Reference :- Andy Bolt can't see the harm in clambering all over Uluru "just for fun " . He is very restrained in this story, since he once lost a litigation case initiated because he had unwisely chosen a few words while reporting on indigenous affairs . A silly mistake best forgotten .
A rather dilute show today Andy . I guess you weren't in a very black mood over this , but I am hip with that . No point in vilifying any races is there ? Especially if ,when they win court cases , they only ask for an apology , but no damages . That completely deprives you of the opportunity to say
" they only did it for the money ".
Anyway , that's all water under the bridge , as they say . I do like your lighthearted " fun thing to do " observation. Western civilizations sure do know how to have fun. Desecrating sacred sites for fun has a long history . And we do it well. When the Ottoman Sultan , Mehmed the Conqueror invaded Constantinople 500 odd years ago , he dismounted from his horse to grab the arm of a soldier who was busy damaging the decor of the great church of Hagia Sophia " just for fun ", and told him to stop. He then looked around, and saw that the church had already been trashed by the foreign crusaders of a western christian denomination long before . Our mob had beat him to it !
I relate this to make a point . I think that the native australians' reverence for that rock , going back 50,000 years is something we have little hope of fully appreciating , given our mongrel background . But Andy , have you thought of this ? Thirty five or more people have died climbing that rock . It hardly matches the thousands of natives massacred by settlers ( the figures for those are unreliable at best , but there is no disputing the one for Tasmania , which stands at " every single one of them " ).
So what if we are being lead into a trap ? If lots of folk want to angrily assert their right to climb the rock , more will inevitably plummet to their deaths . Anger is the enemy of cautious climbing . The indigenous side will get more runs on the board , and I bet they wouldn't mind if it took a few millennia to finally catch up. One more thing . Why not diffuse the whole situation by letting people climb that big flagpole in Canberra , "just for fun"? It would be a real challenge , and would attract many climbers . Since I thought of it first , perhaps you could pull a few strings and get me licensed to operate a nearby store selling biodegradable toilet tissue . It would take time to climb , and some
folk might require a comfort stop, as they often do on Uluru .
Your comrade , Ken
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