![hrod[1]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3028/2955623804_8be2e1e0b1_o.jpg)
Unabashed QUT advertisement - what do the workers in the picture think about this?
Philistines no longer at the gates: final word from QUT lecturer
I do not think there is much in the comments on the Philistines… debate about Michael Noonan’s film that addresses racism, class or disability.
But I am not going to delete them as suggested by various people. 
I do not think that Gary (MacLennan) has ‘a hurtful and oppressive attitude towards disability‘ as claimed.
I do not believe Ciaron (O’Reilly) is a racist any more than I think that John Tracey is one.
I think that Michael Noonan meant well when he took Darren and James out to Boulia for his film.
I respect Gary Foley as a Koori activist and leader ever since I heard him speak in Roma Street Forum in Brisbane during the Aboriginal protests against the1982 Commonwealth Games.
In that speech and the activism that goes with it, down the years before and after, Gary Foley outlined a radical standpoint on the two issues that Workers BushTelegraph is about: class and racism.
I knew nothing of the allegations against Gary Foley until I read them being discussed in the comments by Ciaron and John. I am still not any the wiser. I see nothing in these comments to change my view and respect for Gary Foley as my respect derives from the political not the personal. Gary Foley helped set up Redfern’s Aboriginal Legal Service (in Sydney) and the Aboriginal Medical Service in Melbourne. He is a doer, not just a talker.
I have since looked at the allegations of rape made against Gary Foley in the comments section of Workers BushTelegraph. One view was published in the Melbourne Age by Martin Flanagan on 20th March 1993 in an article titled Looking through a black anger. The mellowing of Gary X
“Foley was an apprentice air-conditioning draftsman. ‘Just what was needed in black Australia at the time [1968]‘. One day, walking along Railway Place, he approached a white girl whom he had previously met at one of Charlie Perkins’s Aboriginal Affairs dances and ‘got lumbered by two smart-arse uniformed coppers’. Foley was beaten until he admitted, falsely, that he’d had sex with the girl. `I didn’t even know her name.’ He was then made to watch while the girl was beaten by two policewomen for ‘sleeping with a boong’. The girl was a ward of the state.”
I have now read “Whiteness and Blackness in the Koori Struggle for Self-Determination” by Gary Foley (1999) as recommended by John Tracey.
Also I re-read the pamphlet “The Revolution will not be televised! — A campaign for free expression in Queensland” (sorry no hyperlink) written by Ciaron O’Reilly – a campaign in which John (Nobody) Tracey played a significant role alongside Ciaron and Sean O’Reilly, Jim Dowling, Linda Rushton and many others – all presumably as comrades and friends.
I know little of what caused the falling out between these activists, at least at the personal level, but I suspect a mixture of immaturity, idealism, arrests, sectarianism and eventually defeat by the government of the day had something to do with it. Also I suspect that there is much in the falling out that is personal – these things linger for years – but not too much of that is political. Regarding the relationship between John Tracey and Gary MacLennan, John says that he was never “in” with Gary MacLennan to fall out “with” him. [I accept what you say about that, John, but Gary and you share more than being part of the democratic rights struggle in Queensland.]
John Tracey and Gary MacLennan share the bond of both working class and Irish origins.
Perhaps these are too much for anyone to bear.
Campaign for Free Expression in Queen Street Mall circa 1982
But many of the finer points of these differences will be lost on most.
Claims of ideological differences like ‘you are a marxist authoritiarian’ and ‘he is a Libertarian’ do not really amount to much.
As a friend pointed out to me the other day, some of the biggest authoritarians on the Left in Brisbane were anarchists and libertarians.
Equally, to say that Michael Noonan is a ‘a humble working class Catholic lad’ is not a defence for anything. Would Michael even claim it? I doubt it. Would Gary MacLennan. Certainly not.
Race and Class
We often hear right-wingers say that the Stolen Generations do not deserve an apology from the government because there were white children who were taken from their parents unjustly as well and that they never received a 
government apology (see “The Leaving of Liverpool“). What these naysayers fail to understand is that aboriginal children were taken from their parents on the basis of race whereas the white kids were taken from their parents on the basis of class.
These are different kinds of repression and require different responses.
The apology given by the federal parliament last week to the Stolen Generations was only one of the responses requested by aboriginal people. Both the government and the opposition are deaf to their demands. The apology only achieved the significance that it did on 13 February 2008 because the Howard government refused for 11 years to give it.
Aboriginal people and their leaders have asked for more than just an apology. I am pessimistic about what the executive-in-government will do now.
But I am not so pessimistic about the broader future as the recent comments on BushTelegraph would suggest.
For example, I think that there is a tendency against racism in Australia and America.
A black man is close to being nominated to run for President in the US because he has managed to mobilise black, brown and white. This has been achieved despite the superficial left-of-centre ticket offered up by the US Democratic Party. If Obama is matched against the Republican McCain, I think Obama will win because he has managed to mobilise so many more voters than McCain in a country where the vote is optional and so many poor people do not vote.
There is a trend against privatisation in America and here in Australia.
People are feeling that they cannot do it on their own anymore, as economic rationalist failures increase. Federal government has been unable to control inflation and interest rates. They have relied too much on the private sector which has not been productive, wasting money on the affluence of a few.
Workers want public health, public education, public housing, public parks and spaces. I am not saying that these things will come easily — that will mean class struggle, something not occurring in our recent history.
There is just a trend for these things. How it will play out is hard to assess. But let us not be fooled that Australia (or America) is a democracy. It is executive power that rules here. If the executive so chooses, an apology is given to the aboriginal people by the parliament.
Ian Curr
February 2008
Gary Foley’s papers at
http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays
The Leaving of Liverpool @
http://www.abc.net.au/programsales/s1123499.htm
“The Revolution will not be televised! — A campaign for free expression in Queensland” by Ciaron O’Reilly
Please find attached an invitation for you to the launch of Donna Mulhearn’s new book Ordinary Courage.
An RSVP response is required for all attending, and should be sent to claireg@murdochbooks.com.au before 29 January.
We hope to see you there!
Best regards,
Laura Wilson
Receptionist | Murdoch Books
John,
‘Consider the lillies in the field’.
Skeptical Bystander: ‘Consider the lillies in the field?’
You were talking about Pilger who thinks that all we need to do is get the truth out there.
Sometimes monty python get pretty close to the truth especially when talking about the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea.
So, is the truth all there is to it? I think not.
If that is cynicism, I plead guilty (which I never do).
