Another one from Frank. This-un needs no introduction.
Hola,
In Afghanistan, as every brave ANZAC knows a pair of scissors is not just a pair of scissors. In the wrong hands a pair of scissors can be a very dangerous weapon.
I spent much of 1966 in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia, hired out to a firm which was looking for bituminous coal in the Permian-Carboniferous sediments of the Fitzroy Trough.
I was still a national of the Netherlands and as such required to lodge an Aliens Registration Card every time I changed job or address or got married. The increased enforcement of this requirement was Australia’s revenge on us Aliens for being exempt from army conscription. It was a delicious irony that on the card it was spelled out that “This card has to be filled out in the English language”
Meanwhile Wendy was doing her final year at the University of Melbourne. The Vietnam War was raging, and so were the anti-War protests. At one of these protests Wendy was wielding a placard which an enraged by-stander tore out of her hands and furiously stomped on. On the carefully prepared placard was written “Thou Shalt Not Kill”
A sign of the times-
We never learn we’ve been here before. Why are we always stuck and running from the bullets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f45-3XZ8ekk
There were those who were convinced that it was a national imperative to prevent those dominoes from falling. The communist threat had to be stopped at all costs, even if it meant spraying the paddy fields and countryside with agent orange, dropping napalm on gook villages and carpet bombing the north. Then there were those who didn’t think any of this was a good idea. Australia was a nation divided.
In 2001 the so-called ‘Tampa Affair’ led to a political race. Which political party was the toughest on border security? There were those in Australia who thought that it was a national imperative to save those desperate people from being ripped off by people smugglers, or worse, dying at sea, even if it meant locking them up on foreign islands and torturing them with an uncertain future. Then there were those who thought this was an abomination. Australia was a divided nation.
in the wrong hands a pair of scissors, thrown, wielded, catapulted, or just naked becomes a lethal weapon. A weapon that can penetrate the tough body armour that adorns noble warriors in the pursuit of the mission to civilise native tribesmen.
In 2012, Kwementyaye Briscoe died in the Alice Springs watch-house. The coronial inquest heard Briscoe was dragged along the ground by police after he was taken into “protective” custody for being drunk. Police did not check on Briscoe for two hours or seek medical care for his injuries, the inquest was told. No charges were laid.
In 2015 Kumanjayi Langdon died in the Darwin watch-house. Police used their increased powers under the so-called “Paperless Arrest” laws to incarcerate Langdon for the alleged crime of having been drinking. He died in the company of two strangers in a concrete cell designed to house criminals. He went to sleep and never woke up. The coroner opined the arrest had been unnecessary. No charges were laid
A wound, however superficial sustained in this glorious duty is an affront to notions of clean-living, mateship, honour and the notion of a fair go! Those who inflict such obscenities against those who uphold the law in Afghanistan, or the dusty wastes of central Australia, (also under occupation) should be dealt with severely.
In 2022 in a first for the Northern Territory, a policeman faced a jury after having been charged with murdering an Aboriginal man. He was acquitted. There are those in Australia who are convinced that Yuendumu is a violent, depraved out of control community and that Kumanjayi Walker was a dangerous criminal who was the author of his own misfortune. They believe, as did the jury, Zak Rolfe’s defence, that Kumanjayi Walker came close to murdering two policemen with his trusty pair of rusty blunt nosed scissors with which he inflicted a serious near fatal 3 mm wound on Constable Rolfe who luckily was armed and was able to defend himself and his mate. It is imperative that police are armed so they can defend themselves, they assert.
Then there are those who think this is a load of codswallop and that the verdict was a travesty and that police in communities should not be armed. Australia is a divided nation.
I know what side of the divide I am on and find it hard to accept just how many vindictive people there are in this great nation of ours who are spreading this poison about the place I love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JipPV-dgEBY
How many years must some people exist before they’re allowed to be free,
yes and how many times must a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see.
Chau amigos,
Frank
The value of shiny medals depends upon it.