The fall of Singapore occasioned the death of 5, 000-6, 000 Chinese civilian men who were shot by the Japanese Imperial Army in the Sook Ching massacre to prevent ongoing resistance in the former British colonial island state as Japanese forces surged southward. The question raised here: did the subsequent survival of the civilian population amount to Being or mere untroubling existence? Does Being expect ongoing resistance and did the Japanese forces jeopardise their Being through the scale of their civilian reprisal? 

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This episode gets to grips with the rudiments of Being in the colonies: contest, convenience, and Fate in white settler and Indigenous experiences in WA. Amor Fati is rejected and the illusion of free will within a determinist schema is given further explanation. 

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This shortish episode ponders how God belief and God-talk formed part of the free will and determinist explanations of Being in the Colonies. 

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This episode begins with a brief recap of theories of Being. It then proceeds to an example drawn from the turn of the century cattle theft policing of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. 

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The specifically colonial conditions as a backdrop to Being won by convenience. The post-colonial wash-up of old battles for Being. Camus and his renunciation of violence as a driver of history. The empirical claim of Being won through competition. 

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Being and cases for determinism and the theories of violence of Breazu and Deleuze. The cases against Collingwood and Eurocentrism led by Heidegger. 

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This reading begins the first chapter of the book by asking a range of questions about contemporary ideas of Being. It also seeks to justify the idea of Being pursued on the book of convenience pursued by violence. It frames the questions used as an inquiry throughout the book: who is enjoying convenience, who can sustain convenience through aggressive action, when did a group retreat from conflict to pursue survival instead and was the price of convenience too big for the exoneration of Fate?

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This episode concludes the reading of the introductory chapter. The exploration of convenience begins. Colonial Tasmania is depicted as a neurotic tussle against Palawa inhabitants who pursued their own idea of convenience and fought effectively for it. Western Australian settlers complained that there was too much red tape involved in the apprehension of Indigenous cattle thieves. Being is likened to membership of a gangster in-crowd. Polite and social until the moment violence is necessary. 

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This episode briefly considers the challenge for making a reading of Being as a historical enterprise. Then we make our first assessment of the events after the fall of Singapore as a lesson in Being. It was a triumphal moment for the Japanese Imperial Army and then an excessive one. The question of whether Chinese survival without resistance constitutes Being is raised.  

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This episode expands on the qualities of Being evident in a colonial context. It makes a case for a determinist reading of history turning on expected individual ontic force given limits by fate by those who holding presumptive Being. The question motivating the whole book is revealed: can a gross imbalance in the violence done to win Being in an ontic domain actually endanger it by leaving no source of comparison from a fellow striver. Thus, there is a tension. Absolutist acts of will destroy Being when a ruler does not respond to resistance proportionately.

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