Ian
Ian,
Please explain.
(Or is your comment just meaningless cynicism?)
John,
I think I’m with Brian on this one.
The boy in the rubble and Gaza’s Tour of Horror
Dear friends,
He wasn’t like the other boys I met here in Gaza today. This boy, balanced on a piece of concrete jutting out of a high mound of rubble, had his arms folded and just looked at us.
Other boys run towards you and cry “Hallo mister” and they laugh, make funny poses for the camera and carry on. But the boy on the rubble was still. He stared in silence. His face defiant. His large, dark eyes piercing. He stood as though he was waiting. Waiting for us to do something perhaps, to say something. Just waiting.
The boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, was standing on wreckage where his house used to be. Now his family camps in a tent in the midst of the smashed concrete and tangled iron. He is no doubt waiting for his home to be rebuilt, but the siege of Gaza means his family cannot access the raw materials required to do so. “How can we rebuild when we haven’t had a sack of cement in four years?” one head of an NGO asked us.
Our group, a contingent of the Gaza Freedom March, was on a tour of Gaza’s neighbourhoods devastated by the Israel Defence Forces attack on Gaza this time last year. Operation Cast Lead killed about 1400 people, 288 of them children and destroyed more than 3,500 homes.
This was unlike your average city tour, today the commentary was chilling, the scenes raising more questions, creating even more tears. “You can see where three houses used to be,” our guide says pointing to a large empty space along a busy street.
“Here is the Schiffa Hospital where 700 victims were brought on the first night of the attack. Those factories over there are closed because of the siege. And up ahead a school.” He points to a massive mess of concrete and steel where 1000 children used to go to learn. “And on your right a tall apartment tower ripped in two by an Israeli missile, 15 innocents dead at this spot, and in this sports gym 50 dead, and here you can see more tents where the families are sleeping where their houses used to be and in this neighbourhood there were 200 killed.” And so it goes on and on.
As we walked through the remains of a bombed out sports/entertainmen t complex right on Gaza’s beachfront, Ahmed, our guide – a smartly dressed, well spoken young man – wanted to tell us the story of Houda Ralia. A girl of nine, she was swimming at the beach when missiles struck, Houda rushed back to her family who were on the beach. She saw them killed right in front of her. Mother, father and four brothers.
After an hour of proving this detailed account of last year’s attack, Ahmed sighed, “however long we talk about the suffering, it will never be long enough.”
It’s rainy, windy and cold here, the families in tents have a winter to endure and, because of the siege, no prospect to be in a home by next winter.
Hours after I saw him, I still feel the stare of the boy on the rubble – the boy who is not playful with us because he’s angry, he’s tired and he‘s homeless. His stare haunts me because I know that he knows.
He knows the reason he won’t have a home by next winter is because the international community has allowed the siege of Gaza, an illegal and morally reprehensible blockade to continue with barely a comment from our political leaders. UN Human Rights Rapporteur for Palestine, Richard Falk says that because there has been no meaningful international pressure coming from Governments it is up to civil society, you and me, to step in.
There are many reasons we should step in, because of the 288 children killed last year, the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe caused by the siege, the physical and mental trauma of the population, but also for the boy in the rubble.
The boy in the rubble is waiting. Until he feels some hope he will maintain his defiant stance, his challenging stare.
He wants to be playful again, but he’s waiting for us to end the silence that has left his community in a state of constant struggle.
This little boy from Gaza city, living in a tent surrounded by the rubble where his house used to be, folds his arms and stares in our direction because he is waiting for us to act.
May his eyes haunt us until we do.
Your pilgrim
Donna
PS: Meanwhile in Cairo, our colleagues are maintaining a powerful protest against the Egyptian Government’s refusal to allow the 1300 or so activists there to join us in Gaza. Many have been barricaded in their hotels by riot police, others have been injured by police at a peaceful protest in the city. This is receiving world-wide press coverage, although I perhaps not in Australia? NOT A WORD IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA. GAZA IS CONSIDERED “BLACK” NEWS, I.E. NOT FIT FOR THE MASSES. THIS UNDERSCORES THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR PARALLEL INFORMATION NETWORKS
PPS: Marches to commemorate last years attacks and call for an end to the siege were held on both sides of the Israeli-Gaza border as well as in Cairo and all around the world.
PPPS: “When we know you people, outside of Gaza care about what happens to us, that brings us hope.” human rights leader in Gaza to our group.
Jim and Ciaron make an important point in relation to Australia’s disengagement from the wars. However this is not just in relation to Afghanistan and Iraq.
John Pilger’s recent acceptance speech of the Sydney Peace prize deals with this matter. The speech is entitled “Breaking the Great Australian Silence”.
The speech not only deals with Australia’s disengagement with the wars but also issues of race and class – very appropriate to this thread. Gary Foley even gets a mention!
A video and transcript here -
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=555
Pilger points out that this disengagement is a key element of the global imperialist scheme and quotes examples from India 100 years ago, the second world war and Vietnam to put in context the present government and media representations of war.
Public disengagement is the nature of the beast and nothing new.
Pilger suggests the the problem is simply a matter of propaganda. His strategy, it seems, is to simply tell the truth. I suggest his mode of truth telling is a far more potent form of action than public symbolism. However Pilger does not seem to describe the depths of consciousness that is created by generation after generation of war propaganda. Disengagement is now a cultural habit, not simply an absence of truth. The simple telling of truth will not of itself to break the grip of ignorance, for Australians do grip ignorance tightly.
Disengagement manifests not just in relation to Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and all the other media issues. Disengagement exists at the most basic level – in out personal lives. Marxists of course speak of alienation as a result of modes of production and there is much truth in that in identifying causes of alienation. But alienation and disengagement is the full-spectrum nature of Australian consciousness. We are largely disengaged from our families and neighborhoods as well as those “other” people whose culture or circumstance we share little with. The isolated individualism of our post-modern wonderland and the insular nuclear families themselves are generators (chicken or egg?) of alienated diss-engagement.
Jim and Ciaron have used the Genesis story of Cain and Abel as the public message of their action – “Your Brother’s blood cries out to me from the earth.”
Australia is so dissengaged that it, even the peace activists, are deaf to the screams of our brother’s blood from the very earth on which we live, work and protest.
Not so with Pilger. He suggests that until we respond to the cries of the blood beneath our own feet we have nothing of substance to contribute to the rest of the world.
