WUNTOK
Wuntok or one talk is Pacific Islands Kriol which means everyone is speaking the same talk or
language. Today we live in a society dominated by wuntok - one talk. We are dished up the same
monotonous version of the same talk, just with a bit of spin. These facts serve vested interests and
tend to ignore other real and relevant facts. They are selective in what is served up through radio,
film and the print media. This spin is propaganda; it is a one world view of the economic rationalist
and dissenting voices are silenced.
What of the vast majority of humanity? What are our stories and our perspectives and views. Our
daily lives have been reduced to a nightmare of gurus and experts strutting their propaganda for
fact. A US Imperial dynasty may suit some but what of the majority view of this brainless empire?
Where are the dissenting voices, the sceptics for this New World Order. We are more than a silent
majority we are a silenced majority.
Are we to become embedded in our bunkers watching Murdoch or Packer’s media machinery dish
up the latest bit of information; mili-tainment, sport, info-tainment, then retire to our new age, ala-
Californian meditation lounge and gaze lovingly at our navels. One must worry at the impact on
Australian culture upon the stories that we may never tell or have people read or listen to. A
conversation of the latest soap, is it really a conversation after all? Escapism, will this save us, as
humanity, from their greed and self appraisal, their rigidity of mind and fixed vision?
Taking an alternative view of the world and of events and for those radical enough to develop an
alternative lifestyle free of the contemporary enslavement of consumerism and materialism. Story of
earth and the people who populate it may never be told but as a rewritten, revisionist view of history
from the epicentres of power. What of us at the peripheral of power and prestige. The silenced
majority. Is it possible for us to develop place and landscape respecting the ecology and our cultural
traditions, rather than developing a taste for Coke a Cola. Is such a future viable?
Other generations were aware of the specific interests of power and their lack of regard for society
and what it means to be human. However there is currently little in the mainstream to suggest that
there is an alternative to the interests of power. Current politics have been compounded by lies and
folly where valuable community resources are squandered on hate campaigns. It is ignored and
overlooked that hatred can easily be turned in any direction and it may end up with us in its sights.
Superficial and foolish grievances are paraded as important and policy is then developed to fix the
problem and social antagonism is the order of the day. Rich Aborigines bludging on us poor whites,
the dole bludgers at the beach, the handicapped not pulling their weight, the greenies wanting to
save the world and destroy our jobs, the blind not being able to read the writing on the wall, can’t the
deaf hear us say get up off your backside and work like us, the idle rich etc. Where are the
governments with imagination? In the history books perhaps, for I see plenty government with their
noses in the trough and I see a Prime Minister squatting Kirrabilli House enjoying the harbour views
when in fact the PMs residence was always the Lodge, based in the ACT. The silence of the media
has been rather deafening. Perhaps the blind as part of their mutual obligation teach them, the
media and political classes to see the disparities in our society, the deaf to teach them to hear the
pleading of the oppressed to end the tyranny, the homeless to teach them the value of living in the
place of residence, especially when filling out their travel allowance forms and the mentally impaired
to teach the judiciary how to rationally think about justice and equality. -Gary
We must end our silence and provide reasonable dialogue to end power’s onetalk.