and became seen as threats to the religious culture of Rome. Many were killed in most gruesome fashions, crucifixions were a common form of punishment with corpses generally left rotting on the crucifix for birds to pick at, or in the arenas, coliseums, to be attacked by wild lions, or to fight gladiators to the death as public sporting entertainment.

The uprisings of about CE70 saw the destruction of the temple in the capital city of Jerusalem and the forced expulsion of the religious leaders and teachers; the beginning of the Jewish diaspora.

Over time, these leaders proselytised in the communities where hey settled, mainly through Eastern Europe and having strict rules of conformity lived alongside the traditional groups. The rise of Christianity through Europe in the ensuing centuries saw these people more and more marginalised. One major point of distinction was that the Jews were denied full participation on land ownership since they chose to not legally exist. Early church leaders kept the records of births, marriages and deaths, but recorded baptisms instead of births and only recognised church sanctioned marriages, the Jews did not legally exist since they circumcised male children instead of baptising, so their existence was not recorded, hence they could not own land which was the principle source of wealth.

Being educated – since all Jews were taught to read and write to learn from their religious literature – they developed skills which were useful in administration and business, and so became scribes and accountants, bankers and traders. When these activities proved successful, animosities arose and the Jews were expelled, to be reinvested into those roles when economies failed.

One of the consequences of this was the Spanish Inquisition established in 1478 to maintain a Catholic Orthodoxy. Essentially, the Jews were welcome to stay but must renounce their religion and become good Catholics. Failure to do so was penalised and neighbourhood watches were established to ensure compliance. Punishments were severe with new and exciting tortures invented to ensure that survivors would become good Catholics, renouncing their Judaism.

The movie Fiddler on the Roof is based on a story of the expulsion of Jews from parts of Ukraine between 1918 and 1921 and was part of a series of Pogroms. orchestrated throughout Eastern Europe and Russia which was a lead up to the holocaust of Nazi Germany.

The pogrom in Poland became one of the severest. The Warsaw Ghetto was established in October 1940 and was totally destroyed in May 1943. The area of the Polish city of Warsaw which was the Jewish centre was walled off and as many Jews as could be rounded up were sealed into that part of the city, an area of about 3.4 square kilometres. Up to 400,000 people were crammed into that space and as many as 92,000 literally starved to death. Over 300,000 were either killed in the gas chambers of Treblinka and Majdanek or were shot.

During the rule of the Nazi regime in Germany almost six million Jews were killed as an organised genocide targeting Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other non-conforming people.

I have skimmed through these histories to try to understand why the Russians in Ukraine (and earlier in Chechnya) and the Israelis in dealing with Palestinians both in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank have been unrelentingly brutal in the waging of those wars. And to some extent I can see that the long histories of violence and marginalisation has laid a foundation of fear but also a determination to survive, to the preservation of their ethnic identities. But I then try to balance that with the periods of reckoning which occurred after WWII with the forming of the United Nations and the work done, in the Nuremberg Trials and the writing of the Declaration of Human Rights as a consequence of the holocaust and the opportunities Russia has had to restructure after the fall of communism to consider a more open form of governance and a willingness for earlier national identities to re-emerge.

And the question which remains is which humanity is the most deserving?

The definition that best fits the ‘me’, or can we work to a more all-embracing definition which will include all humanity?

In the meantime, children starve in Gaza, families mourn the loss of lives and bombs keep flying. To what end? Till objectives have been met? Are those objectives complete destruction, dare we call it genocide in the case of Palestinians or in the case of Ukraine, complete submission to imperial overlords… again?

We live wonderfully sheltered lives in the western world; the world of consumerism, of capitalism where just about every need we have can be fulfilled, and could be forgiven to think that slavery does not exist, or if it does, it’s not impacting on our lives.

And we just may be wrong.

Recently the UK’s wealthiest family, reputedly worth over $70 Billion, the Hindujas were jailed for up to 4 1/2 years for the ‘slave like treatment’ of servants in their Geneva household. Passports of the staff had been withheld, they only spoke in their language and were paid in Rupees, lodged in an Indian Bank so not accessible in Switzerland. Their renumeration was less than what was spent on the family’s pet dog.

The Hindujas claim the servants were not enslaved. They were free to come and go at times they were not working… up to sixteen hours a day, but had no money to buy a latte at the local cafe or even to see a movie.

So what is the definition of slavery?

In the times of the ancient empires, slaves were captured people from invaded lands. The Romans called them Barbarians, less than human.

A more recent definition of slavery is owned slaves, as in the early days of colonisation, where people were kidnapped from Africa and shipped to the Bahamas, the Caribbean, to the Virginias and other places where crops of tobacco, sugar cane and cotton were grown for consumption mainly in Europe. These slaves were purchased, bought, as one would buy a farm machine today, they were chattel, part of the ‘machinery’ of plantation life. Others worked in domestic settings, cleaning, cooking, gardening and so forth. African slaves, apart from being largely immune to mosquito borne illnesses were used to tropical heat, capable of working in harsh conditions (no white man could work there under those conditions), and also they were considered as less than human. (Indeed, in the USA slaves were counted as half a person for census/political purposes.)

That form of slavery was outlawed in Britain and the British colonies in 1834 and in the US in 1865.

But slavery is very much a part of life today and it impacts on us in the goods we buy.

Modern day slavery takes various forms. Currently in the USA there are about 2 million slaves, working in prisons. Prisoners have no choice and are paid about $20 per week.

A broad definition of slavery today is “situations of exploitation that a person “cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, and/or abuse of power.” That includes human trafficking for both sex and compelled labour.