He concludes his speech………
“I believe the key to our self respect, and our legacy to the next generation, is the inclusion and reparation of the First Australians. In other words, justice. There is no mystery about what has to be done. The first step is a treaty that guarantees universal land rights and a proper share of the resources of this country.
Only then can we solve, together, issues of health, poverty, housing, education, employment. Only then can we feel a pride that comes not from flags and war. Only then can we become a truly independent nation able to speak out for sanity and justice in the world, and be heard.”
I agree with him.
Ciaron and Jim: Well done and glad you are both free to continue with your inspirational work.
You don’t need me to tell you to ignore the begrudgers.
I remember Canon Hayes who founded Muintir na Tíre here in Ireland many moons ago telling us rhetorically:
“If this hall were in darkness and you struck a match – only one match – there is an infinite difference between that one match lighting and the l darkness of the room. And even though your light is only a match in the darkness, there is still an infinite difference between that one small match lighting and the total darkness in which there was no light at all.”
Your match shines bright in this part of the globe.
See http://anti-bullyingireland
Pingback: Rockhampton Bulletin article & photo from court case « Resist Talisman Sabre '09
Ian rhetorically asks…”Who knows what these seemingly isolated actions will produce?”
It seems to me that this basic question needs to be addressed in the planning of any campaign. We need to identify the realistic outcomes that may arise from our actions and focus on these outcomes as the campaign unfolds.
To just hope that perhaps maybe some positive outcome might arise but we don’t know what it might be is just blind faith, every bit as silly as those who just pray to god to make things better.
Political action is not just a matter of performing some magical ceremony that arouses good spirits that will somehow osmose into the political structure. Political action is, or at least should be, about achieving goals in a planned and systematic way.
In defence of Ghandianism – it must be remembered that Ghandi’s campaign was a mass economic campaign based on depriving the colonial government and companies of profit and tax thus turning the colonisation of India into a net deficit project rather than a net profit. This was the core and purpose of the strategy – it has nothing to do with the isolated and symbolic antics of Western Peace activists..
Despite Hollywood and the Western Christian church’s portrayal of Ghandi’s campaignn as being about the expression of a superior personnal morality, the truth is Ghandi’s strategy was a “by any means necessary” intervention into historical and economic structure. This historical and economic intervention was planned – the boycotts occured in order to evict the colonists. The British dis-investment of India was not an unforseen co-incidental (or divine) by-product of the personal piety of Indian activists, it was the strategic goal of the activists from the beginning of designing the satyagraha campaigns.
So, my concern (in terms of the issue of this thread as portrayed by Ian) is not at all about Ghandianism or non-violence.
My concern is the way activists from the affluent white world have appropriated the symbols of struggle of the poor non-white world , especially the movements of Ghandi and MLK to justify their own ideologies and campaigns.
But my main concern is the intellectual and strategic shallowness of the radical movements. I am not even against symbolism when it is in a clever context, but symbolism for symbolism’s sake is just a placebo for radical action.
To the Talismans Sabre protestors and those who March for Palestine in Australian streets. I rhetorically ask – what are the achievable outcomes you are working towards and how does your action facilitate those outcomes?
If this cannot be answered with anything more than “You gotta do sumthin” or “The outcome is in god’s hands” then I accuse you of using the suffering of the people you have appointed yourselves advocates for in order to fulfill your own personal needs to deal with your own anxieties about war and oppression.
It may seem strange that these reflections against war would end up on “Comments on Class and Race”. Why not on an anti-war thread elsewhere on WBT? Nearly all the protagonists and commentators on this thread emerged from the the same period in Queensland history and that was because of the strong anti-uranium movement that gave rise to a democratic rights struggle that lasted here many years. For example, John T. and Ciaron argue about attempts to mine uranium on aboriginal land at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory which involves issues of both race (indigenous people) and class (mine workers).
The democratic rights movement of the late 1970s in Qld led to other projects and activism that took many forms.
Ghandian non-violent resistance is one explored here. As Ciaron’s comments suggest, there is pessimism about the lack of an anti-war movement in this country.
Without wishing to contradict Ciaron (as his analysis is correct on this point), during the past year (2009), there have been strong mobilsations on the streets against the the Israeli war on the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. This was a response to the miltary incursion of Israel into Gaza resulting in the deaths of 1,400 people. With only a few activists, mostly sticking together, quite strong opposition to Zionism has been mounted on the streets of Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Currently there are attempts to march into Gaza from both Cairo (Gaza Freedom March) and Jordan (‘Viva Palestina’ aid convoy).
Who knows what these seemingly isolated actions will produce? As Ciaron reflects above: “Jim (Dowling) and I met in Brisbane watch house in 1978 and we have spent the last 3 decades together and apart exploring the Catholic Worker tradition and praxis which embraces nonviolent resistance to war.”
The long march continues…
It wasn’t until I went to Christmas mass that I grasped an appreciation of our anti-war court scene and witness in Rockhampton this past Christmas week. Our local priest gave a fine reflection on the nativity, juxtaposing the empires of this world, the endless wars of Pax Romana/Americana countered by the absurdity of the nonviolent Kingdom of God represented by the vulnerable infant in the feed box, marginalised shepherds gathered, dodging Herod on his search and destroy hunt etc.
Jim Dowling and I were due, a couple of daze before Christmas, in court in Rockhampton (central Queensland/Australia) as consequence of blockading U.S. marines and several truckloads of their equipment accessing a military exercise in July. The joint exercise in July was all about interventionary warfare complete with some soldiers playing the roles of local insurgents and an urban warfare centre with a mosque, finetuning Australian /U….S. recent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
While our support group read a litany of Afghan/Iraq war dead we held up military traffic for 90 minutes on an access road into Shoalwater Bay military exercise area. As we blockaded this road U.S. led forces were surging in southern Afghanistan and Pakistani forces were doing likewise in northern Pakistan. Surging, killing and creating orphans and refugees. They claimed at the time to be securing an environment for “free and safe elections” in Afgahnistan. The self evident is now generally admitted that the U.S. sponsored Afghan elites were never interested in free and safe elections. Troops died and more Afghanis slain for rigged elections. Australian, British, U.S. Pakistani forces are killing and dying to protect the corrupt governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan .
So 5 months after our blockade, and subsequent 4 days in the Rockhampton watchhouse, it was time to drag our sorry asses back to central Queensland. In the early hours of our hearing day, I clocked off from work at a homeless shelter in downtown Brisbane and grabbed a cab to the airport. My cabbie was a refugee from the slaughter in Rawanda and testified to the nature of war. Jim and family had driven up to Rockhampton the previous day in their van fueled by recycled fish and chip oil.
