It hurts to see good people in pain and to know how traumatized they were and to feel so helpless in the face of it all, it makes my heart ache.
I watched some footage from a film recently produced here in Australia the other night on our nightly news review program The Project.. The film is called Incaceration Nation and is about the plight of younger aboriginal people as well as older ones who fall foul of the law and are excessively and brutally punished and treated for relatively minor infractions. Some of the ‘crimes’ listed : 90 cents stolen, a bottle of water stolen, non payment of fines.. One piece of disturbing footage showed a man sitting while being strapped to a chair by his wrists and ankles, over his head is a hood and around his neck is another strap like a noose that is then attached to the back of the chair.. It made me physically ill to watch this.
This kind of excessive abuse as well as use of force with things like bayonets and tasers goes on all of the time and it is high time it stopped.. Seeing that image of a man forceably restrained also called to mind a dear friend of mine who underwent abuse where he was pinned to a chair in a basement and allowed no escape, when he told of it, he was laughed at.. Later when his anger came out in psychiatric treatment they obviously did not know how to handle it and he was medicated and restrained again, no true empathy shown, no holding and true acknowledgement in a positive sense.
When we see these kinds of legacies still hard wired into victims then surely we must show compassion for what happened. But for the person to come to terms with it, that is another story and so the rage goes on and it does affect the body.
I am choosing to write about this today as it is distressing me.. I would love to be able to help in these situations or to highlight the issues so we can show compassion while recognizes that anger and fury replayed over and over and over again about it goes nowhere if it does not lead to some kind of rectification or action take to address the issue. That said some injuries will never leave us some painful experiences remain deep etched, they do not just ‘heal’ or improve.. some legacy will always remain and victims must find a way to channel that stored in vibrational charge or implode in the process. Telling about it needs to happen so that the hard reality is faced.
I do not know where that young man so brutally restrained in that footage is now but i am sure he wakes with nightmares where he relieves that experience and is unable to breathe. For myself I will try to speak up about injustice when I see it, even though I am not indigenous and have not real idea of how it feels to be in that minority my heart still goes out to all of our indigenous population who have to fight so hard against this kind of abuse and even for acknowledgement.. The genocide that went on here at the establishment of our so called ‘nation’ is not even taught in many schools. It is good that these things will be shown in the film which will be aired for the first time here on Indigenous Station NITV this Sunday and will later be available to watch at SBS On Demand.
As someone wise once said. Hatred and oppression will not end by more hatred and oppression but still it is right and just that we hate these things going on an feel angry and sad. That said how do we turn it around if we do not reach for love, compassion, empathy, acknowledgement and a reckoning of past brutality and hurts.. Here in Australia is right that we keep talking about it and putting pressure on the powers that be for acknowledgement and change.. Those wounds are real and the scars remain but for God’s sake, please let us not let all of that suffering be for nothing.
Emerging From The Dark Night 