Part 1
To be completely honest from the part of the world I come from, We never heard about the Aboriginal people. Its not just me the Bengali community that is new in Australia none knew about them. After a week passed, we were warned by our seniors about the aboriginal community who hang around the street drinking all the time. We were told to be careful because they were aggressive and can cause harm. We were very bothered by this and personally, I was wondering why is the government letting this type of uncivilized threat roam around the street. We saw them at bus stops being loud and bothering people and being loud. It created a hatred in the corner of my heart towards this community and assumed their entire identity as uncivilized hooligans. But it also grew curiosity on my mind why is that so? They don’t look like the other Australians. They are black but not like the Africans. Then why so they are like this? Where do they come from?
When I started this unit I was also quite bothered by it. Because in the beginning, I thought this was like any other history class. Even though I always hated history because of so much memorization taking place, I decided to be present in every class. That was a good decision which I am really glad of now. As the class progressed, I was understanding bit by bit about what is the intention of this course. In the 3rd week when Anthony came in as a guest lecturer a lot of my curiosity were fulfilled. I found out that the aboriginals were the ones who have been here on this land for thousands of years and it’s the Australians who came in 2nd. This tiny bit of information was enough to change my complete thought process. I got to know how they were colonized and mistreated by the British, and for such a long time they had to fight but still be dominated. I got to know just a little bit of the vast torcher they had to go through (Module 3). This had a great impact on my mind.
The main reason I felt so much about this is because I hail from Bangladesh which was a part of Pakistan and before that a part of India. When India was colonized by the British, todays Bangladesh was also a part of India. And the colonization actually started in the whole Bengal region including todays Bangladesh and West Bengal, Bihar and Odissa state of India (Bandyopadhyaya 2009). I grew a feeling that the miserable state they had gone through could have also happened to my community and culture if the whole India of that time didn’t fight back and win over the colonizers. I am also a man who is fond of cultures. It was really sad for me to acknowledge how much damage was done to their culture due to this tragic history. I got to know about their dances, knowledge of the land, the colourful art, hundreds of languages, the meaning of flags and felt really heartbroken to know how much of this have and are facing extinction (Module 7). I truly see the Aboriginal community from a different perspective and with respect comparing from the 1st weeks of my life in Australia.
Part 2
Though out this unit we had multiple discussions over the ethical concerns which need to be taken seriously in a business. There were many case studies and discussions over incidents which might seem like common sense but still see happening over time to time by very reputed corporation and individuals.
On module 6 we talked about responsibilities towards the environment. There was an amazing case study about transparent trash bins. We were divided into small groups to discuss about it and it was really tricky to think if it was beneficial or just expenses which don’t mean much. I found that exercise triggering my critical thinking to be concerned about what we give back to our nature. We also talked about Greenwashing, which made me wonder if we really care enough about some greenwashing activities that our favourite brands do. It was an eye-opener for me to see that we humans don’t take much responsibility for our world. These discussions influenced me to find some dark spot on the business I would use for my assessment 2. But my choice, LEGO, wasn’t based on it. The main motivation was from a child I talked to after entering Australia. I was really amazed about how much he learned. I wanted to do the assessment on Lego because it was very clear that this business is also concerned about the corporate social responsibility as well as making profit. I tried really hard to mind some evidence of green washing on this business but all I found were just mere conspiracies. So in the end I was really happy with this organization’s work and wished that the tools they created to support quality education reach my county shortly.
On the discussion of if a leader be feared or loved (Module 8), we all were separated into 2 groups. That was a very heated discussion and lead to a middle ground where we all agreed that being strictly one characteristic widens up the vulnerabilities of that character. So a middle ground is a sweet spot. I have been a forward character all my life where I have tried both methods trying to be a successful leader in a task, and I felt good that the class agreed with my though process. But being an influential person meant being aware of many responsibilities. These facts were discussed on module 11 about social media responsibilities. There were some cases where some influential personalities gave out statements which harmed a community leading to a lot of problems. These are some of the qualities that a leader should be very aware of.
Another part of CSR was the discriminations which can be Explicit or Implicit. The implicit discrimination was the part which clarified a lot of the events that happened in the sort time I have been spending in Australia (Module 10). In search of part time work I have faced many incidents, some of which lead me to leave the job. Some of them I couldn’t figure our why it was happening. Because I saw everyone being nice in front of me and praising me for my performance, but at certain point they didn’t want me anymore. I was really confused about these things, why such things happen and what’s the reason. I was aware of the explicit ones but not much about implicit ones. I began to understand that I had faced a lot of discrimination without even understanding them in this new culture. I didn’t face these thing before as I had never been in diverse cultural environments. So this specific module helped me clarify a lot of the scenarios that happened to me, and made me much aware.
Part 3
Coming from a third world country, my way of education was quite different. I am on a credit transfer so I studied one year in a university back home. We used to be tough in a very straight manner where the study was mainly based on information. The lectures were mostly monologs with some question answers here and there. But here things were really different. I am really loving the learning through discussions method in this university. Here we have a lot of discussions and having such a diverse classroom makes it even better as an environment from my thinking. The biggest skill I learned was referencing from this specific unit. Back home the references were mandatory but not as strict as I faced here. We didn’t use to do in-cite referencing. We used Harvard referencing but it was not monitored as much. That was one thing that I learned the hard way after getting an ELPA score 3 on my Assessment 1. I had to do the success course for this and that helped me learn how to do referencing properly. I really didn’t matter much back in my county because they didn’t have enough facility to check the references. We used sources without being concern of its authenticity. But doing this unit has helped me to learn the need of proper referencing and also do proper refencing as well.
References:
Bandyopadhyaya, Sekhara. 2009. Decolonization in South Asia: Meanings of Freedom in Post-Independence West Bengal, 1947-52 Routledge. https://www.proquest.com/books/decolonization-south-asia-meanings-freedom-post/docview/870437836/se-2.