Going to court is tough at anytime but in the present atmosphere of the lack of an anti-war movement in Australia it felt particularly difficult. I had no expectation of any support in Rockhampton around our hearing and that proved to be the case. The Dowling family picked me up at the airport and we drove into town to conduct an anti-war vigil outside the court before going in. We believe that the war will be stopped on the streets rather than in the courts or the parliaments. So there we stood.
The Rockhampton courthouse itself felt subdued, not much happening these short days before the holidays. Our arresting officers were quite friendly reflecting that while there isn’t any popular opposition to this war there is defintiely no popular support for it either. There’s just an escalating war. Two British soliders had just been killed by firendly fire, The “War is Peace” U.S. President had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and ordered another 30,000 troops into battle, doing a cruise missile drive by on Yemen for good measure the U.S. had just been outed as repetitively overriding Pakistani soveriegnty with boots on the ground elite U.S. forces on hunting expeditions crossing the border into Pakistan over the past years.
This lack of popular support for the war was also reflected in the magistrate’s decision to override the prosecutor’s initial objection to Jim’s testimony focussed on his acting under the obligations of the Nurembourg Principles. The magistrate allowed us to testify to what we did and why we did it. He seemed to agree that the exercises were for interventionary war rather than defense. he had done his homelwork on the Lenin Liimbo Pine Gap case law in relation to ruling out the Nuremburg Principles in an Australian court.
Among those officials present in the court room there seemed to be an atmosphere of resignation. The war will continue unabated. A few souls will throw themselves against the machine. I had a sense we were being treated as harmless curiousities, like some near extinct Australian flora or fauna. Behold, eight years into this war, an anti-war activist, close to extinction! Like one of those Japanese soldiers they would find in the Pacific in the 1970′s not realising WW2 was over, we haven’t cottoned on that although war is escalating the anti-war movement is over! I started feeling like some kind of Bilby or rarely sighted nocturnal piece of long forgotten Australiana. Admittedly, Jim and I do look like we have been recruited form central casting…Jim doesn’t where shoes and I have dreadlocks down to my butt.
Jim and I met in Brisbane watch house in 1978 and we have spent the last 3 decades together and apart exploring the Catholic Worker tradition and praxis which embraces nonviolent resistance to war. Another war, another court scene. The magistrate and the prosecutor seemed to resonate on some level and concluded that no further punishment would expediate our rehabilitation. It was just over an hour flight to Rockhampton and a 12 hour dirve back to Brisbane. How long stopping this war is going to take, is anybody’s guess.
Photos and Report from Original Blockade Action of U.S. Marines
-Central Queensland July ’09
http://talismansabre.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/catholic-workers-arrested-blockading-militarys-road-to-perdition/
Jim Dowling’s reflection on our court appearance in Rockhampton
http://bushtelegraph.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/comments-on-class-and-race/#comment-7638
Dec 24th. 09 Rockhampton Bulletin article and photo from court case
http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/story/2009/12/24/protesting-pair-found-guilty-of-blocking-army/
‘Historically the only bigger failure than the history of nonviolence has been the history of violence’ — Joan Baez. [Thanks to Jim Dowling for the quote and the link].
Jim and Ciaron
See http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/story/2009/12/24/protesting-pair-found-guilty-of-blocking-army/
Dear Friends,
Yesterday Ciaron and I appeared in the Magistrates court in Rockhampton.
WE started with a half hour picket outside court with the banner, “What have you done? Your Brother’s blood cries out to me from the earth. Gen 4” and a picture of a child bombed in Iraq.
After being informed that the magistrate was not the “nice” one we expected (Ms Hennacy) and that even the police were in fear of our new magistrate, we were a little more nervous.
However, we were greeted with a smile from Mr Morrow( not sure if I got his name right, but I will stick with it), and he certainly treated us with respect throughout. The Christmas spirit perhaps.
Three police gave evidence which we accepted. I asked all three officers if they had heard of the Nuremburg Principles of International Law. I explained to each how an officer was obligated not to obey/enforce a law which facilitated a war crime. None had heard of the Nuremburg Principles, but the magistrate certainly had! He cited the Lenin Limbo NT High Court case soon after of I mentioned them. In this case Lenin had argued that he had a right to trespass at Pine Gap to stop a war crime. The issue was to get a number of mentions.
Ciaron and I gave evidence about how we came to be there that day, our understanding of the war crimes being prepared for by the exercises, and our duty as Christians to offer nonviolent resistance to them. We described some of the horrors of the slaughter of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. The magistrate listened patiently.
During cross -examination we largely agreed with the prosecutor’s questions. Then he asked us if we agreed we were impeding the safe progress of the trucks carrying US military vehicles. I could not agree with this, and pointed out there was nothing safe about military vehicles preparing for war. Ciaron claimed trucks are only dangerous when they are moving! Ciaron also asked me how long I spent in the watchouse (a very important question in relation to sentencing). When I replied 4days as we refused to sign for bail, Mr Morrow said he was surprised we “found the accommodation so salubrious”. “I’ve been in worse places”, I replied.
In my summing up, the Magistrate and I had a little discussion about the Nuremburg principles again. He claimed he had no jurisdiction to override the NT High Court decision which said the Nuremburg principles could not be used in Australian Law, as they had not been written into our law books. I pointed out that the Nuremburg principles were there to override any nations laws, and that they were formulated for that very reason. The German judges who were sentenced to long prison terms at Nuremburg were only obeying their own laws which facilitated war crimes. I believe the idea was having an impact on him but he stuck to his line, and did so again when I brought it up one more time at the sentencing.
We were found guilty by lunch time. The magistrate did not bother to look at our previous history, when he announced he would give us time served, and impose no further penalty. The prosecutor did not object.
There was certainly no antagonism from anyone in the court, and I am sure quite a deal of sympathy.
As Ciaron keeps pointing out the nation is largely disengaged form the war. When we get a chance to point out some of the horror of it, and the need to act against it, we can have an impact. Hopefully our small actions have served to do that.
Many thanks to all those who offered support and prayers.
May the peace of Jesus disturb us all this Christmas.
Jim (Dowling)
Today, two days before Christmas, Jim Dowling and Ciaron O’Reilly face court charged with contravening a police direction. A simpler and more appropriate charge would be “Disturbing the War”.
