National Aborigines and Islanders Day for Justice (NAIDOC) has been celebrated for 50 years.
Meetings, Rallies and Marches have been organised in Brisbane this past year (2006-2007).
Much effort and organisation has gone into these rallies and marches for Justice.
MURRI activists from the BURRAGUBBA, JAGARA, YUGARAPUL, KOOMA, NGUGI (from Quandamooka) people (to name only a few) have participated in this organisation.
Non-indigenous people have given their support to Murri organisation in Brisbane.
Meetings and Rallies have been chaired by Sam Watson.
Sam, pictured above leading the march, is a Queensland candidate for the Senate in this years federal election (for the Socialist Alliance).
Ian Curr
BushTelegraph
15 July 2007
Click on the images below to blow them up. Photos depict the march on 14 July 2007 through the streets of South Brisbane and meetings held in Jagara Hall at Musgrave Park.
Information about NAIDOC can be found by going to the Musgrave Park Cultural Centre Website and going to Paradigm Oz weblog whch discusses a number of aboriginal issues.
Well, you can forget Left Click if you are interested in discussing the relationship between non-Aboriginal activists and Aboriginal Australia.
Dave has censored the discussion and will not allow comments that challenge the party line – I smell Stalinism!.
I also note that Paul Benedec from SA is now saying on the Courier Mail discussion that Michael Noonan’s controversial film footage is racist because it has Aboriginal people in it. “But not content with ridiculing people with a disibility, the film also manages to portray Aboriginal people in a negative, stereotyped fashion.” http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/comments/0,23836,22334904-3102,00.html
If Socialist Alliance is going to campaign on Murri issues then it cannot allow itself to repress discussion and evolution amongst the white left about Murri issues. The movement in Victoria that arose around Camp Sovereignty tackled the hard issues of sovereignty and white power but the Brisbane movement, despite being blessed with Sam Watson joining their campaign, is maintaing a closed white-left correct line and continue to reinforce their own white illusions about what Aboriginality is.
Benedic using some distorted view of Aboriginality as a weapon against Noonan is just sick. Now that Noonan has released his footage the criticism of him has dissolved (just read the Courier Mail responses) Benedic, and I assume his comrades are now resorting to desperate, shallow and tokenistic measures to maintain their rage and Benedic is using Aboriginality to do this – shame!
Noonan’s Boulia Pub Scene does not portray Aboriginality in a negative light, unless unconditional love and light hearted humour is negative.
My comments about the Boulia scene are here. http://paradigmoz.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/laughing-at-the-%e2%80%9cdisabled%e2%80%9d-michael-noonan-exposes-his-naughty-bits/
A couple of discussions on LeftClick about the “Left” and Land rights.
(quotes from my comments)
http://leftclickblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/cuba-and-permaculture.html
“In the old days Australia had a vibrant economy including international trade – all without any state apparatus. A free marketeer’s dream!
In indigenous and European terms, land is capital. In Indigenous terms it is the totality of the means of production. The wealth that comes from traditional ownership of the means of production is not earned, it is inherited – This was the Late Eddie Mabo’s key point to the high court.
So why is stateless free trade, inherited wealth and private ownership of the means of production not capitalist?”
http://leftclickblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/bye-bye-dems.html#comment-6075380805847315141
“The “Left” defined the Gurindji as “workers” – they created Aborigines in their own image. This notion of “worker” is behind my comments on the other thread about capitalism and Aboriginal economy.
The answer to my question on that thread is the traditional economy is indeed socialist because EVERYBODY is related, so the sharing law applies to everyone. However this notion of tribal communism has nothing to do with being workers.”
I asked Andrew Bartlett…………..
If parliament is not going to be recalled to deal with the Aboriginal emergency, will amendments or new legislation on this matter go to the house in August?
Is there any draft of the proposed changes yet?
and he said…………………..
The Murri community are talking up the need to converge on Canberra on 7th August 2007.
That is the very next sitting day of the federal parliament.
There is ongoing discussion around the need for a Bill of Rights.
Recent events may produce a national, cohesive push for such a bill by indigenous groups nationwide.
A report from the rally in Melbourne including a you tube video.
http://uriohau.blogspot.com/2007/07/stop-genocide-on-stolen-aboriginal-land_18.html
Detention without reason is commonplace in Queensland and Australian history.
It has taken the recent detention of Dr Haneef to bring into the public eye, yet again, the freedom police and other government authorities have to detain and brutalise without charge or trial.
Detention of the doctor after an order for his bail by magistrate Jaqui Payne demonstrates yet again the Federal Government shows it has no respect for the ‘separation of powers’. Just look at what the federal government is doing to the Pine Gap Four. In the same way they have with Dr Haneef, the minister (Ruddock) has ignored the ruling of a judge of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory to fine these peace activists and is now seeking jail sentences for a simple trespass of the American spybase at Pine Gap.
But then Queensland government has never had any respect for this mythic separation between the judiciary and the government.
All my life (56 years) I have never seen much respect by the rich and powerful for our called liberal freedoms.
The lawyers and mainstream media demonstrate time and again their collective amnesia.
Just think of the following who have be detained unreasonably by the authorities in recent times:
Mulrunji (detained and murdered), Vivien Solon (deported to the Phillipines unlawfully), Christina Rau (detained for months unlawfully), hundreds of refugees (detained for years without charge or trial). Now Dr Haneef.
People on Palm Island today had been removed from their traditonal land elsewhere in Queensland and detained for generations on that island.
In Queensland I was detained unlawfully after a street march in opposition to the Joh Bjelke Petersen government in 1978.
One of the police who detained me has become a wealthy businessman.
He and his fellow police (five in all) knocked me unconscious in the street in front of the National media, handcuffed me, beat me, took me to police headquaters, paraded me in front of senior police, stripped me naked and bullied me until one cop insisted I be taken to prison.
The warrant for my arrest was signed by a senior magistrate who for four days refused to listen to a single submission I made in his court to disprove the police case against me. He did this time and again, he ignored the beating that police had given Ciaron O’Reilly and found Ciaron, who had done nothing, guilty of assault.
Democratic Rights activists demonstrated the police lies time and again by the use of video evidence, yet the magistrate still would not listen to a word said in defence of the lies put up by police in support of government laws.
In 1980 I was found in contempt of court and jailed for 11 days. I appealed and the appeal was upheld, but only after I had served 11 days in one of the worst jails in Australia, Stuart Creek, Townsville! I was beaten by an innmate and threatened by a guard using an armalite rifle.
Under the son-of-Joh, Premier Beattie, we can march in the street but they still ignore us.
Ian Curr
18 July 2007
From NIRS news site
“There is outrage in the North West Queensland Aboriginal community of Doomadgee after Mr Gregory Brenton was arrested by police “for no apparent reason”. Locals are claiming the incident a “kidnapping”. The footage, posted on YouTube shows the incident.”
To see the vide go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37BgiXX6aAQ
NIRS background on the incident http://www.nirs.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=18