Utopia is a vast region in northern Australia and home to the oldest human presence on earth.
"This film is a journey into that secret country," says Pilger in Utopia. "It will describe not only the uniqueness of the first Australians, but their trail of tears and betrayal and resistance - from one utopia to another".
Pilger begins his journey in Sydney, where he grew up, and in Canberra, the nation's capital, where the national parliament rises in an affluent suburb called Barton, recently awarded the title of Australia's most advantaged community.
Barton is named after Edmund Barton, the first prime minister of Australia, who in 1901 introduced the White Australia Policy. "The doctrine of the equality of man," said Barton, "was never intended to apply to those who weren't British and white-skinned." He made no mention of the original inhabitants who were deemed barely human, unworthy of recognition in the first suburban utopia.
One of the world's best kept secrets is revealed against a background of the greatest boom in mineral wealth. Has the 'lucky country' inherited South African apartheid? And how could this happen in the 21st century? What role has the media played? Utopia is both a personal journey and universal story of power and resistance and how modern societies can be divided between those who conform and a dystopian world of those who do not conform.”
Watch the trailer for Emmy and Bafta winning Utopia:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2013/oct/22/john-pilger-utopia-watch-trailer-video
And now, surely, the pertinent question should be: How we- the people- might rise to the global challenges of inhumanity, injustice, exploitation, environmental vandalism and degradation, hunger, poverty and the “utopia” of neo-liberal capitalism that has enslaved the 99%, whist showering “Pennies from Heaven” for the 1%?
The answer in my mind lies in Our Spiritual Awakening. We must answer the “Call to recover our Moral and Spiritual Imagination.” We must discover “The Value of Spiritual Wisdom in our Everyday Life.” We should aim for “Spiritual Education for the Common Good: Education for a Just and Sustainable World.”
Please join us at our GCGI Oxford Waterperry House Conference in late August 2014, so that together we can try to discuss, address and suggest possible paths to build a better and fairer world for the common good.
Conference details:
http://www.gcgi.info/news/476-gcgi-2014-oxford-conference-call-for-presentation-and-participation