I dedicate this podcast to Sam’s grandfather, who is sorely missed.
Sam Waibura Watson speaking at Shutdown Ferra picket at Ferra Engineering in Tingalpa in Brisbane. Ferra makes bomb parts Israeli F-35 bombers that drop bunker busters on the people of Gaza as part of the genocide in Palestine.
I just mentioned a friend of ours Surya who lives in Mullumbimby. And he’s currently in Istanbul, he’s he’s going to be part of an aid mission that’s going to Gaza by sea. They’re going to be delivering food and medicine, you know, first aid equipment, anesthesia, things that are really essential there. And I was speaking to him just couple of days ago. And he asked me if I had an Aboriginal flag that I could send to him with someone else who’s leaving in Brisbane in a few days.
So this, this Aboriginal flag that’s hanging off the marquee here is a flag that I’ve brought to every Palestine protests in the last six months. It’s a flag that’s been out here at Ferra, it’s been to the rallies in the city, and at Jim Chalmers office, it’s been two rallies in the Gulf Coast and Byron Bay, and I take that flag, I take that flag because what’s happening in Palestine right now is just, you know, a different version of what happened to my people here on this continent. It is occupation it is apartheid it is genocide. And the Palestinians they have a right to resist that, they have a legal right and they have a moral right to resist that. You know, whether that’s civilly you know, armed … and they have that right, that is a right that is not my opinion, that is something that they can legally do. Just like my people did, just like Dundalli and Penn awake and sawed off colonizers when they came onto their lands. So you know, that’s why I’ve taken that flag to every protest, but just not apartheid. Queensland had its own apartheid system. And Queensland’s apartheid system created the framework for South Africa’s apartheid. And, you know, when, when apartheid was still a thing in the 70s people all over the world protested South Africa’s apartheid. By making pickets at docks, where workers refused to learn cargo there was going to apartheid South Africa, where sports teams and were boycotted, you know, much like the culture report cuts to a scene today against Israeli artists. And in Brisbane, in Brisbane, in the 70s, the South African or what rugby team was going to play a game. And what happened, what happened first was that when I got to Australia, the baggage handlers for all the major airlines decided that they wouldn’t load their baggage on the planes. But all white South African rugby team had to catch little when he turns person, planes all over the country. And then when they got to where massive protests against the Springboks and was a part of those protests. Were what was a protest by Gary Foley and other Aboriginal activists, who was Springboks jerseys, because the white apartheid team had said that a black would never wear a Springboks jersey.
And, you know, that just shows how easily that mentality caused that in Brisbane, in Brisbane, I came to Brisbane. And the first pitch where they were going to play the game, you know, anti apartheid workers and union activists, the white knuckle workers who were building the grandstands, and the toilets, and they told them what they were building their soils for. And I told them, the workers all over the world had been, you know, taking industrial action against South Africa’s apartheid, those workers walked off. They wouldn’t build the grandstands. They wouldn’t build the toilets, for the crowd to watch the game. So I’ve got moved to what is now RNA Showgrounds.
And the workers there had to build security fences for the camps, and also build toilets for the crowd. And the Unionist went there as well. And they told the workers what would go well what was going on. And not only did those workers walk off, but before they walked off, they dismantled the toilets and all the fences that they built. And they left the cops to put up their own concrete fences and put up your own fucking toilets. And then, when the football team landed in Brisbane now saying the towel no hotel, it’s just about Roma Street. And they were inside the hotel and there were protests outside, demanding, you know that this football team denounced apartheid, denounced white supremacy and denounced racism Islam and stop being a part of the propaganda of South Africa and what cops did. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been to the tower mill, but there’s a there’s a windmill on top of a massive Hill, a massive slope of Roma Street, the cops have beat them down that hill, that beacon down that hill by Chase, Peter Beattie into trades Hall. And you have to be protected by the union bureaucracy the worked in that my grandfather was there that night when they chase protesters down the hill, and beat them with batons.
