It's been nearly 18 months since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made his sorry speech to the stolen generation and still, tourists are allowed to climb Uluru, which is a sacred site for local Aboriginal people.This week a draft management plan has been released for the Uluru-Kata Tjuta national park, calling for, among other things, a ban on people climbing Uluru. The plan also points out the environmental impact of climbers, such as erosion along paths and the effect on wildlife of rubbish left behind.
Earlier this week, Julian Morrow from The Chaser dressed up in mountaineering gear and attempted to scale the spire of St John's Anglican Church in Canberra, where Prime Minister Rudd was giving an address and where he and his wife were married in 1981.
When it was reported in the news, The Chaser's stunt was called inappropriate and of poor taste.
But why? Because spiritual sites should not be climbed?
5 comments:
LOM, I'm pleased you wrote about Rudd's speech with a lower case 's' in sorry. I don't know how tall Rudd is, but he's a sorry little man nonetheless. And his speech on 13 February 2008 was obviously written by a speech writer - because it was full of feeling, and I see no evidence that Rudd has any genuine feeling. Indeed for lots of reasons including indigenous and climate change ones, I'm ashamed he's prime minister of my country. The Chasers have shown him up for what he really is. Good on them for that.
Go julian, bout time someone turned the tables..
11 years ago 4 of us drove to Uluru.
We camped in a designated aera and spent all of our time walking around the base of Uluru, being shown its sacred women's areas by this great guide who only let 2 of us ( the women) enter and showed the men to respect the rock and to avert they're eyes( and the womenn how to do the same at kata tjuta.) We spent the rest of our time eating rice porridge watching the sun rise, we slept during the day in its shade , curling into the rock caves, digging our hands into that red dirt to keep cool,
the whole time hardly uttering a word. . and we sat in awe at dusk and sang and ate and listened to the dogs.
Our guide for the base walk taught me more in those hours about indigenous culture than I had learnt in a life time of australian education - it was also noted that he had never taken a group of white australians in his time of working at Uluru. We all shared a warmth and humour and hospitality that made me feel somehow 'blessed'.. It may sound like a cliche but honestly I think for me it was like visiting Mecca.
It didn't cross my mind to climb nor did I feel like I had missed out by not doing so.
Why trample even more on a culture that has been walked all over....
I don't know what is sadder/more annoying/just plain wrong: The PM's hypocrisy or the most of the media saying how "inappropriate" the Chaser were...especially as a few Aussies had died abroad this week. A solemn time they kept saying on the radio. They just don't get the genocide we committed on our own people?
sigh...am going to get all ranty now!
Sometimes I soooo don't get human behavior!!
Such a clever sketch.
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