On 9th July 2009, for 1 ½ hours Ciaron and Jim blocked 5 semi-trailers loaded with US military vehicles. The vehicles were on their way into Shoalwater Bay to practice for present and future wars of the US empire. There was no doubt about the purpose of the exercises which included an urban warfare center with its own Dome shaped “Mosque”.
These wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are war crimes.
The war in Iraq has resulted in the deaths of possibly over a million people. The Afghanistan war, tens of thousands. The vast majority in both cases are innocent civilians. Countless children have been shredded with US cluster bombs. Whole wedding parties have been bombed into oblivion by the same forces.
It is very appropriate that we are asked to go to court as the birth of the Prince of Peace approaches. We take inspiration from his words, “Blessed are the Peacemakers”, and “Put away your sword. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword”.
As Christians, we choose the path of nonviolent resistance, and are happy to pay the consequences. Over this page is our statement of faith written before we blockaded the military convoy.
We can be contacted on
Jim Dowling penangke@skymesh.net.au
Ciaron O”Reilly ciaronx@yahoo.com
********************************************************************
STATEMENT OF FAITH
Blockading the Military’s Road to Perdion – Resisting Talsiman Sabre 09 & the Af/Pak War
“Because we want peace with half a heart, half a life and will, the war making continues. Because the making of war is total – but the making of peace by our cowardice is partial.” Fr. Daniel Berrigan SJ
The $300 million “Talisman Sabre 09″ exercise presently taking places in central Queensland/Australia involves 20,000 U.S. and 7,000 Australian troops, aircraft carriers and fighter bombers. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan the large “Strike of the Sword” U.S. military offensive is underway with Australian support.
We come to Talisman Sabre to lock the gates, block the access road to the Shoalwater exercise area and read out loud the names of the dead of the war on Afghanistan – ten Australian, hundreds of U.K./U.S. troops, and thousands of Afghani civilians. We come to nonviolently resist this exercise and the expanding, escalating “Af/Pak War” on the Pushtun, Afghani and Pakistani peoples.
We have come to the Talisman Sabre exercise in Queenland, Australia, during a time when the now Obama led war on the Pushtun people of northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan is wreaking death and destruction. No target is off limits; weddings, funerals, villages, sites of worship, homes and the innocent labelled “collateral damage” have been bombed in this 8 year war. As usual. in modern warfare, the victims are mostly women and children. They die in a flash of an air strike or slowly of untreated wounds. Some will die in years to come from cluster bombs and other unexploded ordianance fired today.
It is a war that has no popular support, yet little visible popular oppostion, in the countries waging it. A war with general disengagement within the countries of the imperial centre from where it is prosecuted and bloody death and destruction on the fringe of empire – this time in the lands of the Pushtun people of northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan.
It remains self evident “That truth is the first casualty of war!” H.W. Johnson
British and U.S. governments now acknowledge that they sold the 2003 invasion of Iraq on a bunch of lies that have since been clearly exposed (Saddam had no WMD!).
We have been sold the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan on another bunch of lies. Australian involvement in this war is now 8 years old – from 600 troops on the ground to providing targetting information from the U.S. NSA Pine Gap base (near Alice Springs) for U.S. bombing raids. One such raid by a B1 Bomber killed over 100 Afghani civilians last month.
The war is now refered to as “Af/Pak” by the Obama administration and Pentagon warlords. It continues to be marketed as a Bush’s neverending “War on Terror” This month we witness an American surge in southern Afghanistan and the Pakistani’s military offensive in its northern provinces that is creating millions of refugees.
As Peter Ustinov reflected “War is the terrorism of the rich. Terrorism is the war of the poor!” The present policies and actions of Obama and Rudd will create more orphans, more vengeance and more terrorism. There is no military solution in central Asia. To seriously address the issues of terror one would have to address the 30 year role of the Saudi royal family funding, Pakistani military training and U.S. empire building in promoting the wholesale terror of government forces and the retail terror of paramilitary groups employed in the “great game” of empire building in central Asia. Instead of addressing the role of these rich, corrupt and powerful governments and militaries we are asked to keep on killing the poor. In Australia the churches, the academy and the media maintain a house broken silence in the face of this 30 year slaughter and destruction of Afghanistan.
All the powers require from us is our silence and sedation in the face of these great crimes that are being visited on the peoples of Pakistan and Afghanistan today. We know that war is terror is war. We refuse to be sedated from the cries of the poor, suffering at the hands of the governnments prosecuting this war. In resisting Talisman Saber and the Af/Pak War, we will break our silence and join in a shared context of jeopardy – with the peoples persecuted under the Af/Pak war, the soldiers trained and deployed to prosecute this war. We will enter this jeopardy in a spirit of nonviolent resistance to Talisman Sabre and the Af/Pak War.
We know as Australians, our government generates the lie that our security is only to be found in service to empire. This has been our historic role from the 1800’s to the present day – dispatching Australian troops to Aotearoa, Sudan, South Africa, Gallipoli, Malaysia, Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan to service American and British empires. As Christians, we know that our security lies in following the disarmed Christ in practising the acts of mercy, nonviolence and the realisation of peace and justice.
Jim Dowling Ciaron O’Reilly July 9th. 2009
`Can non-violent defence be an effective strategy against military violence?’ — Robert Burrowes in “Strategy of nonviolent defense: a Ghandian approach”.
Hello John (Jiggens),
To place your concerns in context, Ciaron O’Reilly and John Tracey (formerly two of three ‘once gathered together in his name’) have fallen out on this website many times on many issues since its beginning in July 2006. But essentially their disagreement focusses on Ciaron’s Ghandian adherence to non-violent resistance. John T’s critique of Ciaron, nay the entire Left, centres upon the use of symbolic protest as a means of change. John ridiclues these attempts as grandstanding. Ciaron rebukes John T for standing (sitting?) on the sidelines criticising those in the frontline, often on charges before the court, or awaiting her majesty’s pleasure. Dare I say it, their grievances are largely tactical, although they would say otherwise. After all, no Leftist worth his/her salt wants to be caught in a tactical morass when theoretical positions are at stake.
For the readers’ benefit, as the pamphlet below illustrates, Ciaron and John T. were both activists in the free speech movement in Brisbane during the Queen Street Mall camapign in the early 1980s. As you can see, the pamphlet was written by Ciaron and, yes, that is John T. on the cover.
Nowadays Ciaron simply ignores John Tracey’s comments, he does on WBT anyway.
