Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/30

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Subject: Re: [Leica] South Africa - where men were men and blacks were boys - and some people thought things were hunky dory.
From: Javier Perez <summarex@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 08:39:51 -0700 (PDT)

Funny this should come up
I was living in Indonesia (Medan) in 1985. I had an R4
with motor drive, an SL a 50 a 19 and a 180 Elmarit
but no 35 or 135 in R mount for some stupid reason.
Anyway I also had with me a non-Grundig SW radio and
one the few stations that came in clearly in English
was the Australian national radio station. I've 
forgotten what it was called (Radio Australia?) but
they played the familiar call tune before the
beginning of every news program. They carried some
sort of entertainment show where all they did was mas
make the most insulting and degrading remarks about
Aborigines. I'm not talking about cutesey humour
centred around real or perceived ethnic or racial
peculiarities but biting intentionally insulting
dialogue containing references to things like personal
habits or intelligence and comparisons to animals. I'm
not going to go into details because I don't remember
any at this point but if you can imagine the most
degrading ethnic or racial jokes you've ever heard
made about Poles, Jews, Blacks, Italians, Asians,
Hispanics ...etcetera and reapply  them to aboriginies
then you have the theme of this show. And most
shocking of all, it was aired on the national
shortwave station - their voice to the world!
I don't think they even realized how offensive they
were. It made me cringe and I have an extremely
tolerant sense of humour.
Javier
- --- "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Karina actually wrote...
> 
> "That was what I thought and said about South africa
> until I moved to
> Australia - I learnt more about the "true" state of
> South Africa whilst
> living in Australia and I am retrospectively
> appalled by how it was for
> those less fortunate....."
> 
> ----
> Did you never read or see anything that wasn't pure
> racist propagand the
> entire time you lived in South Africa? Weren't you
> ever the least bit
> curious about who lived in the "townships" and how
> they lived? Didn't you
> wonder what the "homelands" were all about? Didn't
> you have any curiosity
> about who worked in the mines and what the
> conditions were like? And did you
> never read anything written by Nadine Gorier, your
> Noble Prize winner for
> literature? 'Those less fortunate'...by which you
> mean the majority of all
> men, women, and children in South Africa?
> 
> And you would, with a straight 'face,' compare the
> poverty and inequities in
> today's America with the situation in South Africa?
> 
> That's really pretty appalling.
> 
> B. D.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On
> Behalf Of
> kiklaas@iinet.net.au
> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 9:42 PM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: RE: [Leica] Re: calling on the LUG to do a
> good deed: leica
> scholarship
> 
> 
> ...I'm just
> > saying that, in general, things are economically
> pretty good here.
> >
> > B.D.
> 
> 
> BD,
> 
> That was what I thought and said about South africa
> until I moved to
> Australia - I learnt more about the "true" state of
> South Africa whilst
> living in Australia and I am retrospectively
> appalled by how it was for
> those less fortunate.....
> 
> How many years does it take to reach 4 week paid
> annual leave in the US?
> 
> How many hours do you have to work a day to live
> "well?'
> 
> Quantifying standard of living should include
> quality of life....not the
> clothes you wear and the cars you are able to
> drive...but also, how well
> the less fortunate than you are taken care of and
> how much time you get to
> spend with your family etc...
> 
> What do they say - "one can win the rat race....but
> you will always be a
> rat."
> 
> By the way, I enjoy this exchange because I learn
> more about the US so I
> am absorbing everything you write.
> 
> It does not take a stupid person to form a
> perception based
> on the only source they have avalaible to them,
> until actually visiting
> the country.  I was just surprised at how far off
> the mark that perception
> was
> 
> Someone in LA said there is here is a saying that
> applies to LA:
> 
> "A bus comes in at 12 o'clock everynight and picks
> up all the ugly people"
> 
> This almost knocked me off my stool.
> 
> Karina
> 
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