Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Americans and Australians

This is not about race or country and I am just reporting what Dr Walter Ling told us.
The American Psychiatrist was talking to the Australian one and the Australian said to the American , " We have the same history, we are from an immigrant population"
The America replied " You are descended from a bunch of criminals."
And the Australian replied" And you are descended from a bunch of religious zealots..At least we understand sinners and have a compassionate approach to drug addicts."

Think about it...
How do you view addicts ..and other so called sinners....what is your approach?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The old adage, 'It takes a criminal to understand a criminal' may be true to a certain extend as they should know better how the brain mechanism works in those 'criminal' minds. But that does not mean that someone of religious background cannot be compassionate to them. Only the other day I comented on Crimsonskye's blog that I find a stark contrast between christian missionaries and muslim dhaie ( this is just a generalisation- may not be true always) whereby the christian missionaries are more approachable and less prejudiced. This goes to show that people with strong religious hold can and should be able to treat drug addicts/ criminals as well if not better. In fact as a muslim doctor, we are at an advantage as we have the Quran and sunnah to help us deal with the addicts.

Suriya said...

I don t think that is what she said Beatrix kiddo.
What she said was that to a certain extent it is true.
Being a person who gets ill pretty frequently does help me to understand my patients better so I feel it is true that the experience does make one able to understand better, although that does not exclude others.
And indeed it is not all about the Quran..certainly you are right!

Suriya said...

beatric kiddo,
You are sincere and even your anger is sincere, for that reason I am with you what I am

Unknown said...

strip off all the egos and remove our judgemental attitude, godwilling, we'll be fine.

Anonymous said...

The idea that Australians are descended from criminals is far from correct. True, England did send it's criminals there. But it also sent it's political prisoners there, people whose only crime was to speak out against the government and power interets. And it also had people who voluntarily emigrated there.

America also was early used as a place to send criminals by England, but not to the same extent. The idea that Americans are descended from religious zealots is interesting yet incomplete. Yes there were religious zealots. And these religious zealots were often bankrolled by merchants who were looking for a return on their investment in the new world in the form of new goods and/or gold. The religious zealots seldom had the funding for the crossing to America and the supplies to start a colony. So there came about an interesting "collusion" between religion and business in the U.S. This collusion was not limited to English colonists.

And from a different point of view, those Americans living in the U.S. during the Revolutionary war, the majority of them were, for a while, legally criminals because of their actions against their legal government.

It is interesting to look at the various indentities and relationships of early America and what it is today, and to ponder just how much truth is in the adage, "You become what you hate."