So for a long time, Aboriginal people have stood with, you know, the international fight against apartheid. It was Aboriginal trade unionists, Uncle Bob Anderson, who was part of the grip of genius, the winner, and so all the sites and told workers what was going on and told them they should walk off. I know that my grandfather, if he was here today, would have not been appalled at what Israel is doing in Gaza. I know that Uncle Bob Anderson is appalled because I work with him now. Every now and then. And, you know, I started a few months ago, and he was telling me about how he met Yasser Arafat. And as an Aboriginal person, he sees the Palestinian cause as one in the same as the Aboriginal cause it’s fight for land rights. It’s a fight for the self determination to fight for life because the IDF kills Palestinians and get away with it.
And you know, Australia’s state and federal police kill Aboriginal people and get away with it. There have been over 500 deaths in custody, Aboriginal people who’ve been killed by police and prison guards. And there’s not been one, one conviction that has made it through that was one cop convicted Zachary Rolfe in the Northern Territory, and he was acquitted. He was acquitted. It’s disgusting. And so when, when we chant now for ceasefire, you know, that’s not just the 2024 chant that Ken has existed since 2021, off the crewmen, job worker was killed, and that community wanted there to be no more police guns in that community. But ceasefire, of course, is just the start. We want to land, we want our freedom, our freedom to, you know, govern ourselves and make our own decisions about what happens on our land and to our people.
And, you know, we also recognize, I said this morning for anyone who is here that it’s a late struggle, not just by the nature of it, but Australia supports Israel and Israel support Australia, and colonial nations all over the world support each other and hold each other up. You seen that it is possible for countries to sanction Israel and the best from Israel. I like Denmark has done like Ireland has done. So there’s no reason that Australia can’t do it, they just don’t want to, because it serves them to support Israel because Israel supports them. So, so that’s why I guess it’s very important in the last time that we were here, Provigil, some, some races kind of sold a bunch of Palestinian flags, and then like, refused to return them. And like, even he’s like shaking next to his car, like yelling at him, and you just refuse to return these flags. But I’m glad that I kept that Aboriginal flag, because now I want to send it with this friend to Istanbul, to get to Syria, he wants to fly it on one of the eight ships going to Gaza. And I just thought that it would be nice. If anyone wants to write a message on the flag on the red part, I’ve got a pan over here. You know, this, this struggle is, is more close to home. And when we then we realized, I think we realized that when an Australian aid worker for the world central kitchen was killed. And there’s been no consequences for that. And, you know, all we’ve got out of our political you know, leaders, so called leaders is just the most pathetic weasel words. You know, I think that this flag will come back and we’ll have a really great story and it’ll be proof of how connected we are and how connected we can be, and how we can have an impact on the other side of the world coming up, bringing stuff over,
we gotta leave out the stuff again without watching out box here.
So I’m gonna take it down. I just want to thank you all for coming out today again. You know, when I got out of fires, and I was like, the second person here, I was like, a bit watery. Of course, I don’t really see, like, within like, 20 minutes, there’s like, 50 people here. And that’s, that’s so it’s so good. It’s so good. And, you know, we, we have to remember that we are part of a struggle As much longer South African apartheid fell, you know, Queensland’s apartheid fell. There is regimes all across the world that have risen and fallen and the genocidal apartheid occupying regime of Israel will fall. It’s not a matter of if it’s a matter of when it will fall. And no, we will be like, like those elders from my community, my grandfather and uncle Bob will be able to tell our kids the stories of how we fought against apartheid and genocide and occupation. I think that that’s something that we should all be proud of, and something that we should continue to strive for and, you know, a future where we can tell our kids how we helped bring down one of the most brutal occupations of our lifetimes.
Thank you very much.
Shutdown Ferra organised a blockade of Ferra Engineering on April 15 as the latest action in a campaign to close the military engineering firm that supplies genocidal Israel.
The action was part of the A15 global series of actions designed to disrupt business as usual for Israel and regimes, like Australia, that support it.
The action succeeded in blocking all deliveries in and out of the weapons factory and disrupted the day’s work.
We acknowledge that this video was produced on stolen Aboriginal land. We express solidarity with ongoing struggles for justice for First Nations people and pay our respects to Elders past and present.