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elSicomoro · 01-04-2002, 09:24 PM

From Merriam-Webster:

disenchant: to free from illusion

disenfranchise: to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity

Jag believed in a utopian Australia...an Australia flowing with milk and honey. He thought his country was the greatest in the world. He had been taught to believe this.

But then, slowly, the truth appeared--The Stolen Generation, the refusal of refugees, a rise in heroin usage, an increase in youth suicide, a stifling of the principles of democracy in his homeland. It blindsided him...a system that now refused to listen to the growing clamor of its youth. His ancestors came to Australia to seek this "utopia." He thought this to be the world he was meant to inherit. Yet, he was watching it fall apart before his eyes. The world he so loved was quickly becoming the great Australian failure, run by supposed do-gooders who ignored the cries of youth. He grew apathetic...and angry. He began to smoke to ease the burden of his troubled existance. Doctors tried to give him anti-depressants to medicate him from the world he now hated, to no avail.

But he could not shun the thoughts of positivity that flowed within him. He felt he could speak for his "people," the youth that felt so much like him. He had a voice, and felt a need to use it. That "ray of light" is his Australia. A vision shared by many of his bretheren. An Australia as he remembers it...an Australia that he and others know it can be. This voice later seeped into everything that he did. The words are rough and scrawled, and can be tough to read. He doesn't deny this.

But it is art. And art is in the eye of the beholder.

01-04-2002, 09:24 PM	#50
elSicomoro Person who doesn't update the user title Join Date: Jan 2001 Posts: 12,486	From Merriam-Webster: disenchant: to free from illusion disenfranchise: to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity Jag believed in a utopian Australia...an Australia flowing with milk and honey. He thought his country was the greatest in the world. He had been taught to believe this. But then, slowly, the truth appeared--The Stolen Generation, the refusal of refugees, a rise in heroin usage, an increase in youth suicide, a stifling of the principles of democracy in his homeland. It blindsided him...a system that now refused to listen to the growing clamor of its youth. His ancestors came to Australia to seek this "utopia." He thought this to be the world he was meant to inherit. Yet, he was watching it fall apart before his eyes. The world he so loved was quickly becoming the great Australian failure, run by supposed do-gooders who ignored the cries of youth. He grew apathetic...and angry. He began to smoke to ease the burden of his troubled existance. Doctors tried to give him anti-depressants to medicate him from the world he now hated, to no avail. But he could not shun the thoughts of positivity that flowed within him. He felt he could speak for his "people," the youth that felt so much like him. He had a voice, and felt a need to use it. That "ray of light" is his Australia. A vision shared by many of his bretheren. An Australia as he remembers it...an Australia that he and others know it can be. This voice later seeped into everything that he did. The words are rough and scrawled, and can be tough to read. He doesn't deny this. But it is art. And art is in the eye of the beholder.