ON THE WALLABY- 12th February 2007

” The success of someone’s life should not be judged by the level to which they rose but by the obstacles they overcame in getting there” –Booker T Washington, (1856-1915) Lecturer, Civil Rights/Human Rights Activist, Educational Administrator, Professor, Organization Executive/Founder, Author/Poet

“COMPASSION - IS THIS A WORD THAT HAS LEFT THE AUSTRALIAN AND AMERICAN VOCABULARY?

So who was this Booker T Washington I hear you ask and what relevance does his quotation have to the subject of this OTW?

Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Hale's Ford, Virginia, reportedly on April 5, 1856. After emancipation, his family was so poverty stricken that he worked in salt furnaces and coal mines beginning at age nine.

Always an intelligent and curious child, he yearned for an education and was frustrated when he could not receive good schooling locally. When he was 16 his parents allowed him to quit work to go to school.

They had no money to help him, so he walked 200 miles to attend the Hampton Institute in Virginia and paid his tuition and board there by working as the janitor.

Dedicating himself to the idea that education would raise his people to equality in this country, Washington became a teacher. He first taught in his home town, then at the Hampton Institute, and then in 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama.

As head of the Institute, he traveled the country unceasingly to raise funds from blacks and whites both; soon he became a well-known speaker.

In 1895, Washington was asked to speak at the opening of the Cotton States Exposition, an unprecedented honor for an African American.

His Atlanta Compromise speech explained his major thesis, that blacks could secure their constitutional rights through their own economic and moral advancement rather than through legal and political changes.

Although his conciliatory stand angered some blacks who feared it would encourage the foes of equal rights, whites approved of his views.

Thus his major achievement was to win over diverse elements among southern whites, without whose support the programs he envisioned and brought into being would have been impossible.

In addition to Tuskegee Institute, which still educates many today, Washington instituted a variety of programs for rural extension work, and helped to establish the National Negro Business League.

Shortly after the election of President William McKinley in 1896, a movement was set in motion that Washington be named to a cabinet post, but he withdrew his name from consideration, preferring to work outside the political arena. He died on November 14, 1915.

In his lifetime, he stood for so much that was good and decent- in short he had “compassion” by the bucket load so in using his quotation from his book ” Up from Slavery”, I figured I had used a man who would illustrate my point.

Today I was driving along listening to the excellent ABC radio program, The Conversation Hour with Richard Fidler and I listened, with growing anger, as he interviewed Mootezza Poorvadi, a man who came to Australia seven years ago as an Iranian refugee.

Fleeing Iran with his family after it was discovered by the mullahs that his mother was Iraqi, he told how he and 280 others sailed in a leaky boat to land on Christmas Island and thus begin their association with Australia.

The full details of his story can be found by clicking on the hyperlink above so I won’t tell a lot more here except to say my blood boiled as he told of being belted by security guards at the Woomera Detention Centre – only to be apologized to the next day for the mistake they had made – “oops,mate, sorry-wrong bloke”.

Listening to him talk about what their hopes were for themselves in Australia and with the Australian people, I was ashamed to hear of just what ”we” had done to these people when they arrived.

I say “we” for we are the ones who elect our governments and therefore we too must earn the credit or otherwise of their actions and quite frankly I am enormously ashamed of those same actions.

Over the last decade or so, what was once a tolerant and compassionate nation has, regrettably, lost much of those characteristics and become a lot more insular and we are much the poorer for that.

Does the colour of a persons skin really matter? What does matter is what ticks blow that skin and I am constantly reminded of that fact as I auctioneer in south western Sydney, the multi nation melting pot of this great city.

Here I look out at a gathered crowd who’s origins can be diverse as Cambodia, Serbia, England, Somalia, Vietnam, Sudan,Chile- you name nearly any country on earth and someone who started life there will be in south west Sydney.

Any why are they at our auction?

Because they have worked their arse off, mainly in lowly paid jobs, to get enough money together to buy “that house” that will have assumed palatial proportions in their families view and thus give them that first step to security in their adopted land.

Surely it is this same “hybrid vigour” that build America in the 1800’s that will continue to build Australia in this century but in order for us to do that, we must claim back the tag of compassion that this federal government has thrown aside.

Another example of this action seems to me to be in the fate of David Hicks, the Guatanamo Bay detainee. Whether he is guilty or not is not the issue and a properly conducted court hearing will determine that but what I do know is that he has been hung out to dry by our government and they deserve all the anger thrown at them.

”Fear” has been a massive weapon of both the US and Australian governments and when, and if, the citizens of both countries look at what civil liberties have been steadily and stealthily stripped from their citizens rights, they would be stunned, especially in the USA.

Carpe diem

Tony

Tony Fountain

Professional Speaker, auctioneer and author

Sydney NSW Australia

If you would like to subscribe a friend or colleague to these free “On the Wallaby” email bulletins, click here and place their email address in the subscription box .