Thursday, August 18, 2005

RAPE IS OK IF "BLACK" LAW SAYS IT IS?

That the customs of Australia's native blacks are given some respect is reasonable but if that can excuse brutal rape of a young girl then someone has lost the plot. Does the law not protect black females? Sounds very much like gross racism

That white and black law does not always sit well together was again highlighted last week when the Northern Territory’s newish Supreme Court Chief Justice, Brian Martin, convened a bush court session in Yarralin, close to the NT-WA border, to sentence an Aboriginal elder who can only be known as GJ. GJ, 55, had forcefully taken “his” 14-year-old promised child bride and had sex with her, against her will. Martin held the bush session in an attempt to show Aborigines due respect to their culture while gently explaining that white law must sometimes overrule black law.

The question is whether Martin, in handing down a very light sentence to GJ, himself succumbed to the charisma of Aboriginal culture and in doing so set aside the rights of a child who should enjoy the protection of the overriding (white) law. In paying respect to Aboriginal law and culture, Martin appeared to regard Aboriginal law as static. He failed to consider that some Aborigines – in this case, the girl – might not like or want Aboriginal law and would prefer to move on. Martin conceded this was “an extremely difficult case”, because GJ fully believed he was entitled to take the child as his (second) wife. So much so that the child’s own grandmother insisted the child formalise the promised marriage – which meant having sex with GJ.

It was June 18, 2004, in school holidays. The girl was in Year 9 and had a boyfriend her own age. Word spread about the community that the boy and girl had stayed together that night and, perhaps, had sex. This appeared to give rise to an urgency among the involved elders to fast-track and consummate the girl’s promised marriage. The girl’s grandmother told her she had to go with a person she barely knew and considered to be “an old man”.

The girl’s grandmother and GJ went and found the girl the next morning. The grandmother took the girl outside of the house where she was staying; GJ struck the girl hard over the shoulders and back with a pair of boomerangs.

It was decreed the child would be taken to GJ’s outstation. The child did not want to go and pleaded with the grandmother that she not be sent away with GJ. “Rather than help the child,” said Martin, “the grandmother packed personal belongings for her, including her school bag, and insisted that the child go with you (GJ). The child was forced to get into your car, where she sat with your first wife and two other persons. The child was crying and shaking.”

That evening, at the outstation, GJ dragged the child by the leg and into a bedroom. GJ’s wife and children went to another room. “The child kicked and screamed and resisted you,” said Martin. “You lay her on a bed in the room and asked her for sexual intercourse. She told you that she was only 14 years old. You hit her on the back. You then lay next to the child and remained there throughout the night. No act of sexual intercourse occurred.”

The following night GJ took her back to the room. “You then pushed the child onto the mattress,” said Martin. “The child was lying on her stomach. She told the police that you had a boomerang in your hand and that you were threatening her with it. “While the child was laying on her stomach you had anal intercourse with her. During intercourse the child was frightened and crying. She was in pain. You injured the child. You caused a deep laceration at the edge of her anus. The child was later seen by a doctor and the examination also revealed painful areas over the child's body.....

Somehow, in all of this, the rights of the modern child have been pushed aside in favour of older men who wish to continue their traditions. There must be sympathy for these old fellas, caught in a tribal timewarp. But is a man such as GJ really so ignorant as the judge supposes? He’s ridden horses and been in stock camp; he knows his way around. And he presumably likes the idea of having sex with a young girl. He’s not having sex as part of some onerous duty to keep his tribe going; otherwise he would have had “normal” sexual intercourse.

The judge appeared to treat GJ – not the 14-year-old girl – as the child. Martin told him there was “a reasonable possibility that your fundamental beliefs, based on your traditional laws, prevailed in your thinking and prevented you from realising that the child was not consenting. In these circumstances I have no choice but to sentence you on that basis. I must sentence you for unlawful sexual intercourse. I am not sentencing you for the crime of rape.”

The judge did not factor in the anal sex. He sentenced GJ to two years but then set about reducing the sentence in real terms: “Mr GJ, I have a great deal of sympathy for you and the difficulties attached to transition from traditional Aboriginal culture and laws as you understood them to be, to obeying the Northern Territory law. Under the circumstances, however, I have reached the conclusion that a sentence to the rising of the court would be inadequate. The shortest period I can see fit to impose is that you serve one month.”

What message has really been sent to the Aboriginal population? Is it that you can have sex, anal sex, with a child bride, do it violently and cop a month? Some might think a month in the can is well worth such a fleeting "pleasure".