There is a further definition of slavery and it is very much a part of modern working life where casual employment is used for seasonal or short-term unskilled labour. That existence can be very much a hand to mouth sort of life, where a couple of days work buys a meal or two but barely covers other living expenses. The advantage for the employer of such slave labour is that there is no requirement to provide lodging and clothing, or food outside that agreed in the work contract.

It is estimated that around 50 million people are trapped in various forms of slavery throughout the world today.

In a recently read book, The Ten Types of Human, author Dexter Dias explores various means of control people use over other people. He included modern slavery, child slavery and human trafficking in the book, citing examples of cases he has worked on for the United Nations in various civil wars in Africa and other places, and as a Civil Rights Barrister and part time judge in UK courts. One example he describes is of a young Russian woman who has left her family home, seeking work in a regional city as a cleaner in a hotel. She is offered a ‘promotion’ to work in a fancy hotel in Moscow but in reality is being trafficked as a sex worker. Another is of a young boy sold into slavery by his father in the Central African Republic. His job was to catch fish in a very dangerous manmade lake which had not been cleared of the forests so the fishing gear was often tangled on the dead trees under the water and needed to be freed. The living conditions described and the treatment are appalling. And there was no pay.

We don’t think of slavery as parts of our lives but chatting with friends recently, the relatively new on-line retailer TEMU came up as a talking point. What incredible value, everything is so cheap, and not of bad quality. We wonder how they can ship stuff to our homes at such incredibly low prices.

Or another story told on the weekend, a pair of sports tights, the Lorna Jane type, was purchased online for a ridiculously low price, a close comparison between the new and the old pair being replaced showed that fabric, cut, quality were identical, the only thing missing on the new pair was the Lorna Jane logo. They could well have come from the same production line, perhaps a ‘sweat shop’ operation in Bangladesh which is renowned as a clothing manufacturing hub. Or from North Korea where China outsources garment manufacturing using the cheap, effectively slave labour available. North Korea has a large fabric manufacturing capacity and sells their produce to China, either as fabric in bolts or as manufactured clothing.

In a study, Addressing Modern Slavery, Justine Nolan and Martijn Boersma describe the labour conditions in North Korea as modern slavery where workers are paid subsistence wages and work in harshly controlled environments. To overcome trade restrictions that exist between North Korea and much of the west, manufactured goods, such as the clothes we buy are labelled ‘Made in China’, a Chinese manufacturer may outsource the goods to be made to a North Korean work (sweat) shop. Apparently a large order for Australian surf brand tee shirts was found to have been manufactured in North Korea rather than in China as claimed on the print inside the shirts. Wages paid are less than half that paid in China, but of those low wages, about 2/3rds goes to employment agents and the government. It is considered a patriotic duty to work for the nation and its leader, Kim Jong Un. And it is work or starve.

Another form of slavery is in the food industry, particularly agriculture where seasonal work is needed. The slavery comes in two forms. In the employment of casual labour, often backpackers but also Pacific Islanders who are employed through labour hire firms. In the case of Pacific Islanders, the money for getting to Australia is often loaned by the labour hire firm and paid back through deductions from wages earned. Additionally, rent is charged for accommodation and other costs deducted. Much the same for some back packers, staying in hostels or on-site accommodation, rent/board is charged and meals when they are living on site.

The amount left, in a bad season may be a negative, as in recent years in Queensland where floods and storms damaged crops and the workers were not employed.

Another factor which also amounts to a form of slavery is that the customers buying produce are the major supermarkets and have squeezed margins for the growers making the businesses unviable, unprofitable. While that may not look like slavery, the often family-owned enterprises are the source of income for the family and it puts them into a position of weakness, being forced to grow at the prices and quality demanded or go out of business when the property may be mortgaged, and overdrafts used for ongoing financing to pay wages and other costs.

In the dairy industry the main buyers of milk and milk products which used to be co-operatives owned by the producers are now consolidated into a few overseas owned manufacturers who have demanded lower prices from often family run dairy farms, making those enterprises border-line viable.

Similarly, food processors which used to include local bakers and butchers have been bought out or closed down so that the items we fill our shopping trolley with comes from fewer, powerful multinational organisations.

So we see our everyday lives are impacted by slavery. It is unseen, we go to the supermarket to do our shopping, we purchase stuff, clothes and other goods and price is a motivating factor, but the supply chain that brings us the goods employs enslaved workers, the supply chain operators include some of the largest and wealthiest multinational corporations who squeeze their suppliers for price and quality and pay their workers the least they can get away with. The attitude towards workers is much the same as that of the ancient Romans, seeing those people as somehow less than those who own the corporations, somehow less deserving, not even deserving of a ‘living wage’. But return on investment is sacrosanct for the owners of the means of production. Adam Smith’s quote ‘All for ourselves and nothing for the other people’ comes to mind as does the former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s comment on worker insecurity that workers ‘not ask for higher wages but accept lower living standards in exchange for keeping their jobs.’

I really don’t know what the answer is, but I did enjoy a recent discussion on how we define ourselves and perceive others… and how the things we buy and use go toward that self-definition and perception, where we live, the clothes we wear, the vehicles we drive and so forth. So much of how we perceive ourselves and others is defined in terms of consumption and consumption means inevitably deriving pleasure from the misfortune of others, the slaves who produce our stuff.

I am a poor wayfaring stranger

travelling through this world of woe

but there’s no sickness, toil or danger

in that bright land to which I go.

(Natalie Merchant)

Nina Simone was asked what freedom was in an interview in 1968, I had forgotten about that but a video clip of that interview was posted on a comments column recently and I was further reminded of it on Saturday evening when I attended a concert presented by a diverse group of musicians featuring music from the Middle East, a musical journey which took us from Turkey, through Syria, Jerusalem, Egypt, Iran and finally in Pakistan.

