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The
Author Ben Robinson was born in Adelaide to an Australian father and German mother, and moved to Townsville, North Queensland when he was two years of age. He remained in Townsville until year eleven high school, then followed his mother back to Adelaide after a messy divorce. He completed high school in South Australia 1993, then was accepted into the Australian Defence Force Academy as an Army Cadet. After three years in Canberra he graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon as a Lieutenant. His first posting in January 1997 was to Townsville where he spent three years as a platoon commander. This was followed by a posting to the Army Recruit Training Centre in Wagga Wagga as a Recruit Instructor. Defence Force Recruiting Adelaide followed, lasting two years. In 2002 Ben was again posted to Townsville to the Combat Training Centre. In August 2003 he was deployed for eight months, two of which were in the United Kingdom, and six as part of the NATO Peace Enforcement in Bosnia. Introduction
How will I describe this book to you? Questions. That is what you will discover as you turn the pages. Questions that we rarely ask, rarely even think of asking. You should not ask for the answers, rather, discover them. Everything contained within the cover is designed for one purpose, to influence the reader to think. If there is only one sentence that encourages you to think deeply about any issue then I determine this book to be a success. This ink has power; power to influence and educate. Whether positive or negative, it is fact. To deny ourselves the opportunity to learn and enhance our mind is to dismiss what has catapulted us to the top of the food chain. We are unique, you are unique. To find your place in this world is to recognise the world for what it is, a deeply complex infrastructure, which teaches us not to think. Universities encourage regurgitation of another’s work, primary and secondary schooling is generally ‘rote-learning’. Once these institutions are completed our perceived obligations for survival hinders our thought process. We concentrate on work for five or six days per week to be granted our two days of solace. If not filled with social obligation there is little we do to expand our minds or our horizons. Bombardment by media also determines our lives to an unfathomable extent. We fall into the trap of categorisation, stereotyping, or ‘judging a book by its cover’. This is a problem, which not many realise, especially its depth. This book has been constructed in the hope that it will spark the inclination to at least realise how shallow we have become as a species. Be aware, when I initially started to write, I was angry. You will feel my frustrations; you will live my thoughts as my comfortable world crumbled around me. Due to the length of time it has taken to complete this short piece the anger slowly subsides throughout. The topics are diverse, some may be disturbing, all may be irrelevant to your life. I truly hope that it at least inspires you to think, to disagree, to be inquisitive, to realise. So from here: It Ends
Chapter
1 On the 12th of October, in the year 2000, I found myself in the centre of Australia. I went to learn about aboriginal culture. What I discovered was my own. I discovered that I have lived my life in mainstream European culture, with little regard to those who did not interfere with my everyday life. I am sure that most people reading this book perceive themselves somewhat as an individual, yet as you turn the pages you will discover the uncomfortable fact that you are a programmed robot of society. Individualism in European culture only remains in the physical appearance of your skin, eye colour, hair length, posture, and external features. Whilst many of you will recoil at the thought of being a product of society, and a robot by nature, you may learn that you can step out of mainstream life to look at the depth of your personality. I will be using the Aboriginal people of Australia, possibly the most abused people in Australian society, as a parallel to judge your own perceptions, beliefs, and values. I have never met such understanding and knowledgeable people as those I met in the centre of Australia, in the town of Erna-Blella (Pukatja), and it is those people who have inspired me to write this book. There are so many places I could start, yet none more significant than our own history, that of Australia. If you are currently living in mainstream Australia then your general idea of our history would be the process of colonisation, settlement, and a limited knowledge of the exploitation of Aboriginal people and their land. What is rarely taught in primary and secondary schooling is the invasion, murder, and genocide associated with the taking of land and resources. Why is this? History is an integral component of schooling, yet seems to focus on areas such as ancient Greece, Egypt, and the Roman Empire. Very little exploration into what happened in this country occurs in Australian schools, and it is little wonder given the horrifying facts of European invasion. Many people across the globe cast a critical eye over those like Hitler and Pol Pott for their contribution to the genocide and destruction of those who do not fit into their cultural category. How many investigations have been conducted into the theft of children, and the murder of entire Aboriginal families in our own backyard? Whilst many books have been written, the general populus is largely unaware of how deeply greed, murder, and misunderstanding lies in our past. It has also created a prejudice, which remains a barrier to understanding the complexities and hardship of Aboriginal life. This barrier has been programmed deeply into the white Australian Psyche, and many people are oblivious of its existence. European culture has also