Our Dispatch today was first published on 21 April 2011. The racist Intervention continues with white Australia’s complicity.
Buenos dias amigos,
Walking from el Jardin Japones along la Avenida del Libertador in Palermo, as I approached some large trees at the entrance to a small plaza, I felt some wet splashes, and then some more. A lady stood behind me and sang out “Señor” and pointing up at a tree “un pajaro le está cagando” (“a bird is crapping on you”), and indeed there were some vile smelling, snotty stains on my shirt and trousers. The lady started to remove the stains with a tissue, and was subsequently joined by a gentleman “no se preocupen, que lo limpio cuando llege a casa” (“don’t worry I’ll clean it when I get home”). They persevered, and I was impressed by their friendly concern. In Australia, if a kookaburra crapped on me, passers-by would only have laughed.
I then walked past the zoo and came to a chorizo stand where I ordered the Argentine equivalent of a hot dog. I took my wallet out of my trouser pocket. The driver’s licence and credit cards were there, the approx. 250 pesos were not.
I wondered if the bird had been trained to shit on people. When I got home the stain pattern on the back of my shirt clearly showed that no bird in a tree was responsible! The power of suggestion!
…I want to be free like a bird in a tree…..
http://youtu.be/0wTKo_kPlck
In hindsight the only pajarón on the scene was I!
So now, dear dispatchee (how Dickensian is that?- “dear reader”….), as is customary I’ve got you wondering: “What has all this have to do with Yuendumu?”. Well, the pickpocketting activities in Buenos Aires pale into insignificance when compared to the massive rip-off being visited upon remote Aboriginal Australia. Millions of dollars being spent on an army of bureaucrats, consultants, contractors and officials, all in the name of “Closing the Gap”. ….All in the name of Liberty…
In Argentina I got my $Aus60’s worth. I got to admire real professionals with flair doing their stuff. The same can’t be said for those that are picking the pockets of Aboriginal Australia. They don’t gracefully return the wallet with the credit cards and driver’s licence. They take those too…..es un pedazo del alma que se arranca sin piedad… (…it’s a piece of the soul, torn out without pity…)
…take another little piece of my heart…
Adiós
Franklin