Mesmerisingly beautiful music filling the space with joy, life and love, music seemingly from bygone times and mysterious places, but oh so easily fitting into the sounds of today.

One of the musicians is a friend Michael, from Lebanon. He plays the Oud (an ancient stringed instrument dating back, as legend has it, to the time of the Biblical King David} in that ensemble, joining Riq from Iran who plays the Ney (Iranian flute), the Darbuka (Drum), and Saeed from Iraq plays the Daf, another drum used throughout the Middle East and into southern Asia and Afghanistan.

Just a few of the musicians who have sought freedom from religious and political persecution and the economic chaos corruption causes in some regions, to settle here in Australia and have joined Australian musicians to keep their musical cultures alive and to blend it with both classical European and contemporary Australian music.

Chatting with other attendees after the concert introduced people from pretty much all over the troubled Middle East, people who had left Palestine/Israel in 1967, family members of people who had left during the Nakba of 1948, Iranians who had fled in 1979 after fall of the Shah and the imposition of Islamic rule, others who left Iraq fleeing Saddam Hussien’s regime and the wars, including US (and Australian) invasion of 2003.

For the people I met there, Australia has become a safe haven, a place of freedom; freedom to be who they are, culturally and ethnically. And a freedom which allows the exploration and merging of cultures and to present World Music in regular concerts.

In an upstairs area above the venue for the music event was a display “1948 Palestine in Pictures” providing an insight into Palestinian history and culture of the families which have made Perth their home and the contributions made as immigrants as well as striving to retain their cultural identities as immigrants.

One young man, a lawyer, recently resigned as an Australian Diplomat, the first Palestinian Christian to serve as a career diplomat in the Australian Foreign Service, resigned after October 2023 because of “the inability to speak openly, meaningfully and constructively about race, particularly anti-Palestinianism”. His Grandfather was a Christian leader in Jerusalem prior to 1948, a Bishop in The Church of England, working alongside Muslim and Jewish people, something which is forgotten today, people of all faiths lived in harmony in Palestine/Israel prior to 1948.

The stories told in music, art and the historical display are reminders that we are an immigrant nation and over time, most notably since the end of World War 2, Australia has welcomed refugees from just about every conflict that has resulted in displacing people who cannot return to their homelands for any number of reasons, but it seems in recent times there has been a resistance to help so many who find themselves stateless. Currently, according to information provided by the UNHCR there are more than 1.3million people who are stateless, (That is more than five times the total population of Australia!) and that number grows with every conflict and ‘natural disaster’ fuelled by climate change.

The ‘children overboard’ saga during the 2001 Federal election lead to a hardening in attitude toward immigrants, particularly those who for whatever reason could not arrive at international airports, like tourists. The boats had to be stopped! So prison camps were established on remote islands, Christmas Island, but to wash our hands of responsibility Nauru and Manus Island were used to hold these unfortunate people, both islands, supported by Australia, but not on Australian soil. A policy both sides of politics adhere to, a hardness of heart which denies the humanitarianism to dignify those people as human beings.

Recent events in Europe have seen a political shift to the ‘right’, with an anti-immigrant movement, refusing to accept more displaced people, yet at the same time decrying the lowering birthrates within the European populations.

Meeting with the people I met on the weekend, and at previous performances reminds me of my own immigrant journey, I arrived here as a seven year old from The Netherlands in 1954, my parents joined my mother’s brothers who had already settled here, and we joined a Dutch church, so language and culture were preserved, the religious element in my life was strong while growing up as was the desire by the church community to ensure that the religious elements remained and were taught to upcoming generations with the development of youth programmes and a parent controlled school which upheld the doctrinal standards of the church we attended along with other Dutch things, food, St Nicholas celebrations complete with ‘Black Pete”, {but no clogs, thankfully} and these elements are still here although I no longer attend church. Through her own choice my youngest granddaughter felt the need to learn to speak Dutch (at age 5) and attended a Dutch language Saturday school for a year.

Each immigrant community carries on the traditions of their homelands and that adds so much colour and flavour to culture to the places we live. And when we met up with these people, especially at a cultural function we learn that they are not a threat, that they are in fact just like us, lovers of music, of art, of family.

And yet, it seems that fear of strangers is so much a part of politics today, fear that religious extremism will destroy our lives somehow, fear that people who dress differently, speak differently somehow taint the world we live in.

Freedom, as defined by Nina Simone in the interview is to ‘live without fear.’

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free

I wish I could break all the chains holdin’ me

I wish I could say all the things that I should say

Say ‘em loud, say ‘em clear

For the whole world to hear

(Nina Simone)

Before my retirement my workmate Paul said he hates working overtime because he pays way too much tax on the money earned. We talked about this time and again as he knocked off while there was still work to be done. His departure threw that workload onto those who stayed back.

At a marginal tax rate of 30c for each dollar earned at a base rate of $32 per hour, Paul’s overtime hour is worth $48, on which he pays $14.40 in tax, but keep $33.60. On his base pay his annual pre-tax income is about $61,500 and the tax paid through PAYE is about $11,500, so after tax earnings about $50,000 or $961.00 per week.

When seen just as the amount of extra tax that is paid, it certainly looks like a lot of money to be taken from the extra effort of an hour’s work, but the amount left can make a bit of difference in the take home pay.

Paul hates paying tax, and he is not alone, but as a wage earner there is very little he can do about it. It seems the ATO has their hands on his pay packet before he even gets to see it. By using a tax consultant to prepare his tax return, Paul gets around $700 back from the ATO, so his total tax bill for the year is about $10,800, just over $200 per week.

