Sharia MkII Down Under
The other day TheEye heard ‘Stairway To Heaven’ being played on a digeridoo. Hmm, I thought, that’s aboriginal.
But there is more to the Aborigines than getting monumentally drunk and a large red boulder in the desert. There’s Bush Law too, and last night in a documentary screened in Alice Springs they called on the Australian Prime Minister to officially recognise their customary laws of ‘pay back’ including traditional punishments such as spearing.
They argue traditional punishment is not against what everyone nowadays seems to call ‘human rights’ and in fact, they say it helps to promote peace in communities. It helps reduce violence in their view and brings down the number of their community going to jail. Sound familar?
The entertaininly-named Billy Bunter (pictured), from the remote community of Lajamanu on the edge of the Tanami Desert, wants courts to grant bail to Aboriginal offenders so they can face traditional punishment before going to jail. He says the failure to carry out ‘pay back’ on the offender means the matter is never settled according to Aboriginal law. As a result, he says, revenge attacks between the families of the victim and the accused ensue.
“What’s really affecting our people is punishment, what we call pay back,” he said. “[It is] leaving… a great big problem in the community. Two families start fighting – then a killing is going to take place for many years to come.” The punishments Billy Bunter and others in the film want recognised range from public shaming to spearing in the leg for the most serious crimes. He says the intention of spearing someone in the leg is not to kill them. He says the pay back is controlled to make sure the injury is not worse than intended.
Apparently a leader often stops punishments if, for example, someone is bleeding too much which is nice. “They might say ‘oh, he had enough, he is pouring too much blood'”.
The producer of the film, lawyer Danielle Loy, says at first she was not convinced but that stories of communal peace that followed traditional punishments convinced her to advocate the practices. She says there are ways to make sure traditional punishments could be regulated to ease fears that it could go wrong. “To dispel our fears about alcohol potentially being involved, about people potentially dying from pay back – all those fears that I believe from the people that I have worked with are unfounded if it is done properly,” she said.
“Let’s codify it. Let’s do the same we do with our legislation. What is our alternative? We are just going to keep going up and up and up and up in crime. No one wants that. Everyone wants peace.”
Sounds rather like the current push to get Sharia law enshrined within UK legislation really. A pseudo-justice based on barbaric outdated forms of torture and repression is just what the doctor ordered – Aboriginal banks next, anyone?
What an ignorant attitude. Sharia law is not native to the UK. Aboriginal law is native to Australia and was invaded by people who raped and killed the Aboriginal people here that they found. This continued well into this century (Conistan massacre). Why dont you try listening for a change. Have you ever asked an Aboriginal person in the NT what they think? hmmm…didnt think so. What these people are trying to do is stop violence. When Aboriginal punishment doesnt happen, there is alot of violence. But you wouldn’t know that because you have formed an opinion without finding out the facts. Why dont you educate yourself abit and watch a forum on it
http://www.youtube.com/user/davidcrocket9#p/u/12/jfFu2FXOO2U
Hmm, the non-nativeness wasn’t the point being made – the point was the effort to codify a harsh minority system into a judicial framework which doesn’t currently see that system as acceptable. You are creating a two-tier justice system…even if you disregard for a second the rights and wrongs of stabbing someone in the legs as a form of a proper modern punishment/rehabilitation structure then you are still left with the idea that one section of the community has completely seperate ‘rights’. This is level where the comparison to Sharia is a legitimate one.
What if I, as a white upper-class property owner somewhere in Oz wanted to add to the punishment of the white upper-class accountant I’d found stealing from me? Do I get my bite at the ‘pay back’ system too? Of course not. And in your eyes I’d probably be “racist” for even thinking of wanting that. That makes me less equal than the man standing next to me who does have this recourse.
I’ll dodge making the cheap jibe about “this” century for the Coniston Massacre because it was 1928 but will ask if you’re serious about creating two classes of Australian using the justification of the death of a dingo farmer 80ish years ago.
If you want, Gordon Brown can apologise for the historic inhumane treatment of many of the Aboriginal people – he’s good at that. But everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law.