Friday 24 April 2015

The "Aboriginal Provisional Government"

which lacks any recognised status is apparently issuing "passports" and Callum Clayton-Dixon, the chairman of the group, tried to use his to re-enter Australia. He was eventually allowed to re-enter the country when immigration authorities decided that he was an Australian citizen. He claims he used his "Aboriginal" passport by default. 
There are claims the passports have also been "recognised" by countries like "Libya" but claims that they have been recognised in Scandinavia and Canada are a little trickier than that.
I also note that Callum Clayton-Dixon has a name that would not instantly be recognised as "Aboriginal". His physical appearance suggests he has a mixed heritage. 
I wonder what made him do all of this. Does he feel so strongly about the indigenous part of his heritage that he is willing to give up everything else and even risk breaking the law? Does he genuinely believe that he is doing the right thing and that there will one day be an "Aboriginal Government"? Does he genuinely believe that there is widespread support for such a thing? How does he believe it would work? 
Or is he simply seeking publicity and power for himself? Is he, in a different sort of way, a Belle Gibson or Helen Demidenko or the man several streets away from here who acts out a sort of Walter Mitty existence?
Belle Gibson had signed a contract with Penguin before many people became aware that she was lying about having had brain cancer. She had made a great deal of money out of desperate people. She knew she was lying and her actions disgust me. I had a cousin who died of a brain cancer. It was an appalling journey and the best of modern medicine could not save her. That someone like Belle Gibson could add to the misery and distress felt by her and her family is something that makes me angry, very angry. 
Helen Demidenko, who wrote "The hand that signed the paper",  was highly disrespectful of victims of the Holocaust but she was quickly found out - although again she managed to fool a group of literary judges. I don't think she has managed to get anything published since and she may not even be writing. She now works for a rather whacky "independent" senator in Canberra - one who is not averse to similar tricks.
Our local Walter Mitty type character does less harm. He just lives in his own world. He is often kind and generous and willing to help others. You just need to go along with which ever character he has decided to be for the day.
I wonder what makes people do those things? I know I sometimes have a bit of fun in my "cat" persona. I wrote a letter to the editor once from the supposed point of view of the cat at the end of the street. It was published and it caused a great deal of amusement - as I intended. I was well aware though that it was just a bit of fun, that I am not a cat. Everyone else knew that it was a bit of fun too. Clayton-Dixon and Gibson are not doing it for the fun of it and neither are other people who do similar things. So, where's the fun? What do they get out of it?
Would anyone like to offer an explanation?  

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