It seems Paul is not alone in hating to pay tax. In the 2021-22 financial year, 102 people who earned over $1million paid no income tax, up from 66 the previous year. The tax liability of $1million currently is $440,667, leaving $559,333 as after tax earnings or $10,756 per week.

I think a fair assumption would be that most of those 102 million dollar earners made a few dollars more that just the one million for the year, so the figure quoted above are the minimum. Yet by supporting their charities of choice and using the best accountants that money can by managed to not pay any income tax.

To me that sounds a little bit unfair.

As taxpayers, what do we get for our money?

Government is complex and has direct and indirect impacts on our daily lives, the Federal government responsibilities include foreign affairs, social security industrial relations, trade, immigration, currency and defence. In fact, there are twenty-nine Ministers in the Federal Government, with responsibilities across the spectrum of the needs we have as a nation, to ensure the wellbeing of all Australians. Each ministerial portfolio has a department which administers those responsibilities to ensure that the resources we have are utilised for all who need them.

The taxes we pay are used for the greater good, to protect us both as a nation and as individuals. But it seems that ‘the greater good’ is able to be redefined to ‘my greater good’, overriding the responsibility of paying taxes.

The deductions claimed, according to the ATO include payments to tax-deductible charities, in the 2021-22 financial year those 102 no-tax payers contributed to the $240 million donated to those causes. And no doubt those charities do amazingly good work and cover a multitude of interests from health research, education, the arts, trade associations, animal welfare, religious institutions, the list is comprehensive, so when you earn enough to be able to give to the charities you like, you can avoid paying income tax. But then not contribute to the greater good of providing government services. In other words, supporting an art gallery or an opera company is tax deductible, as is giving to the RSPCA or the Cancer Council.

I am not suggesting that these various organisations are not worthy of support, but at the expense of the essential government services.

Is ‘my greater good’ more significant than ‘the greater good’ of providing essential government services which are there for the entire population as distinct from personal vested interests?

How is this tax imbalance to be addressed?

For Paul and so many others, in fact the vast majority of the Australian workforce, to donate from their incomes to avoid paying tax, that is getting all their tax paid back as a return they would need to spend more than they could afford, so their tax liability is unavoidable, but for those high earners the avoidance is affordable. So those high earners can support the Opera and Symphony Orchestra, the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, the Cancer Council and many other health related charities as well as the RSPCA and the prestigious schools their children attend and have enough left over for a most comfortable life.

No, it is more than a little unfair, it is an obscenity.

It seems that those with the most are more than willing to leave the responsibility of paying taxes to those who have less.

The tax laws need to be addressed to correct this. Donations for favoured charities and causes should not be a means avoiding the responsibility of paying taxes.

Growing up can be fun.

As a growing boy, the adventures get bigger as bodies grow, new skills are learned, kicking a football around, hitting a cricket ball over the fence, swimming, learning to surf, all coached by a loving father. Or so the fable of growing up plays out.

But then we listen to Harry Chapin sing ‘Cat’s in the cradle’. The story, from the father’s perspective of missing his son growing up. The missed opportunities to connect, to be a part of the child’s growing adventures.

The cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon

Little boy blue and the man in the moon

“When you coming home dad?” “I don’t know when”

But we’ll get together then

You know we’ll have a good time then.

The father’s role is important in a child’s life, especially in a growing boy’s life. The opportunity to share in the passion for sport, to discuss the intricacies of life, to gaze out at the Milky Way on camping trips to see the vastness of the universe, to catch the first fish.

Father and son connections are important parts of family life, and important part of growing up. But when those connections are not made, are not cemented into the relationship the passing on of values and ethics are also missed. The disciplines of working through the pains of growing up, adjusting to an understanding of a sexual awakening, the ability to, if not talk through, at least allude to the changes which are happening... remember the ‘birds and the bees’ chats we had growing up?

Awkward, yes, funny, yes, thought provoking, absolutely, especially growing in a family where there were brothers and sisters.

The idyllic dream of family life, but as the chorus of ‘Cat’s in the cradle’ points out, not all families are raised with such a supportive, available father figure in a stable family environment. One wonders whether it was ever such, except in the fantasy marketing world promoting the nuclear family in the pages of The Australian Women’s Weekly of the 1950s. Similar magazines appeared throughout the ‘developed’ world, I remember my mother subscribing to the Dutch version, a magazine I think called ‘Marion’ or something like that. (We immigrated to Australia in the 1950s, from The Netherlands, and the magazine was an eagerly anticipated reminder of ‘home’ for my mother.)

Family life growing up was different than it is today. The financial pressures of needing two incomes, taking time away from the nurturing and development of children, the family meals around the dining room table seem to have disappeared, and those times, growing up were so important in the life of the family.

I recall discussions on creation versus evolution, the ethical questions raised with the advent of the contraceptive pill, rock’n’roll music, and many other topics with the freedom to express and develop opinions. But seemingly silent, invisible, but definitely present, ethical and moral boundaries were established as rules for living which centred on respect and respectfulness. The family forum around the dining room table was an important part growing up, and equally important for my parents to understand where the kids were coming from and going to. They were pre-television days, and when the television did arrive, the times for watching were restricted to ensure that family meal times remained sacrosanct.

Screens, whether tv, computers, iPads or phones are ubiquitous today, and family discussions may well be conducted through text messages rather than face to face, and the familial connections appear looser than ever with pressures of work, whether it be shift work or FIFO, or business travel and meetings, and so connections which influence thinking, especially in the domains of ethics and morality are sought through influencers and podcast heroes. For some, the easy access to pornography and misogynistic sites is bringing about some pretty scary stuff.