I think that my role as the editor of WBT is to permit examination by readers of the substance of disagreement. Personal vitriol is discouraged but inevitable. It is not so much that the comments here are intelligent or otherwise; but rather, an intelligent reading of their disagreement may inform us as we endlessly, it seems, repeat our mistakes in the future.
On the occasion that you refer, Ciaron did not ask me to take John’s comments down . Ciaron knows from experience that I would knock him back.
Instead Ciaron made a perfectly reasonable, if somewhat Orwellian request — that I remove all of Ciaron’s references to John T. No easy task for an editor, let me tell you. As John T’s remark suggests (‘It does seem strange to delete one half of an argument’) John seems, till now, blithely unaware of the extent of Ciaron’s original request to me as the editor of WBT. But then a casual WBT reader would not know much lies in the dudgeons of this website. Everthything can be accessed if you have the time, and the skill.
Perhaps Ciaron thought his references to John T would inflame the debate. I did as he requested because I believe he has that perogative. Ciaron, man of symbols, would have had little idea how difficult his request was. To give you some idea, there are over 1,700 comments on WBT — John Tracey has made at least 118 of those, and Ciaron has made 53. And many of those comments are heated debate between these two time worn protagonists.
As an aside to John’s ‘it-does-seem-strange-remark’, I do not find Ciaron’s request strange at all. He is merely being consistent with his Christian, or is it Ghandian belief, that being, in the face of abuse, to turn the other cheek. Ciaron seeks neither abuse nor violence, but he does, on occasion, bring it upon himself. I am sure John T would agree. But then Ghandi’s ‘non-violence’ resulted in the loss of over a million lives since partition (between India and Pakistan).
In the current malaise of the Left, John Tracey’s arguments have a place. You may not like how John T. goes about it, or how personal his attack has become but, if you look through all his comments, you may see, like me, that his views are often thought through — and perhaps silently held by others who do dare thread his path. Whether this demonstrates courage by John T. or him just behaving like a bull in a china shop, I am not sure.
The editorial policy of Workers BushTelegraph is at Aims
in solidarity
Ian
I stand by everything I have written here. I did indeed think before posting.
However I would much prefer that it be read in the context of Ciaron’s comments that I was responding to.
I wish Ciaron would stand by what he said too.
It does seem strange to delete one half of an argument.
Having the flow of comments run backwards doesn’t help either.
But even if JJ thinks issues of racism in the left is spitefull drivell, it is important that these issues be discussed by the radical community rather than sweeping it under the carpet for the sake of politeness.
Also, if anyone accuses me of being a cop, as Ciaron did, they can expect a spitefull public response. I make no apology for this and thank Ian that he has been as willing to publish my response as he has been to publishing Ciaron’s accusations..
See http://unlearningtheproblem.wordpress.com/
Dear Ian
I’ve read this contribution by John Tracey and I am appalled that you as moderator have left it up. It is just personal abuse. It makes no contribution to the debate at all and (apart from trouble making) I can’t see any reason for you publishing it.
I respect both John and Ciaron, and I think this post does not show John in a good light. It is easy with email to write something without thinking and John Tracey has done so here.
However you, Ian, are the one who has published it. You don’t have to publish my comment, but I would like to encourage you to think about what you are publishing and to expect some standards of behaviour from the participants. I visited your site hoping for intelligent comment, not this spiteful drivel.
John Jiggens
Ian,
I don’t know when Down Under will be released, last I heard was this year.
The pub scene was one of many shot over a week in Boulia where, as I have been told, Darren and James and the film crew got to know a lot of the locals (as much as you can in a week) and, evidenced by the footage that went on the internet of some of the other scenes, was done with the participation of the coordinator of the local ABoriginal organisation.
Apart from implying a perverted reading onto the pub scene, as this court action does, the situation has also been represented as a few moments in a pub rather than a week in the community.
People who have no idea what happened have constructed and generalised a fictional notion of what went on and many have gullibly swallowed it, but to date none of the investigations have.
The very issue raised by Ted, the question of protocol for film makers working with Aboriginal people, the principle of dialoge, consultation, re-consultation and re-re-consultation – especially as problems arise – has been absolutely abandoned as the issue has been turned into a legal/media/ internet spectacular farce.
Noonan has been trying for to talk to May since this all began and her various minders have prohibited such dialogue.
************
Unlearning the problem is just an experiment at the moment, I haven’t written anything new on it yet.
My thinking is that the radical left in Australia is just plain stupid, stupified by the religion of Marx and totally contained within the mainstream capitaist, colonial mindset, representing little more than a change in shade of nuance from the oppressive culture itself. Radical politics today offers nothing to history except a detatched position of commentary totally within its own detatched frame of reference.
So I am trying to step outside the box and see what happens.
Hello John,
I do not know what happened in Boulia, that is what I am trying to find out.
All I have is Ted Watson’s interpretation and the footage that was sent with his short U Tube piece.
I would be interested in seeing Noonan’s rushes of what happened there cos it may inform those interested as to how such different interpretations have been made of what happened in the Boulia pub.
When is Noonan going to put out his film?
That too may give an insight into what really went on.
By the way, how long has ‘unlearning the problem’ blog been up? I have placed a link on W BT see http://unlearningtheproblem.wordpress.com/ under Community and Political Groups. that is the first I have seen of it.
I still have not given up on the collective blog/web idea. time and people are the issue. Have you read the WordPress book (it says that it is for dummies, but it’s not) by Lisa Sabine-Wilson, she describes the technical solution in part three of her book.
Ian Curr
Ian,
you said…”What I am trying to discover is Noonan’s approach and purpose in making the films.”
I suspect you will not discover this until you see the films.
Did you see Unlikely Travellers”? This is a clear indication of Noonan’s approach – same director, same producer and Darren and James are in both..
How is it that you know what happened in Boulia or what the theme of Darren and James Down under is?
As for the money, the game plan is clear – same lawyers, same strategy as the Mac/hook/QUT court action. Make a highly publicised claim painting QUT in a negative light and get an out of court settlement from QUT who just want the problem to go away.
However this time, unlike the previous claims against QUT they have claimed against Noonan as well and accused him of forging documents. Noonan is, I suspect, more concerned about the ethics of film making (questions of censorship and the importance of his film in the representation of disability) and in particular defending himself against the claim of forgery and will not simply pay out to make the problem go away as QUT seems prepared to do.
According to the newspaper report, the claim is based on racial villification laws. I urge you to have a look at the legislation and see if you think they have a case. I have looked and their claim appears absurd when measured by the act. For a start it specifically excludes work produced for academic or public interest debate.
