Word: powerlessly
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...just four months before the country's bicentennial, the Aborigines have reason to hope for better times. Prime Minister Bob Hawke announced earlier this month that he was seeking a "compact" of understanding with the powerless Aborigines. "Before 1987 is finished," said Hawke, "it would be good to have some clear acknowledgment that in the 200 years of European settlement, considerable injustice has been done to the Aboriginal people...
Minnie can't explain why her children have gone wrong. She feels powerless to prevent Kemya from going out with drug dealers or the boys from sidewalk hustling. For her, unlike her children, the streets are foreign territory. "I think we lost control at some point," she says, as though trying to recall something in the distant past. "I don't exactly know when, but somehow we lost control over the kids...
Some charters are roundly ignored. China's declaration of human rights was powerless to stop the abuses of the 1960s Cultural Revolution. In Latin America dictators often simply disregard national charters during times of unrest. Many African leaders have stymied democracy by outlawing opposing political parties and turning their countries into one-party states, often without bothering to amend their charters. Yet so strongly have constitutional ideals taken hold worldwide that few countries dare to abandon them completely...
...stars have glamour at least, and champion athletes grace. But what do the ruling Windsors of Britain have above and beyond their right to rule? This week, as Queen Elizabeth marks her official birthday, one may well feel justified in asking what divine right inheres in her -- an almost powerless figurehead in a country now past its prime -- to command the attention of the world, let alone its enthralled admiration...
...Paisley is wrong on both points. The agreement declares that Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic will never be reunified without Protestant consent. As for democracy, the Anglo-Irish Agreement was specifically designed to foster democracy by granting rights to the large Roman Catholic minority, which until then was powerless and had consistently been denied its rights...