In the last few weeks some male students at a school in Victoria used a spreadsheet format to rank female students by their sexual desirability, and the spreadsheet found its way through the student body creating sniggers and commentary demeaning to those listed. And immeasurable hurt to the girls listed.

Not to be outdone, a young female teacher from another school had her photo manipulated to show her naked on messages which circulated through the student body.

And the challenge was laid down to do better. Female students from a Bacchus Marsh college had their Facebook photos modified using IT and the newly minted fake pornographic images of the girls circulated to the delight of many a young man while the girls are objectified and sorely embarrassed. More than embarrassed, the cruelty of such behaviour has a deep psychological impact on the victims, they have been demeaned, stripped of their personhood, and just projected as commodities.

It seems there are no longer boundaries.

Boys have always been boys, yes, and despite my family life, at school, we did look the girls up and down and make the odd comment, boys will be boys and growing up has its challenges, but there were limits to where we would go in ‘objectifying’, the closest we got to pornography was a copy of Playboy, (The Playboy magazine in question caused quite a stir when one of my classmates pinned a Smirnoff vodka advert up on the class noticeboard, the principal happened to come into the class during that period, saw the ad and in disgust tore it from the noticeboard and as is wafted to the floor it settled with the Playboy cover staring up at him. He was, for the first time, speechless). There was an underlying respect. We were never too embarrassed to speak to our parents about the girls we talked to or talked about. And the same within my family as my children were growing up. The open forum between children and parents was an important part of family life. The silent, invisible ethical and moral boundaries remained intact.

On the matter of the Playboy cover, it did come up as a talking point at the dinner table and caused disciplinary action from my father, and my friend’s father. Importantly, none of girls at the school were seen on that cover and it was very quickly removed, never to be seen again. What was witnessed in the incidents in the Victorian schools was that REAL people were objectified and presented as pornography without their knowledge or consent. The Playboy model knew what was happening and was paid a modelling fee. She was also an adult, willingly participating in the photo shoot. That is in no way excusing our behaviour, and the discipline was a just consequence. (It included a meeting with the parents and principal.)

I guess my question is where were the fathers of the boys who thought it was a good idea to so insult their female fellow students? Where is the leadership of fathers in raising those sons?

The only bit if this which is new is technology, the easy access to pornographic images and the ease of manipulating the images, but in one way or another the attitude toward women and girls has always been there, but that does not excuse it. I recall when he was a student, a lawyer who edited the student magazine at the university he attended published his description of the ‘perfect wife’ citing height, weight and breast size. He later, in dismissing a teenage lover, described her as being almost perfect, but lacking in the last descriptor as being the reason for not continuing their relationship.

I don’t think that man is alone in his attitude and the way relationships have gone.

Boys will be boys... really?

The role model of a father is an important factor for boys growing up, and as the father in the song says, as he tries to reach out to his now grown son who is too busy to make time for his dad:

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me

He’d grown up just like me

My boy was just like me.

Is that an excuse for their bad behaviour?

We are the mongrels

Underneath the table,

Fighting for the leavings

Tearing us to shreds.

We are the mongrels

Underneath the table

Tearing up the floorboards

Unaware of the banquet

Up above our heads.

The chorus to a 2014 song by Joan Osborne, it is an ear worm, rattling through my brain as I consider the inequalities which appear to increase day by day.

It also reminds me of how lucky we as baby boomers and our children were to be born when we were.

Post war reconstruction and the economic boom which followed was, at least for the west, the most prosperous time, with the prosperity spread through the class system, such as it was.

Here in Australia, we had immigrants arriving from war torn Europe, as was the case in South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and the USA, the explosion of urban and suburban development, jobs galore in construction and manufacturing, all well paid and housing was affordable, cheap, as a proportion to income.

In Europe and Japan too, the reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure and the rebuilding of industrial bases saw the economies rebuilt, high wages and low unemployment. A literal explosion of consumer goods, motor vehicles. white goods, the invention of ‘teenagers’ to open up new markets for fast foods, fashion and entertainment.

Ordinary working-class people had never had it so good. Demand for skills both in restructured industries as well as management were in demand, so trade and tertiary education was freed up, made available so for the first time many were able to afford the education needed for well paid jobs and careers.

Just for a while, the doctrine of the owners of capital was laid aside, for a short while the ‘All for ourselves and nothing for the people’ doctrine as defined by Adam Smith was seemingly forgotten.

But then, the opening verse to the song:

Whatever happened to this

it was an island of bliss

in this ridiculous place.

But now the river runs black

and I don’t know the way back

I feel it going to waste.

We can trace the growing inequality back to the time Adam Smith’s words became doctrine again, the time of Thatcher and Reagan, trickle down economy became the order of the day, if the rich could be rewarded for being rich by becoming richer, a few pennies may just trickle down the growing mountain of wealth, lodge underneath the table for the mongrels to fight over.

We have seen small and medium sized family-owned businesses which grew during that post war period become larger and often sold to investors, fund managers or large conglomerates. Food production, there were bakeries making home deliveries daily, the smell of fresh bread being baked wafting through the morning air, but no more, now the bread is baked in massive factories ownership in the hands multinational corporations. Even the fancy breads from the shopping mall bakers are franchised, the principles being major corporations. Agricultural and grazing lands are being bought up by investment groups and billionaire investors as family ownership diminishes so much so that food production and processing are confined to fewer and fewer corporations. The multi billionaires never have enough, there is always another something they need, the power to own the means of production, to restrict competition, to maximise profits.

