closing the gap

OK, I run the risk of offending readers with my ill informed ranting but hey, my blog my rules.

Every so often the government, no matter which side of the political divide (liberal or slightly less liberal) brings forth a fanfare and an initiative to take measures to close the gap between Aboriginal Australians and the rest of us who don't yet, to my knowledge, have a moniker; "not-Aboriginal" I guess.

Don't get me wrong, on the face of it this is a noble endeavor. The Rudd Labour government have just announced the latest initiative to close the gap. Right, here goes...

Aboriginal Australians live on a sliding scale between a primitive people and a modern people. Sportsmen and politicians, tele personalities, singers and, I am fairly sure, bus drivers, brick layers and other such normal, Westernised folks. Only with tens of thousands of years of unbroken history. The other end is the primitive people, the ones who, let's be honest, I know bugger all about but seem to live in relatively squalid conditions on reserves. Or out in the bush. I assume it is these we are talk about closing the gap with, and not Ernie Dingo.

Hmmm. I wonder what the life expectancy of a similarly primitive people living in similar conditions would be? Probably a few years less than mine. So what does the intiative really set out to achieve? Are we trying to modernise the primitive? Tame the bush? Or do we want to keep them primitive but make ourselves feel better? I have a nagging suspicion that the drive to close the gap is more about closing a politically correct (bleugh!) gap in the conscience of middle class white people. It seems to me that guilt ridden whitey keeps Aboriginal people as a sort of zoo exhibit. Maybe we feel a deep guilt about what "we" did to "them"? As a bonus for PM Rudd it may increase the gap in popularity between the hated Liberal party and the to-be-hated-in-a-few-years-when-we-get-bored-with-them Labour party.

Rather than have "them" live near "us" we throw money at the situation Lets face it, if "they" lived near "us" they'd enjoy all the benefits we do. But the money thing, that's easier than societal change, and after all, we don't really want them living in our backyard, and they'd not be happy here anyway, nowhere near enough grubs to eat blah blah blah. And we feel all nice and warm and righteous. And positive discimination is nowhere near as bad as normal discrimination, is it?

Plan B. Lets just not do anything about the obesity epidemic. That will close the gap. Let whitey eat himself into an early grave, don't spend on ridiculous intiaives like toddlers into exercise classes and subsidised gym for fatty. Let 'em cark it early. Close the gap that way. It's a win-win! We save loads of money and can have more tax cuts!

The world we live in must be precisely the way it is because, well, it's all connected. Not in the hippy-bollocks sense, but in the common sense. I can't have my iPod unless Africans starve.

Let's just treat everyone the same, eh? Well, let's try.