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Audience: VCE Students and the wider school community
Form: Published speech
Purpose: Expository
"Conflict can bring about the worst and best in us"
Imagine this: You walk upon the shore from your boat. You call out, expecting a human response, yet only dense silence lingers throughout the air. You want to turn back to your boat and leave immediately, but you cannot. Something is pulling you into the thick forest. You come across a camp. This coals on the fire are still hot, and grey smoke drifts upwards. You cannot see single person around, only still shadows. Horrified and disgusted, you see that the shadows are in fact people, dead bodies, like fallen timber. Aboriginal men, women, and children slaughtered. You know who did this, and you know why they did this - because of conflict.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,
The scene I described to you just then was experienced by The Secret River's William Thornhill and is just one of the countless examples that show the degree to which some people are willing to respond to conflict. Conflict has the distinct ability to force certain individuals to abandon their basic human morals and principles and to act with little thought of the repercussions. Conversely, conflict can also impel people to rise above all others and display truly honourable and righteous qualities. It is in this sense that encountering conflict can bring out the best and worst in us.
In Kate Grenville's The Secret River, the protagonist William Thornhill experiences the conflict of growing up in "the last decades of the eighteenth century" in a society where "men were ranged on top of each other all the way from the Thornhills at the bottom up to King or God at the top". Living in "the mean and twisted streets" of London where he is "always hungry" and considered to be "on the bottom rung" of society by the gentry, William is forced to take life with fierce determination prove himself to be more than "just part of the landscape". The fear of ending up a tanner, "plunging up to his waist in the pits" provides the motivation for him to become "the most diligent waterman on the whole of the Thames". William establishes himself as a moderately successful waterman and for the first time in his life, he does not have to resort to theft to survive. Thus, the conflict that William encounters through living in an environment where "there never was enough" for him, provides him with a sense of ambition to be the best that he can be. In this case, encountering conflict brought out the best in someone, however short lasting this may be.
In Australia, the conflict that William Thornhill encounters with the original custodians of the land, the Aborigines, brings out the worst in him. William sees Australia as a land of opportunity where he can start his life afresh. He had witnessed men, just like him, "who had got their freedom, made their pile, and now could look anyone in the eye", and wishes to do the same. However his dream is threatened by the constant presence of the Aborigines. Despite promising his wife that he would never viciously harm the natives, as he knows of the suffering of his friend Collarbone's death ("that long horror"), he is compelled to take violent action against the natives when his corn crop is burned and his neighbour Sagitty is speared. The "anxiety and fear" of the conflict turns "into fury" and William is impelled to partake in the full-scale massacre of the Indigenous Australians at Blackwood's camp. Thornhill ends up shooting "Whisker Harry", leaving him with a sense of guilt, shame, and "emptiness" afterwards. Evidently, one can see that conflict is some instances can bring out the worst in us, as it for Thornhill.
There are many real-life examples that show conflict can bring about the worst people. Recently, I made a trip to the United States. I witnessed first hand that racist attitudes and prejudice, are still held by moderate portions of the U.S population and developing continuously on account of conflict. Whilst in San Francisco, I observed a group of Caucasian American teenagers shout racial obscenities from a bus to a group of Hispanic young men on a footpath. Their insults ranged from things to do with "illegal immigration" and "taking American jobs" It did not seem as if the American men knew the people who they were abusing, and I was quite disgusted at their behaviour. Evidently, the conflicting of recent increases in illegal Hispanic immigration, and debates throughout the nation immigrants are stealing jobs has developed racist attitudes in some American areas, particularly towards Latino citizens. From this experience, I was able to see first hand how conflict can bring out the worst people, especially when fear and ignorance is involved.
People's reactions to conflict vary. People may see conflict as an opportunity to better themselves without hurting others as Thornhill did in England, whilst other may react with emotion and act violently or abominably against other people. Conflict can bring about the worst and best in us, and I urge you to be cautionary on how you yourselves respond to conflict.
Thank you.
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