A good Australian example is Bunnings, now the largest hardware and nursery retailer in Australia. Gone are the mum and dad owned local hardware and garden centres, closing because they cannot compete. In the last twelve years, two such hardware stores and several small garden centres near where I live have closed. And that is repeated all around Australia.

Or the supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths pretty much own the market, smaller, independent stores are closing because they cannot compete.

The result of that power imbalance ripples through the economy as the purchasing power of the largest stores squeeze manufacturers and suppliers to the edge of profitability, again, often family-owned companies, market gardeners, dairy farmers are forced out of their industries because they cannot afford to keep going.

The impact on local manufacturing is such that companies making hand and power tools have closed their factories, becoming importers of foreign made, usually Chinese products. So the post war jobs market has changed, manufacturing is reduced to a few specialist brands but mainly those jobs have gone. Skills are lost. Trades people are encouraged to work FIFO, fly in fly out to earn a decent income, trades people in the building industry are encouraged (forced) to be self-employed sub-contractors to large building companies, without the safety net of wages, but carrying the risk of the building company going broke, leaving the sub-contractor out of the income expected for doing the work they were contracted to do. (How many building companies have gone since Covid? It seems for a while it was a weekly event for one or two to go ‘belly up’.)

In the 1890s the American philanthropist, John D Rockefeller asked that educators provide him with ‘workers, not thinkers’, people skilled up just enough to fill repetitive, production work. Leave the thinking to those who were the owners of the business, or the chosen few educated for more senior and developmental roles. To that end, Rockefeller built research universities, special research facilities to support his own interests, both business and personal interests, but exclusive institutions for an elite body of academics.

We see much the same today where the philanthropic endeavours of the wealthiest are to support their own interests, using their largess to support and build to satisfy their needs, such as sporting teams, development of public spaces that are dear to their hearts, but avoiding the pay otherwise tax liability of those earnings, so that the money can be used to satisfy the needs of the larger population.

The former American Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan spoke of a greater employment market insecurity, in railing against a unionised workforce so that employees do not ask for higher wages but accept lower living standards in exchange for keeping their jobs. We witnessed much the same during the nine years of wage stagnation while we had the LNP governments of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison.

With the fear that people may actually be able to afford to buy stuff, the last Reserve Bank Chairman recently suggested that there needs to be an increase of GST. The GST affects lower income earners to a greater extent since they spend most of their income on living expenses, buying stuff just to survive. So those with the least power are asked to contribute more to the tax take than those who can skirt around their tax liabilities.

So how is this inequality playing out?

The baby boomers and their children are the main owners of the housing stock. Both for personal living and rental stock. They are, mostly, doing OK. New 4wd truck to tow the caravan in the drive (too big to fit into the garage) and money in the bank for the next overseas adventure.

The price of home building has exploded, material costs have grown and builders who wrote fixed price contracts, as they had done for years are suddenly collapsing, unable to pay bills, unable to complete the homes they have contracted, leaving many of their trades people, sub-contractors out of pocket. Rents have gone up so that those who traditionally would be entering the housing market are unable to save for the required deposit to qualify for a home loan, rising interest rates have made getting a mortgage even more difficult as the cost of repaying becomes impossible on an average household income. Those with mortgages, especially relatively new mortgages have been hit with repayments that are hard to make, squeezing family budgets so that even the morning coffee from the local cafe is an unaffordable luxury.

Homelessness is on the rise as rent increases stretch budgets beyond breaking point and evictions are forced. Frustrations lead to family violence, drug and alcohol addictions.

Entrenched and inherited wealth and privilege ensure that the inquiry divide grows. Education leading to university and careers in finance, law and other top end of town positions are expensive and those from the right families with the right connections get to have first choice of the available seats at the table. Aspirants who have to pay their way through the years of study are burdened with HECS debts which are indexed and never seem to go away, but seem to grow year on year, causing a disincentive for would be students to follow their dreams.

Let’s finish with Joan Osborne:

This is a chance for the prize

it’s waiting here in my eyes

you hardly look at me now.

With every beat of my heart

I want to make a new start but I don’t seem to know how.

 

We are the mongrels

underneath the table

fighting for the leavings

tearing us to shreds

We are the mongrels

rolling on the floorboards

unaware of the banquet

up above our heads.

 

“You’re not worth going to jail for.”

Let’s call him John. I met John walking on the beach several months ago. He is an angry 60 something guy, divorced and about as anti-woman as any one I have met. He divorced a long time ago, he told me he wanted to kill his ex, he choked her but released the choke, telling her that she was not worth going to jail for.

He told me that several times over the times we have said the ‘G’day, how’s it going?’ greeting.

John’s anger is deep seated, his sense of entitlement is paramount. More importantly, his ex is lucky to be alive.

His sense of entitlement is anti-authoritarian. He does not like others, especially women, having authority over him, a female council ranger threatened him with a $100 fine for walking his dog on a beach which was not the dog beach. It was a friendly warning. He was not fined but would be the next time, so he has a quick look around to make sure the ranger is not about as he proceeds to the people’s beach with his dog. Public safety is the issue there, nothing about hating dogs but more about allowing people who don’t much want to spend time fending off dogs while at the beach have a safe place to be. (One of my granddaughters was attacked by a dog, she had 12 stitches on her face and is still traumatised by the event, several years later.)

I think we have a man problem, and it is not just here in Perth, not just here in Australia, it is a worldwide problem.

Argentine’s recently elected president, Javier Milei is about to shut down a ‘anti-gender violence agency’ despite increased violence against women according to an article in the Guardian today (8 June 2024).