An out of court settlement is the only possible hope for success – or a new case based on the allegations that Noonan forged documents, an allegation that has been dismissed to date by at least 2 academic investigations and would involve perjery charges against May if Noonan’s documents are proven to be real.
Because Noonan appears to be standing on principle, even if QUT does want to brush it all under the carpet, means the truth has become a major obstacle to the legal action. The spinelessness of QUT can no longer be relied on to achieve an outcome. It will be interesting to see how it pans out.
Beyond the particulars of this case, as long as so-called advocates of social justice and social change can so easily cling to lies and illusions and manifest politically and historically on the basis of lies and illusions then all our dreams of justice are betrayed and blown to the winds.
Just as with Marx’s historical materialism and Ghandi’s satyagraha (truth force) or Jesus’ claim that the truth will set you free, as long as political activists cling to anything other than truth they will only tangle themselves up in the complexities of their own ideational contradictions, they have no time or headspace at all to apply themselves to real historical circumstance.
John,
What I am trying to discover is Noonan’s approach and purpose in making the films.
If you will bear with me (I may be slow) is what happened in Boulia, Noonan and his co-filmmakers went there to expose themselves to your stereotypical Australian country town, having Darren and James doing stereotypical Aussie things like chasing girls and going to the pub to find out about Min Min lights?
But things went wrong in the pub because they were a bit rude to May’s partner in that they started talking about Min Min lights but when they (probably Noonan — who, after all, is a journo) saw a good shot of May showing kindness and affection to one of the guys and then they interrupted proceedings and focussed the camera on that?
But unfortuneately this filmic moment was misinterpreted, not the least by Ted Watson, as yet another stereotypical portrayal of a drunken aboriginal woman when in fact (and more likely) it was really a display of gentleness and affection by May Dunne that Noonan wished to capture on film? Perhaps he/they did not expect things to unfold in this way? Do you get what I mean?
Ted Watson, May and her partner just got it wrong?
But more than that, Mac/Hook and their supporters misunderstood what looks on the surface like an exercise in your stereotypical aussie male sexism when really what is happening is that Darren and James are going out there into the stereotypical aussie red neck territority to actually expose themselves to what really happens and how people may view two mildly disabled young blokes? From the footage I have seen they get a not unremarkable reception of small country town cordiality.
I am still wondering about the role of Spectrum in all this. Frankly, they seem sus to me, if only because of the funding arrangements in the ‘disability industry’ where some opportunist and unscrupulous characters with the right political connections seem to always come up roses.
While on the subject of the money trail concerning the Ted Watson human rights application reported in the HES in the AUSTRALIAN saying they are after $100,000 after there was some interest shown in the initial $50,000 — I am wondering who do they think will stump up the cash?
It is highly unlikely Noonan has that kind of dough, do they think QUT is going to foot the bill as they did after their human resources mob unfairly dismissed two of their most experienced teachers?
Ian Curr
September 2008
I suggest the best time to review a film is after the reviewer has seen it!
The difference between Noonan’s films and Malcolm/Forest Gump/Rain man/etc. genre is that Noonan does not use actors to build a caracature of a disabled person in a fictional context, he is a documentary maker that focuses on the real lives and personalities of particular disabled people, a group of 6 in “Unlikely Travellers” and 2 in “Darren and James Down under”, the latter being a major industrial breakthrough in terms of disability in that the 2 disabled stars are also co-writers and co-editors.
This is a long way from Colin Friels, Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise representing the perspective of disability and, I would suggest, not a generic comparison at all to Noonan’s stuff.
It is not Noonan’s films that has caused the heartache and angst but the generalisation of the lies told about the movies, including telling May Dunne that she was in a movie that exploited disabled people which, according to her written statement, is the cause of her shame for being involved.
Whatever Maclennan and Hookham’s original motivation for publically attacking Noonan’s thesis were, the heartache and angst has come from them trying to dig themselves out of a hole when it became evident that their criticism was totally baseless.
The question should be asked of Mac/Hook, was their project of attacking Noonan to score points off QUT worth all the angst and heartache?, not whether or not film makers such as Noonan should try and break new ground in representing disability.
In May 2008 Ted Watson said this about the Noonan film and its repercussions:
“It looks like the final chapter in the sordid saga of Queensland University of Technology’s(QUT) PhD project Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains is about to be played out.”
This dispute never seems to go away — Look at from today’s (18th September 2008) higher education supplement of the AUSTRALIAN :
“LAWYERS for an Aboriginal woman have said they are about to launch a damages claim against the Queensland University of Technology, reigniting bitterness over a contentious PhD film project called Laughing at the Disabled … more at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24356762-12332,00.html]…
I ask the funding protagonists of the film — Coaldrake, the Queensland University of Technology, the various privateers in film and disability industries — who benefits from this?
Comment
There have been very many Australian films about disability. Some of them very good. Films like Malcolm a comedy about the story of an innocent, socially retarded mechanical genius named Malcolm (played by Australian actor Colin Friels). The plot for the film involves Malcolm losing his job at the tram station in Melbourne, after taking a joyride on one of his tram-like inventions on the public tramlines one afternoon.
One film critic wrote this about it:
“Personally, I enjoyed ‘Malcolm’.
The Australian stereotypes, the familiar landscapes and the intelligent ‘Aussie’ humour are all aspects of Australian cinema that appeared in Malcolm that I enjoy watching.
In particular I enjoyed watching the central character, Malcolm.
Colin Friels played the role of the shy, socially disabled yet brilliant Malcolm so well, it resulted in his character drawing sympathy from the audience. This is a sign of quality acting and it’s probably this reason why Friels won Best Actor at the AFI Awards in 1986.
It’s amazing how an audience seems to attach themselves to the central character if that character is mentally impaired in some way, but still has some sort of brilliant ability…like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, or Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot.
In ‘Malcolm’s case it was Malcolms’ social shyness and isolation connected with his amazing ability to make mechanical toy’s and inventions which captured the audience. I think this fact, along with the films sharp humour is what carried the film.”
Since Malcolm was released in 1986 we have seen a plethora of films and docos that focus on characters with disability.
To advance this ‘Aussie film genre’ requires sensitivity, creativity and courage.
I just can’t see why this project by Noonan justifies all the angst and heartache it has caused.
Ian Curr
18 September 2008
Editor’s Note:
At Ciaron O’Reilly’s request, I have deleted his comments to this article.
Ian Curr
25 Feb 2008
Ciaron,
Your interventinism demoralised and immobilised the Jabiluka blocade.
