Partitioning

Partitioning involves moving populations, dividing and conquering human beings.

The governments of the USA, Canada and Australia historically moved indigenous peoples into reservations, in a version of containing and corralling groups, minimising their cultures and not allowing them to fully participate in the fabric of the nation.

This involved not only physical partitioning, but emotional, social and economic alienation.

During World War 2, Americans of Japanese and German ancestry were interned in specially set up camps, after they were forcibly removed from their homes.

The human pysche of nations can go to extremes in times of war, religious divide or when there is competition for resources.

Partitioning was both a strategy and solution deployed when decolonisation swept the world in the mid 20th century. The worst consequences of such political and socio- religious partitioning was experienced in south Asia in 1947, when the Mountbatten Plan gave rise to the modern nations of India and Pakistan - a million people, Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims, died in the ensuing mass migration between the two newly formed states, due to man made hunger, inter religious fighting and social violence.

The colonial British deployment of divide and rule to manage diverse ethnic groups
within their colonies also arose in Malaya, which lay the seeds for continuing racial discrimination even today in a nation that is overly conscious and emphatic of racial and religious differences. The Afrikaners imposed apartheid in South Africa, which officially ended late last century, but still casts a shadow on inter ethnic relations in today's Rainbow Nation.

In both the Malaysian Federation and the Republic of South Africa, partitioning of hearts and minds to the exclusion of more significant things has not been optimal or beneficial for both societies.

Ireland saw the partitioning of their island due to religious and political factors intervening from London. The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the USA saw the unnatural partitioning of Germany, which recovered and reunited after the fall of Communism in Europe.  

Europe has seen a chequered history of changing boundaries and territorial partitions, think of Yugoslavia before 1990 and new nations arising after 1990 - but Italy was federated on the late 19th century and the EU was created in the late 20th century.

The most intense and yet unresolved conflict resulted from the creation of Israel in 1948 from a partitioned Palestine. The heady mix of entrenched cultures, beliefs and geopolitical interests add to a cauldron of shifting military balances, outside interference and historical alliances and enmity.

Russia remains unpartitioned. Yet Koreans remain separated geographically and politically between North and South. Vietnamese reunited as one nation after the French and American Wars. Thailand was never partitioned and colonised.

Partitioning can mean being reunited, but at what cost?

Social Media Messages and News - Stop First to Think

It is usually in our human nature to share experiences, knowledge, news and information.

One may expect human beings to gather around physically and face each other to do so, but this is no longer necessary.

They come in various forms in our contemporary world. We need not even speak to each other, but transmit almost instantaneously what we share in graphics, videos, pictures, text and more. Such startlingly efficient sharing communication is enabled by code, artificial intelligence, analytical cookies, wi-fi, gateways and monitored channels.

We do so with rising expectations of the quick and easy. The convenience can come with a cost.

We learn to lower our trust levels when messages in whatever format can be tampered with an intent to manipulate.

Racial, religious and political matters are especially vulnerable to be disseminated with an intent to arouse our deep set emotions, stir our beliefs and shake our convictions.

Hence the rise of the risks in whether things shared are authentic.

What are the signals that alert us to a higher possibility of receiving mischevious, false, compromised and tampered messages?

1. Messages featuring provocative negativity or over rated hope on an uneven emphasis.

2. Messages with no ownership and attachments with no trace of a time stamp.

3. Messages with sensational graphics and tone of voice over.

4. Messages with images that cannot be authenticated and so can be put out of context.

5. Messages from unknown and highly dubious websites.

6. Messages that test your inner instinct of being too good to be true, or make you want to authenticate further.

7. Messages from parties known to slip through fake news to you.

8. Messages sent instantaneously to groups of recipients can signal higher risks.

9. Messages from unknown or untraceable parties and yet claims to originate from famous persons.

10. Messages that intensify matters when every one should step back and calm down.

Each of us can just respect and utilise our own level of intelligence to avoid being sucked into furthering the progress of social media messages that cause problems if shared.

Step back from a message received if the first gut feel is bad on a suspicious message.

Always question the agenda of the party who shared the stirring message to you.

You can be the only person to break the chain of such suspicious messages. In the end, it is best not to respond.

Haphazard and Hopeless in Haymarket

Rough edges, sudden bumps, grey blotches.
Unfriendly fences, bored workers, negative vibes.
Paths keep changing, dust in the air and no one cares.
There is a warzone for quiet battles, long delays in completion and accumulating hidden costs.

The character of a once vibrant place has been degraded.
Its denizens wander like zombies, the throbbing soul of the earth beneath scarred.
The promise, the beauty and the delivery as seemingly hopeless now as snow on Sydney streets.

"Haphazard and Hopeless in Haymarket"
Laying new tram tracks, Sydney 2017-2019