More here



THE CORRECTNESS OF WELSH

Discrimination in favour of Welsh-speakers is rampant

Scarcely a word of English was uttered last week in Faenol, a grand estate that hosted the Eisteddfod, a sort of nationalistic arts festival for Wales. Nor is English the local language of choice. In this region, Welsh takes precedence on road signs--and the English words are often illegible, thanks to the patriotic application of spray paint. In the county of Gwynedd as a whole, 70% of people can speak Welsh. Walk into a shop here, and the conversation is likely to begin: "Ga i helpu?"

Given the nearness of England, an infamous linguistic coloniser, the mere survival of such an ancient language is remarkable. Odder still, Welsh is holding steady. Between 1991 and 2001, the share of the population who claimed to be able to speak the language actually went up from 19% to 21%--the first increase in over a century. And the proportion of Welsh-speakers is likely to increase further, since teenagers are much more likely to be able to speak the language than their parents.

That ought to be a source of pride in a country where identity is closely tied to the ancestral tongue. While Scottish nationalists demand political independence, the Welsh just want everyone to speak the lingo. Since 1993, public agencies have been obliged to provide a bilingual service, even in areas where few people understand Welsh. Court cases can be heard entirely in the language, if the plaintiff or the defendant chooses. Midwives even encourage new parents to speak the tongue to their babies. Yet Welsh-language campaigners are in a dismal mood. Aran Jones of Cymuned (Community) believes the language is in a much worse state than national statistics suggest.

In the hilly north and west of Wales, where the native language is strongest, the Welsh-speaking population is being diluted by migration (which Mr Jones calls "colonisation") from England. Children may be familiar with Welsh, but only in the sense that English schoolchildren are familiar with French--as an academic discipline, not as a natural tongue. Welsh is, indeed, slowly dying in the heartlands. Between 1991 and 2001, Welsh speakers declined in number in the five mostly rural counties where they had been most common. As a rule of thumb, say linguists, a minority language will die out if it is spoken by fewer than 70% of the population. Ominously, the number of wards where that density was achieved fell from 87 to 58 during the 1990s.

Nationalists are divided over what to do. The extreme 1960s and 1970s response, which consisted of blowing up pipelines and burning holiday cottages owned by Anglophones, is out of style. The Welsh Language Society, a pressure group that has seen many of its demands incorporated into law, wants restrictions on house-building in Welsh-speaking areas and a language act that would require businesses to deal with customers in their preferred language. One of its members went on hunger strike during the Eisteddfod, just to show it was serious. Cymuned believes still more drastic measures are needed. It wants independence for the Welsh-speaking heartlands.

The battle for the heartlands is bound to end in defeat. But Welsh is growing in places where it was virtually unknown a few decades ago. In Cardiff, where the signs are bilingual (but, significantly, English takes precedence over Welsh), the proportion of people who can speak the language has increased from 5.8% to 10.9% in the past two decades. More than a tenth of the population of Wales lives in the city. Welsh is also growing rapidly in the former industrial and coalmining area of south Wales known as the Valleys. That may partly be because these are the ugliest bits of Wales, so English settlers tend to steer clear of them. But the main reason is probably the growth of Welsh schooling since the 1960s. There are now 448 primary schools and 54 secondary schools that teach mostly or entirely in Welsh, many of them in the south-east. They tend to be good schools, so many middle-class parents who do not speak Welsh patronise them. As a result, says Colin Williams, a Cardiff University linguist, the schoolroom is replacing the home as the main pillar of the language.

And pupils pick up more than Welsh. Because the demanding parents who send their children to Welsh-language schools tend to have demanding children, the schools are nurturing a new generation of articulate nationalists. Another reason for the growth of Welsh has to do with the job market. Many of the best paid, most stable and most interesting jobs in Wales demand knowledge of the language--or are thought to demand it, which is just as important. Thanks to the language laws, the country's swollen public sector is hungry for bilinguals; so are the burgeoning government-supported Welsh media. According to the 2001 census, 20% of people employed by culture, media or sporting outfits could speak, read and write Welsh, compared with just over 13% of all people aged 16-74. That, in turn, encourages politicians and other public figures to learn the language. Lisa Francis, a Conservative member of the Welsh Assembly, says she has given more interviews in Welsh than in her native tongue. All but two of her ten colleagues speak Welsh or are learning it.

Welsh-speakers tend to be middle managers or small-business owners. They are less likely to be found in the highest ranks of business and the professions, but they are also much less likely to be unemployed than monoglot English speakers. High demand means that they earn more, too. A recent study by Andrew Henley of Swansea University found that, after controlling for residence and education, Welsh speakers earned 6-8% more than the competition. Another study, for the Welsh Assembly, estimated the earnings premium at more than 10%. There is a message here for other linguistic nationalists, from the Quebecois to the Basques. Forget bombings and hunger strikes: to ensure the survival of a language, create a closed shop.

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