Originally dispatched on 2 May 2014
Så snart, jag vet.
Vänligen, läs den i alla fall.
From my Dad’s Anecdotes:
JAN.’08- Opeens vraagt Pa: “Weet je waarom engelen vleugels hebben?” “Nee dat weet ik niet, waarom?” “Omdat de meeste mensen die sterven oud zijn, en die kunnen bijna niet meer lopen!”
I was so taken by this that I subsequently got my father to help me translate it into the other languages he was proficient in:
JAN.’08- Plötzlich bittet Vati: “Weist du, warum Engel Flügel haben?” “Nein, weis ik nicht, warum haben Sie Flügel?” “Weil die meisten Leute, wenn sie sterben, bereits alt sind, und kaum laufen können!”
Enero’08-De repente mi papá me pregunta: “¿Sabes porqué los angeles tienen alas?” “No lo sé ¿Porqué las tienen? “¡Porqué la mayoria de la gente que se muere estan viejos y ya casi no pueden caminar!”
JAN.’08-All of a sudden dad asks: “Do you know why angels have wings?” “No, I don’t, why do they? “Because most people that die are old and can hardly walk!”
A couple of months later, I added this footnote:
MARCH’08- In a book called ‘Angels’ (by Peter Lamborn Wilson) I find the following quote by Plato: “The function of the wing is to take what is heavy and raise it up into the region above, where the gods dwell…” I prefer dad’s more secular function (to help people that can hardly walk).
In May 2008 dad got to go to the University (to which he’d donated his body).
If there is a heaven, dad is now sporting a magnificent pair of wings.
Is how I concluded his story that he helped me write
Wish I had the wings of a dove…I would fly away…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYDkeS24C7g
Birds (and bats) have a right wing and a left wing. When these wings are evenly balanced it enables the birds to fly and gracefully soar, or a colibri (hummingbird) sucking nectar to remain suspended in the air without coming a cropper.
Democracies have an idealistic left wing and a pragmatic right wing. When such wings are evenly balanced societies function quite well. Such a balance existed during the Whitlam/Fraser era that gave us Aboriginal Land Rights and self-determination and the homelands movement and bilingual education. It made Yuendumu a great place to be, a great place for your children to grow up, whether you were Warlpiri or not.
When the right wing spends all its efforts on trying to ruffle the feathers on the left wing rather than trying to fly or soar, and when the left wing aspires to become more like the right wing you end up with a society incapable of graceful flight. A bird or butterfly with two right wings no more can fly than a person with two left feet can become a football star. You end up with such unjust abominations as the ‘Intervention’, the ‘four hours English only’ policy, ‘99 year leases’ and obscene amounts of money spent on top-down assimilationist ‘service delivery agencies’ intent on and failing to ‘Close the Gap’; a gap they themselves ethnocentrically defined.
Remote Aboriginal Australia isn’t given the opportunity to decide how to use its wings, nor how to teach its children to fly….
…. take these broken wings and learn to fly… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wORwlCy3JDI
An army of consultants, mentors and facilitators arrives in places like Yuendumu that take the natives under their wings, whether they like it or not. They fly in and fly out. They assume and believe the natives are incapable of flight. They teach them how to suck eggs and simultaneously clip their wings. Many chicks are removed to be fitted with other wings. A significant number are locked up to prevent them flapping their wings to the sound of a different drum. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3Nq48sHF8M
In the self proclaimed land of the ‘Fair-go’, one would have thought Aboriginal Australia would be encouraged to take what is heavy and raise it up into the region above, where the gods dwell…
As is, Aboriginal Australia is hardly allowed to walk in its own shoes.
If I could be you, if you could be me for just one hour
If we could find a way to get inside each other’s mind,
If you could see you through my eyes instead of your ego
I believe you’d be surprised to see that you’ve been blind,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI0jqAxk3cU
Tack
Tills nästa gång
Frank