In the same edition of the Guardian, a feature article entitled ‘Power, patriarchy, victimhood, denial’, cites three experts on why men harm women.

Yesterday evening’s ABC news bulletin carried a story where three women were interviewed on the topic of Domestic Violence, each impacted by the death of a woman close to them, a sister, daughter, friend, murdered by their estranged partners.

We see political leaders try to address the issue, the State Premier looking at gun control, the most recent event here in Perth saw two women murdered, shot by a man looking for his wife and daughter, couldn’t find them so shot their friends and then turned the gun on himself. The man was a licensed gun owner, owning a small arsenal of firearms.

The Prime Minister is on TV stating the obvious; something must be done.

Browsing in a local bookshop last week I stumbled upon an intriguing title, The Ten Types of Human by Dexter Dias. It’s a fat book, but the title grabbed me and my credit card leapt from my wallet. Dexter Dias QC, according to the introductory notes, is a human rights barrister, part-time Crown Court judge and a visiting researcher at Cambridge and Harvard. And he has me absolutely captivated. The stories he relates as he examines each of the ten types of human are amazing, confronting, distressing.

One of the ten types is ‘The Beholder’, people, men, who are entranced by the beauty of a woman and desire them, stalk them, harass them and when rejected have destroyed the beauty they could not attain, acid attack to the face, scarring the women for life. The two incidents written about are from India and Kenya.

Lots of words are spoken, many tears are shed, but the most I get out of it all is a sense of impotence.

Obviously, something needs to be done to stop this insanity. That is acknowledged each time someone is asked… Prime Minister, State Premiers, Police Commissioners, they have all have faced cameras, issued press releases, tried to be empathetic but the problem looms larger than ever it seems.

I’m a man, and the problem lies with men, men like me, men like John, men like Anton who is a neighbour, men like my sons and sons in law. It lies with each of us who enter relationships, that we value those relationships, that we listen to the women in our lives, that we shed the sense of entitlement. (I have a throwaway line when people call me ‘sir’. I am neither titled nor entitled.)

Not only am I a man, but I am also a divorced man, and needed to work through the issues divorce, rejection, and estrangement bring about. The sense of lostness, loneliness, aloneness. The anger that rises, the sense of worthlessness. The readjustment to starting a new life. But the scariest is the rising anger. The ‘how dare she do that’, the fear of looking deeply into myself to understand how this happened and that it was in large matter, my fault. To come to a place where I can love myself again, to have a sense of self-worth.

And to deal with ME, the issues I face, the ones I can control.

The rebuilding of a life.

I mention myself here, because for every man who faces rejection, divorce, relationship breakdown, there needs to be a deep look at themselves. It is too easy, as John does, to place the blame on the woman. For John it has meant that the only relationship he seems to have is with his dog. He fears women, he fears any deep relationship where there is any sense of accountability, even in our beach chats, there is his anger, his misogyny, his unwillingness to examine himself.

For others there is the comfort in drugs and alcohol, the papering over of the hurt for it to break through again when sobriety awakens with a hangover, or the body shakes in need of another fix.

I don’t know the answers, but the man problem needs to be addressed. The issues in part are social media where we can get trapped in hateful discussions, where violent rhetoric is the order of the day, anger rules, rail against women, rail against perceived injustices, rail, rail, rail, but don’t take the time to look to closely at the real problem, ME.

Constant questions of money allocation within government handouts, constant pressures placed by questions which address the impotency of the responses as the death toll rises.

It’s a man problem, and when we see men isolate themselves, refusing to connect with available counselling, refusing to rise beyond their ‘oh woe is me’ depressions, allowing them to blame other, the problem will not go away.

Possible solutions lie in men’s groups, and when we look at the issue in, say, the Indigenous groups where domestic violence seems to be an intractable problem, perhaps getting out with a group of guys and kick a football around, no alcohol, just play a bit of kick to kick, run around, sit down for a rest and talk. Connect in a healing environment.

Or in the fly in fly out work environment that counselling is on offer, that networks are made available during the time at home as well as on the work sites.

But most of all that the sense of male entitlement is addressed. That women are equal partners in relationships, not chattels, not servants, not inferiors. Cultural barriers need to be addressed, those issues such as the Biblical positions such as in Ephesians 5, “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

Too often that becomes the standout instruction, but neglected are other references to marriage relationships, starting in the very first book, Genesis 21, “Listen to your wives”, and in the New Testament too, in 1 Peter 3, “Husbands must give honour to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner on God’s gift of new life.” But even in those, the husband’s role is as the head, as the leader, as the authority.

I was raised in a churched family and attended church well into my fifties. I cannot recall sermons on the last two quotes but recall many on the call to wives’ submissiveness. The sense of entitlement, of male superiority is deeply embedded in religious teaching and dogma. It is also deeply embedded in traditional societies where many of our immigrants come from. It is expressed in the cultural influences we have, film, entertainment, the internet, politics.

The apparent breakdown of community and communal influence is also part of the problem. The way we live without the connections of the village community of the past, where neighbour really did look out for each other, means that relationship problems remain behind closed doors, there are no safe places to go to. And as witnessed recently in a bun fight in the City of Perth closing down a women’s shelter, trying to push the responsibility onto another branch of government, the problem is shoved aside, put in the too hard basket as budgetary constraints and political ambition stand in the way of trying to solve the problem. The mayor is a bit of an Alpha Male, shock jock radio personality now endorsed Liberal candidate for the next election. (Liberals have a woman problem? Or could it be a man problem?)

I read an interesting book recently, The Power of Strangers by Joe Keohane. Subtitle is The Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious World.