Your similar intervention demoralised and immobilised the protests at Shannon airport.
Your ideology divides what ever movement you pop up in.
You attack Aboriginal resistance leaders such as Gary Foley and Jacqui Katona.
Your attacks on Black Power leaders is eerily similar to the FBI’s propaganda and subversion of the Black Panthers.
Your dismissal of Aboriginal self determination on the basis of sex crime, is exactly the same line John Howard was pushing. A coincidence?
If you are serious about profiling dogs you should sniff your own bum.
Hello Ciaron, John and others interested,
For the record, see What do we want? — Land Rights! for an historical view of the Aboriginal Land Rights movement of the 1980s.
Ian Curr
19 Feb 2008
Ian,
If, as you say, you fail to see the racism in Ciaron’s comments, in particular his comment on the other thread about “traditional smokescreen” and his Howard like dismissal of Aboriginal self determination (and “black power dudes”) because of sex crime, then you are just another stupid white brick in the wall too.
As you stand in solidarity with your racist mate, you dismiss the perspective and struggle of the Mirrar as, at best, irrelevant. I have heard Jacqui Katona speak of this issue on two seperate occaisions and discussed it privately with her. I have heard Isobelle Coe of the Tent Embassy talk of this issue. While you may not see the racism in Ciarons words and actions, Aboriginal Australia certainly does and has spoken out against it. Ciaron has made it into the the dreamtime stories of the Aboriginal oral tradition as an example of how white activists cannot be trusted.
As you stand by your racist mate you betray the elders who spoke at the Invasion day rally and went to the Canberra Convergence, for they are the very “black power 60′s/70′s dudes” that Ciaron so hatefully villifies, as is Ted Watson who whose video you promote on your blog.
I had a good night sleep and re-read your post and I still cant figure out what you are trying to say about the personalities of the early 80s Bris. anarchist movement or indeed of class and race.
I find tour comment ” I think that there is a tendency against racism in Australia and America.” to be most naive and more a product of a racist culture than a critique of it.
Here is a link to Ciaron’s book http://www.takver.com/history/brisbane/freespeechqld.htm
For the record, I gave permission for my photos to be used in Ciaron’s book but I have never endorsed its perspective.
I had parted ways with the Catholic worker well before the book was written.
The book is a good record of a small bit of history but its analysis is shallow and egotistical, as was the politics of the whole Mall campaign.
Our “Free Speech” campaign was racist too. We deliberately kept our distance from the land rights movement that was building at the same time because we were anarchists and therefore could not tolerate Aboriginal authoritarianism or the notions of private property inherent in land rights. “2 or 3 gathered in his name” produced a leaflet in the lead up to the Commonwealth games entitled “Land rights for all Australians” which is a phrase that Pauline Hanson later came to use to dismiss the Aboriginal movement.
The anarchist movement had resisted the “black Fascists” since the springbok tour. Brian Laver maintained a constant criticism of Aboriginal culture as inherently sexist and, in his terms, an authoritarian gerantocracy.
Laver and the anarchists issued several leaflets during the 70s land rights campaign condemning the “black fascists” and like Ciaron did at Jabiluka, did their best to demonise the Aboriginal leadership in the eyes of white radicals.
The Mall campaign was very much influenced by Laver’s critique of the land rights movement.
Laver’s Libertarian Socialist Organisation maintained a firm moral principle of not engaging with Aboriginal Australia during the Commonwealth Games. However many anarchists from the other tendencies and factions did engage with the Commonwalth Games protest and, like the rest of the left in Australia in the 80′s developed an understanding of and solidarity with Aboriginal Australia.
However there were many who were left behind in their white ideologial Cocoons such as Ciaron as well as Laver who to this day and despite his connection to Sam Watson, rejects the notion of Aboriginal sovereignty and rejects Aboriginal culture as authoritarian gerantocracy. In his more inebriated moments he will publically declare that the workers councils will fight the traditional owners if the traditional owners will not conform to democratic principle.
Some of the most blatant racism of the Anarchists in the 80s and 90s manifested in the local West End community in response to Aboriginal street crime and violence. LIke the racist communities of Alice Springs and Townsville, the anarchists even went as far as calling for vigilante squads at one stage to tackle the “aboriginal problem”.
The fear and hatred of Aboriginal people is a key pillar of Australian racism and it is well and truly entrenched in the history of anarchism in Brisbane as well as in Ciaron’s contemporary global condemnations.
Here is a history of the Jabiluka dispute
http://www.takver.com/history/jabiluka1998.htm
As Foley’s article suggests, the divisions were much broader than the plowshares people. Nationally, the Jabiluka Action Group split over the question of Mirrar control of the campaign.
Jabiluka was a crucial experiment that failed. It was the first time since the 88 bicentenial protests that a national campaign was launched in the first instance with Aboriginal people in control, but also a national mobilisation of non-Aboriginal support for an Aboriginal agenda (as opposed to the mainstream agenda of reconcilliation).
What was unique about this mobilisation was that it was tribal people calling the shots, not urban activists. They put in place bridges between their tribal reality and non Aboriginal supporters with activists such as Gary Foley and Jaqui Katona coordinating the “white” business such as media, protesters and fundraising.
However, essentially because white activists could not leave their sacred cows at the gate and embrace this powerful experiment it collapsed. Either that or it was undermined by collaborators.
The basic principle demanded of the Mirrar – Aboriginal sovereignty on their own land was just too much for many of the white supporters to handle.
In pure colonial fasion, Ciaron and others appealed to European notions of democracy to discredit Aboriginal decision making processes. White activists insisted on their democratic right to make decisions about Mirrar land simply by their presence on it. Thats what Captain Cook did.
p.s. Ian,
My only source of information on the Foley rape allegation is Ciaron. I have never heard anyone else speak of it.
Ciaron,
If I was a collaborator and I had an agenda of, for example, the facilitation of uranium mining in Australia, what I would try and construct is a bitter division between traditional owners of minesites and non Aboriginal activists in the cities.
I would, if I was a spy, have had a serious challenge at Jabiluka because the Mirrar had instituted a direct line of communication and authority with Aboriginal activists in or from the city to coordinate the campaigns. That would be the target I would choose. I would throw personal mud at the key Aboriginal links to deligitimise them in the eyes of the white supporters and behave offensively on Mirrar land to teach the traditional people that they can’t trust white activists. Thats what I would have done at Jabiluka if I was a spy. But I didn’t have to because you already did.