To work the system of democracy we need an Equal Opposition which as per votes received may not be actually Equal. Likewise, minority cultures for whose benefit we have in place Equal Opportunity Principles. The gap is made up by the position as per the laws of the system.
by Gaja Lakshmi Paramasivam
Mr. James Faulkner
Assistant Secretary, Constitutional Policy Unit
Attorney-General’s Department
3-5 National Circuit, Barton – ACT 2600
Dear Mr. Faulkner,
(December 07, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Recognizing indigenous people in the Australian Constitution
Thank you for your letter dated 02 December in response to my letter to the Prime Minister.
You have stated ‘The Government is committed to constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians and has indicated that constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians is an important step towards building a nation based on strong relationships and mutual respect.’
Relationships are part of merit based assessments and mutual respect is a natural expression of common belief.
Valuing each Australian Community as per its contribution to this nation, is essential towards us feeling Australian and ’thinking Australian first’. As per my experience, majority Australians identify themselves and others through their respective known origins - White Australians without a distinct cultural look of their country of origin, enjoying the status of being identified naturally as ‘Australians’. Is this right or wrong? It is right when the calling/identification happens in a natural environment. It is wrong if even one person in that environment believes otherwise. As pointed out in my letter to the Prime Minister - when the NSW Police called me Sri Lankan in an Administrative environment it was wrong because I believe/d that I have/had not only respected and followed with faith the Australian Administrative system but have/had also strongly contributed to the Australian Public Service structure as per current Australian needs.
As my Hindu guru says – there are three ‘I’s – (1) Who I think I am (2) Who others think I am (3) Who I really am. They are the parallel of ‘facts’ , knowledge and wisdom.
Our inner status and self-confidence is as per (1); Our outer status including for the use of Public at large is as per (2) and the One that brings us lasting happiness and peace is (3). In the above environment, I was naturally Australian due to my deep contribution to Australian Public Service as if it was my ‘home service’ as if it were I. The value of that contribution was / is far greater than years of physical level following of the laws and rules without believing in them. Belief confirms ownership. I would have naturally accepted being called an ‘Indian’ or Sri Lankan – in say a Mardi Gras environment. But not in a structured Administrative environment.
We have structures and protocols built on the basis of merit over long periods of time. The positions and Due Processes that lead to these positions not only help wider community and society invest in common through faith in those structures, but also help regulate our activities so that those in higher positions are taken as ‘right’ until proven otherwise. Those in lower positions have the responsibility to follow Due Process so long as they are part of the system/culture/country/institution/family. That which is calculated and known today would become belief tomorrow if the calculations on merit basis were done with Due Care and Commitment.
Wikileaks type of exposure affects (1) and (2) above. Using Natural Justice, to me Wikileaks is return karma on behalf of all those who drew benefits as per the system of democracy but continue to practice, instead of transparency, ‘confidentiality’ as per the vertical hierarchical system which waits for ‘time to tell’.
Senior Administrators of the University of NSW sent me letters through the University Solicitor – but without a legal basis, threatening legal action if I sent emails. That confirmed the low status they had allocated to me in Public Administration, even though I was highly commended by users of my services within the same University. Later they used the NSW Police – again without legal basis – to arrest and send me to prison for doing ‘ownership’ work. The law as per my interpretation said that I they were acting illegally. But my lowly status helped them make out by using those with whom they shared cultural belief – that I was the criminal. Those emails as well as my peaceful assemblies were regarding my assessment of their negligence to uphold the value of my work on merit basis. A member of minority cultural group, including an Indigenous Australian or a migrant Australian has the fundamental need to be assessed on merit basis. Failure to uphold this fundamental right brings return karma through younger generation of the perpetrators – Wikileaks architect who has been identified without any dispute as an Australian, being a strong example. As we sow, so shall we reap.
There were/are few others including one academic from another Australian University involved in the Sri Lankan ethnic issue, who also from time to time ‘tell’ me not to send them emails. At most times, if not all, to me it was not because of the number of emails but the substance in the email which made them feel uncomfortable. They failed to ask themselves what they could do to cure themselves of the discomfort. The easier way was to find fault with the messenger – the person who looked like a messenger/servant rather than an owner. It’s the feeling with which we do the work that confirms ownership and not the type of work we do – however lowly our work may seem. Even the Vice Chancellor who works without feeling is a paid servant.
The above pictures show Officers within the Administration of the NSW Attorney General, who forced entry into our home unit, organizing the removal of our family assets to pay the lawyers hired by the University of NSW, in regards to my legal claim of Racial Discrimination. Whilst they brought a locksmith and worked to break the lock at the entrance to our home unit, my husband and I prayed openly, including in English that all those who were causing us the pain should be punished. The officer on the ‘right’ asked us whether our prayers would affect him given that he did not have faith?
This is a good question and its parallel needs to be asked by our Government now, in the issue of Constitutional changes to recognize Indigenous Australians. I said to the above group that to the extent they followed Due Process of their government, they would be affected only through their government (for example Bali Bombing which is known to have upset the Australian/NSW Government); but to the extent they acted outside Due Process the return karma was personally theirs. Likewise, our interactions with Indigenous Australians. To the extent they recognized lack of common faith – they needed to consciously apply merit basis using Independently produced Objective evidence.
