Today, some of the indigenous leaders at Camp Sovereignty decided they didn’t want non-indigenous people in the camp after dark and some people expressed a desire that non-indigenous people stop helping out. As a result, the food not bombs people have packed up their kitchen and gone home and many of the other organisers, some of whom are from Arabic heritages or Indian heritages and are not Anglo, have left also. That we even have to discuss who is from what heritage is depressing in a way; surely the Anglo people who want to be at Camp Sovereignty are not the enemy?
After yesterday, when Aunty Sue was chatting with a Palestinian woman in a hijab and I thought we had an amazing example of real multiculturalism functioning in a microcosm of sharing and welcome, I have to say this is a gutting result from my perspective.
And tonight I hear on the news that the Government is trying to push through a law that anyone who calls the terrorist hotline could now have their phone, e‑mail or sms tapped. Yeah, free country, great. Not only do we want a culture of suspicion where you dob in your neighbour but reporting someone will now, without your knowledge, implicate you in their capture in other ways. What if it was your son or your brother you were reporting, out of fear they were getting into something they didn’t understand and that you felt powerless to stop? The only good result to this I can see is that fewer people might use the service to anonymously slander someone on the basis of their appearance.
And The Body Shop has been bought by L’Oréal and apparently Green and Black organic chocolate was bought by Cadbury-Schweppes last May and I missed it.
It’s all much more fraught with complexity. I preferred it when I was a teenager and had all the solutions.