mastered the art of categorisation and stereotyping to prevent individuals or groups venturing outside the ‘norm’ of our existence. Armed police maintain law and order designed to keep power to the powerful, and prevent lateral thinking outside the square in which most of us reside. In essence, today’s mainstream society has hardly evolved from the medieval times centuries ago. Every one of us consumes resources, which have tied us to our culture, and we are subsequently obliged to repay society by conforming to the ‘norm’. In this instance, the ‘norm’ is to gain an education, get a job, receive a salary that determines the life you lead, create a family structure, contribute to then receive superannuation, then quietly grow old out of sight of the younger, fast-paced population. I am sure some people reading this book are beginning to feel the pangs of denial creeping up from the depths of society. You may be thinking ‘this does not apply to me, I am an individual.’ I can certainly inform you that very few people of mainstream Australian society are individuals. How do you maintain your style of living? You probably have a job for which you pay taxes, maintain some form of lifestyle, contribute to a retirement fund so as not to become a burden on the government, use some form of vehicular transport to move yourself around, and the list could go on. Have you ever stopped to look at the infrastructure that allows you do all these things? European society has developed such a complex maze of support that should any element fail, life as we know it would cease to function. The industrial revolution has played a significant role in binding us with our culture. When driving a car, do you think about the road beneath your tyres and how it was built? Do you think about the people who built it? Do you think about the resources that were gathered for its construction? Do you think about the people who extract the material from the earth to make the road? Do you think about who teaches them to do that? Do you think about who taught the teachers? Do you think about where the teachers were taught? The list could continue until a full, vicious circle has been reached. If you have never thought about any of these things you are purely a product of society, happily moving along a road, polluting the atmosphere in your mode of transport. If you are reading this in a chair, or in bed, the same applies, how did that furniture get to your house? The infrastructure behind our life is too deep to possibly explain. You do need to realise, though, that your life has been interwoven into this tangle of society such that you cannot escape. You are educated so you can contribute to the maintenance of European culture. Nothing is given in our society for free. You pay for everything, regardless of whether you are aware of it or not. In simple terms, the taxes generated from this book will be poured straight back into the cauldron of society. You cannot even begin to look at the Aboriginal culture without an understanding of your own. Few people could argue that Aboriginal culture is vastly different from our own in every aspect of existence. The first and most noticeable difference is that of skin colour. It is apparent in society that this difference, only millimetres in thickness, allows mainstream to categorise people into groups as different. It takes very little education to realise that human beings are similar in structure beneath the skin, including the construct of skin, yet a simple colour difference defines how we act towards another individual or group. Whether this is conscious or not, European society maintains a prejudice so deep it may be difficult to comprehend. Take colour-emotion relationship for example: when you think of blue, you will think of the sky, calm, ocean; when you think of green, you will think of trees, grass, and living things; when you think of yellow, you think of the sun and the giving and maintenance of life; when you think of white you will think of purity, clouds, holiness, cleanliness, and perhaps religion; when you think of black, you think of storm, evil, dark, death, scary. How can it then be possible to look at a person whose skin colour is black and not feel the immediate pangs of prejudice? It is because the picture of the villain is programmed in our minds to be someone wearing black clothing, or associated with the storms at night, or the picture of the grim reaper in shredded black clothing. If you think this does not apply to you, attempt to picture the grim reaper in white clothing. Attempt to picture a hospital in which the doctors and nurses wear black clothing, and you recover in a bed with black sheets. It is not easy to do so. When you look at a man whose skin colour is black, you are subconsciously applying the same rules of the villain to him. Even the simple game of eight ball reinforces prejudice. The white ball will sink every other colour until only the black ball is left. If the white ball sinks after hitting the black ball then the game is lost. If the white ball sinks the black ball yet still falls down, the game is lost. The only way to win is to ensure that the white ball knocks the black ball down into a hole, whilst the white ball remains on the table. It is natural to be feeling denial or doubt at this stage, some may even feel anger. Persevere, for the ability to step outside the square in which you live and acknowledge the depths of your personality will enable you to look at your life from an entirely different perspective. A final point before you read on. Everything
you do in European society is related to consuming resources, and allowing
someone else to earn a living, and in turn contribute to the vicious circle of
life. No person in white society is
exempt from this fact. Click on the cart below to purchase this book:
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