Australia as we know it today looks different to the Land discovered by Captain Cook. A nation, like the individual, is made up of Land (Body), People (Mind) and Common Faith/Belief (Soul). Without this Common Faith, Land is as lifeless as the Gross Body. During my court actions against former Prime Minister Mr. Howard, his lawyers argued that I had not shown a ‘causal connection’. As per our Hindu culture which in some aspects resembles Indigenous Australian culture, we operate through three levels – the gross body level, the subtle and the causal. Causal connection is belief based connection and each one has to express his/her own belief as to why or why not? in order to be heard through a Public system – why we believe we acted in a particular way or why we believe we did not deliver as per merit basis. To my mind, this is the basic purpose of an Affidavit. The real causal reason cannot be proven by external parties. Hence Mr. Howard’s lawyers were right in bringing out that I did not show a causal connection to the action/negligence / silence after I had used Due Process to bring the matter to Prime Ministerial level. They were wrong in stating that as the reason why my complaint of unlawful discrimination was to be dismissed. Where the person acting fails to express a causal reason, based on belief, each participant has the right to heard and judged on the basis of her/his belief until proven wrong through merit basis using objectively measurable evidence. Where there are no such belief based expressions – the only valid judgment is delivered by the picture formed by majority facts confirmed through Objective evidence. If majority in that environment are of majority race and they failed to ‘show’ use of merit basis or express belief – their very presence carrying controlling authority is evidence confirming racial discrimination. In those circumstances Racial Discrimination happens if habit is not automatically overridden by conscious thinking. This is the value of Affirmative Action.
The courts, through those dismissals, wrote off their own opportunities to access my wisdom in Equal Opportunity – the basis for which is Common Belief. Commonness becomes Equal when brought to the gross level.
Due to cultural diversity, we are not able to use One Faith, to develop this Common Belief as Australians. Hence, the need for Separation of Powers through appropriate laws. Without Indigenous Australians, we would all be effectively remote lands of other nations. All those who believe that they are Australians because of the length of time their families have called this particular land space ‘home’ are effectively Indigenous Australians. All those who believe that they are Australians because they are descendents of migrants including first known migrants – are Migrant Australians. The way we assess status of the latter needs to be different to the way we assess status of the former. Within the two large groups as per the secular system – there is unity through type of ownership and diversity through the paths/cultures in reaching that destination. Like Indigenous Australians, those older settlers who fail to actively contribute to current Australia, would tend to believe through ancestral properties. A good proportion of refugees close to their ethnic origins would eventually become Indigenous Australians. Others who use values without borders become global citizens.
As you are likely to know, this is also an issue of contention in Sri Lanka’s ethnic areas. It used to be in the Capital also before the most recent war through which the attention of the International Community was drawn to Sri Lanka. The Government called the LTTE which fought on the basis of Land (Indigenous ownership), terrorists, whilst majority Tamils especially in and from majority Tamil areas called them ‘rebels’. Like with Australia, due to lack of Common Faith – both sides are right so long as they believe that to be the case and express that in their Natural environments. Natural environments are those environments that we feel a part of without needing anyone else’s endorsements. We would not feel fear in those ‘home’ environments but would work to share our strengths to naturally and confidentially cure weaknesses in those environments as if they are our own weaknesses.
To the extent the LTTE were called Terrorists from the outside, all such callers alienated themselves from the communities to whom LTTE were rebels. They thus do not have the powers of Common Belief to cure any weaknesses. Any Government that seeks to help these communities needs to do so through a reliable structure driven by appropriate Merit Basis. This is also why our Australian Government is moving towards Business Unit basis and ‘outsourcing’. It is better to trade than to pretend that we are providing belief based Service.
To work the system of democracy we need an Equal Opposition which as per votes received may not be actually Equal. Likewise, minority cultures for whose benefit we have in place Equal Opportunity Principles. The gap is made up by the position as per the laws of the system. Belief needs to make up the gap in gross numbers. Belief helps consolidate. Majority is collective power and like the body and money, works for that time at that place.
When we are Equal at the physical level, we ‘see’ other side of the picture seen by the person standing opposite to us. We need to show this other side, to complete the picture of ‘facts’ – the physical picture. When the ‘other’ side is less than Equal – we would need diversity and / or for the Governing side to shed its status to become equal. With Diversity, the picture is completed at the higher level to benefit more communities. Status sacrifice rarely sits naturally with Western and Male dominated cultures.
Belief is One. Only those who have realized this Truth and/or those who have faith in those who have realized this Truth would successfully unite the country to become One Nation. We may express this belief in many different forms and to the extent they are based on belief and belief alone, they would not interfere with each other but would run parallel to each other – respecting each other’s independence. That is a civilized Nation. Once there is knowledge of Interference in belief, the Government has the responsibility to take action to discipline the side that showed lesser belief. Where there is evidence that has cost actually been incurred and/or earned benefits of money and / or status lost by a complainant against the State – the reason being given on the basis of belief – that cost / loss is evidence of interference. This often happens when there is lack of involvement by the State in the experience of the apparent loser – as happened to me as a migrant and as seems to be the case in Sri Lanka after the military defeat of the LTTE.
To the extent Indigenous Australians of all colors, are driven by their belief they need to be not judged by ‘outsiders’ and external systems driven by migrants. Any special place in the Constitution needs to be confirmed by an appropriate legal structure on this basis.
Thank you again for showing respect for my contribution and responding as per the substance of my communication.
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