What should our response be to corruption in our community? Should we speak out? Should we seek to create influence?
The Nine Network in Australia is drawing big audiences with its latest series of Underbelly, looking at the seedy underworld of organised crime in Australia back in the seventies and eighties. A lot of people will avoid the series due to the high levels of sex and violence but beyond the often gratuitous scenes there is something more troubling; much of what is portrayed is based in the facts of some very dark episodes in our country’s history.
The series began with episodes depicting the murder of Christian anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay. Mackay was a man of integrity who refused to back down in his efforts to expose corruption that ran to the highest levels at the time.
Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities is a 13-part Australian television mini-series loosely based on real events that stemmed from the marijuana trade centred around the New South Wales town of Griffith. The timeline of the series is the years between 1976 and 1987. Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities primarily depicts the Mr. Asia drug syndicate and its influence on crime in Australia. Among the characters presented are real-life criminals Robert Trimbole, Terry Clark, George Freeman, Christopher Dale Flannery and the Kane Brothers. The mini-series is a prequel to the 2008 production Underbelly, which was about the Melbourne gangland killings and forms part of the Underbelly series. – Wiki
My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM is Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales and current President of the Baptist Union of Australia. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.
Ross was working as a criminal lawyer in Sydney’s Kings Cross at the time Underbelly is set. He wonders why more people didn’t stand up and speak out against what was going on.
So what should we do when we see corruption and organised crime? Are there ways that we can support those who are prepared to stand up and fight to change wrong to right?
Listen to what Ross had to say on the topic by clicking play on the audio player at the bottom of this post.
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