Charity begins at home!

Charity, they tell us, begins at home. This is the Christian ideal and the various religious institutions promote this. For instance the church my wife attends has recently asked for contributions from the congregation to fill shoe boxes for needy children in Africa. A splendid cause you say, and so it is. The idea is to give a Christmas present to some child in Somalia, or wherever, and to give them some hope that someone, somewhere, actually cares about them.

But how about the ‘needy’ children in our own backyard? In Australia, a very wealthy country, we are in the midst of a highly controversial ‘intervention’ programme designed with the aim of improving the health and social well being of the Aboriginal communities in the outback – principally in the Northern Territory.(Even the word ‘intervention’ smacks of paternalism, doesn’t it?). By any measure the Aboriginal has been poorly treated over the generations of ‘white’ rule from Canberra. Their health standards are Third World as are their living conditions and, almost without exception, the communities they live in are dependent on government welfare payments. Yet they have no running water, limited access to electricity and no sewage and waste facilities, very limited health services and no education facilities to speak of. How can there be any confidence, from anyone, that without consultation with those concerned (i.e. the communities themselves) that their lot will ‘improve’ and to redress many of the wrongs, both actual and perceived, that occurred in the past, some of which are still occurring now?

No wonder the incidence of substance abuse, violence, self harm and suicide are amongst the worst in the world – and this in a developed G20 country. There are variously considered to be about 400 000 Aboriginals in Australia out of a total population of some 21 million. And yet to help these people – our people, who have live here for over 40 000 years – requires ‘intervention’ from all the Federal Governments agencies even including the military!

An ‘intervention’ is all very well in principle but what is it actually doing to ‘help’ the people involved? Many questions remain unanswered. For instance will the intervention restore confidence and self esteem? Will it promote acceptance by mainstream Australia or does it further relegate them to continuing marginalisation? Will it help to restore some semblance of pride in tribal culture, language, oral history, traditions and their association with the land and their place in the world? Above all does give it give individuals any hope for the future? Will the intervention bring about any sense of ‘belonging’ so essential for general wellbeing? Will it alleviate the feeling of rejection from main stream Australia?

Bureaucrats, divorced as they are from people in general and from the land, do not have a good record in this area, so I have grave doubts that any lasting good will come from this intervention.

And yet my wife’s church leaders are asking for contributions to bring cheer to the ‘underprivileged’ in other countries?

As I said at the beginning, charity begins at home.