Esther: genocide

This is a picture of the last four Tasmanian Aborigines, including Truganini.

I read some more of the book of Esther on the bus to Batmania this morning.
In Chapter 2, the King starts to miss his wife (who he may or may not have had killed). So there's a beauty contest to try and find a new Queen. Esther 'wins', (Susan posted a little while ago on just how 'lucky' Esther probably was) but nobody knows that she's a Jewish exile, because Esther is a Babylonian name. (Her Jewish name was Hadassah.)

Grant Wildman from Tabor in Adelaide reckoned this was kind of like if during the war against the Aborigines someone who was part Aboriginal managed to gain a lot of influence in white society, due to the fact that they just seemed Caucasian.
(One of my friends wanted to do a theatre production based on Esther's story, and asked Grant for any ideas.)

In Chapter 3, Mordecai finds out that Haman, the King's favorite nobleman, wants to kill all the Jewish people, because Mordecai refused to bow to him. He asks the King if he can, and the King says he can.

I found it interesting what Haman said to the King to convince him:

There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other people and who do not obey the king's laws; it is not in the king's best interest to tolerate them.
(Esther 3:8)

Just reminded me heaps of the paranoia toward Muslims and Arabs in Western countries since the War of Terror began.