I need to thank and praise the indigenous people of the world, all different ethnicities, and all different religions. There is richness in diversity and tolerance in having gratitude for everyone. The best avenue for this tolerance and gratitude on a global scale is international sport as the friendly healer and culture too particularly music,art and movies. I wish I could spell as when I did the first drawing idea brainstorming the title of this essay, I spelt ethnicities wrong.
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
– Chief Seattle, Duwamish
I think that the main entertainment for a global audience in this era is film and international sport and the other arts such as writing and visual arts to a lesser degree. I think film in particular holds a lot of wisdom about where we have come from and where we are going and its not just Hollywood and Bollywood movies but movies from around the world too. For example, the two Aussie movies “Rabbit Proof Fence” and “The Sapphires” taught me a lot about the history of Australian Aboriginals and issues good and bad facing their lives and culture. My favourite Australian creative in many ways is Jessica Mauboy an Indigenous Australian woman who is an amazing singer and actor. She starred in the Australian movie “the Sapphires” and I have it on DVD and have watched it several times and was about an all-girl Aboriginal band that toured Vietnam during the Vietnam war. I also have several of her CDs and was listening to them today. I have said it before and I feel that it would be amazing if we had an Australian Aboriginal Prime Minister one day and it would be even better if it was a woman too.
Rabbit Proof fence is an amazing Australian movie about the stolen generation in Australia and explores this issue in detail. Another amazing thing around the stolen generation is former Australian PM Kevin Rudd’s Sorry Day Speech when he became PM where he apologised to the Australian Aborigines for all the wrongs committed against them.
“There were country songs I connected to when there was pain, when I saw things, my family were going through. It was my way of acknowledging I wasn’t OK: music tapped on the door; I could work out these emotions by singing.”
Jessica Mauboy
There is also an amazing Aboriginal TV personality in Australia that I grew up with named Ernie Dingo.
“We are not strangers in our own country just strangers to a European society and it is hard to be one when the law is the other.” Ernie Dingo
On the Role of Women in Art and Culture: Australian Human Rights Commission:
“As women tell me of their strengths, they also tell me that they are exhausted. In a society that does not recognize our tireless work, it is unsurprising that the system continues to fail and undermine us. The denial of our voices is a denial of our rights.”
Aboriginal women in particular need to be recognised for their important role in society.
My favourite contemporary indigenous Australian artist is Tracey Moffat and I went to the Venice Biennale several years back and she was representing Australia in the Australia Pavillion. For those not familiar to contemporary art the Venice Biennale is like the Olympics of art and showing there means you’re the bee’s knees.
“I am not concerned with verisimilitude…I am not concerned with capturing reality. I am concerned with creating it myself.” Tracey Moffat
There is so much more amazing stuff to say about Aboriginal culture in Australia particularly women in visual artists but this is a brief essay and I shall now move onto religion and tolerance for all religions on a global scale.
“All the world’s major religions with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, can promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is the grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
Dalai Lama
I agree with the Dalai Lama and feel that even if someone has no spiritual beliefs or belief in religion that having a value of ethics is incredibly important. I call this having an internal moral compass and in my books that means that whatever decision one makes facing any issue no matter how big or small that one has an internal moral compass to weigh up the issue seeing all the angles and possible outcomes so the decision is a positive and measured one. I guess what I am saying is that all anyone can do is be themselves but just be their best self.
I feel that there has been a trickle-down effect after Martin Luther Kings I have a dream speech where he stood up for the rights of African Americans in America and one example of this was Aboriginals standing up for their rights in the Aboriginal tent embassy outside parliament in Canberra Australia in 1972.
For the advancement of indigenous people women in particular has also been amazing sports role models such as Cathy Freeman from Australia who got many gold medals in the Olympics.
“You got to try and reach for the stars or try and achieve the unreachable”
Cathy Freeman
I feel that sport is the friendly healer in the world between nations so the sports people and fans can be nationalistic and competitive without being violent. This is particularly evident in the Olympics, winter Olympics the Soccer World Cup and Cricket World Cup.
When I was at art school decades ago, I heard about the cultural theory term postcolonialism and it’s about people who have been wronged through history to stand up for themselves and express in detail the trauma they experienced.
Postcolonialism explores the lasting impact of colonialism on culture, identity, and power structures. Here is a quote that explores this:
Power and Oppression:
“The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world”.
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My favourite sporting experience was seeing the New York Knicks play the Indiana Pacers at Madison Square Garden just over a year ago and it was amazing to watch.
In conclusion I feel that sport, movies, art, books and religion, spirituality and ethics are the friendly healers in the world that make peace and harmony in the world.