I talk to strangers, and very quickly discover they are not really strange at all, in fact, many are a lot like me; living a life and willing to talk about it, even with strangers. In one such encounter I mentioned to a woman that I am in a local ukulele choir which meets every Monday evening. She was new to our area, plays a ukulele and is now a member of our choir… and she is far more accomplished at playing and singing than I am.

(Bugger, that’s the last time I mention that!)

Most mornings I ride about 3km to a beach and walk for an hour or so, but with winter setting in and the beach sand having been taken away to be cleaned for the summer, there was not much beach to walk on, so wandering where I could I passed by a young lady who smiled up at me, and we began to chat. Her accent was pretty broad, she was visiting from Belfast, Ireland. She is here with her family, a British soldier and their young son.

Her family is Catholic and it did not go down well that she married a British soldier but she is again a welcome visitor at home. (It’s amazing how forgiving a grandparent can be when they meet their newest grandchild.) I asked her about the troubles and how that affects life in Northern Ireland today. The polarisation is still there, but then she made an interesting comment, the two sides of that social/religious divide have chosen sides in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The Catholics are for the Palestinians. Protestants for the Israelis and the flags are flying all across Belfast.

I got the feeling that the division in Northern Ireland is still quietly simmering beneath the surface, some social changes are slowly happening, abortion is now legal. It was not long ago that a pregnant woman would take an overnight ferry to England and arrive back the following morning, soon enough to avoid any suspicions of what may have been the reason for an absence… mmm, in the club eh? Gay marriage is legal but frowned on in the churches. Civic ceremonies only.

The conversation regarding the Gaza situation was so much different than one I had on line with a person who likes to push my buttons. He posted, ‘I don’t understand why the Palestinians do that’.

‘What?’

‘October 7’.

We had covered that ground before; he keeps posting YouTube videos of angry Jews berating the stupidity of the Palestinians, how they want to take over Israel, God promised it to Abraham and his descendants in Bible, the book of Genesis (same book where we get the creation story and Noah’s flood), and we are his descendants and so forth. The stories are always so strongly defensive of their right to the land and that Palestinians should just disappear. His posts are filled with hate. There is a denial of Palestinian human rights. Interestingly, he also voted NO, a very definitive NO, in The Voice referendum, probably for the same reason, they should fit in or disappear.

So he calls me Muslim, cites passages from the Koran such as ‘everyone is born Muslim’ (apparently that is in the Koran, he cites a text reference), but I have tried to remain polite, putting up with soft name calling, me being Muslim for example, being ignorant, being woke. So I address him by his name as I offer a defence, no, explain my stance on humanitarian grounds, citing the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict over time, since 1948, the UN plan to have displaced European Jews settle in Palestine, a nation blending two peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, but that the Palestinians have been pushed aside, endured the Nakba, live in virtual imprisonment in Gaza. All is like water of a duck’s back, quite irrelevant. October 7, October 7, October 7. Rapes, beheaded babies, and so forth… Yes, I forwarded an Aljazeera documentary which exposed those lies, but you can’t trust them to tell the truth, can you!

The ‘debate’ becomes ugly despite my efforts at decorum. And is reflective of the debate and protests we see, not just here, as displayed in Parliament today, but all around the world. The weaponising of antisemitism, the power plays by various lobbyists that almost amount to blackmail, the hate speech. The disregarding of the very potent images of the destruction of Gaza to a pile of rubble, the destruction of hospitals, the killing of reporters within Gaza, stifling the access to reporting, the ever so slow delivery of aid, food, water, fuel, medical supplies, but that is not genocide, is it? And oh dear, the ‘mistake’ of blowing up those tents which had just been moved to a safe zone killing 50 or so women and children.

And then today, changing the topic, the questioning of Dr Anthony Fauci in the US Congress, belittling him for the work he did during Covid, to be berated, insulted, told he was not worthy of the title ‘Doctor’, accused of taking kickbacks (OK, no real accusation, but questioned about how much he got paid by the pharmaceutical companies. Answer, nothing, $0.00). One member of Congress was a doctor at the time, working in a hospital and accused Dr Fauci of making life difficult for unvaccinated people and doctors such as him working, saving lives in hospital wards. The headline WATCH: Brilliant Doctor CONFRONT Fauci on ”Making life difficult for unvaccinated”.

My posting Dr Fauci’s record as a research doctor in developing vaccines and medicines to treat HIV/AIDS among other diseases was poohoo’d as being far less important than a doctor working in a hospital saving lives. Mmmmmm, and then to be called a liar for daring to mention that at the time the internet was full of QAnon conspiracies regarding mask wearing and vaccinations.

That I got involved in that ‘discussion’ was probably a big mistake, but it highlights the hate which is so much a part of online discussion, the lack of ‘listening’, of reasoned debate being ignored or dismissed, of headline type arguments followed by insults if you dare to disagree. And another YouTube video of someone angrily spouting more bullshit.

Unfortunately, the same is evident what should be more civilised debate. The political point scoring in Parliament yesterday regarding the protests and vandalism outside electoral offices, where the Prime Minister said it should stop, and that descended into the Leader of the Opposition accusing the Greens of orchestrating that… that may not be the exact words, but that was the implication.

Politics here has become hate-filled, debates reduced to headline grabbing one liners, where detail is given, the call for detail as in the announcement to encourage permanent residents to join our military as a pathway to citizenship, outlining both a timetable and who will be encouraged to join up, in other words, don’t listen, more detail, don’t listen, more detail.

Hate and division.

How sad a place the world has become.

Except when we take the time to meet a stranger and just chat about life, listen to their story, tell your story, engage and above all… take the time to LISTEN.

Have a real conversation.