Antinuclear

White Australia urged to join Aboriginal fightback

Uranium, gold, oil, iron ore — these are the reasons why Aboriginal people are being humiliated…..And a lot of money is to be made in contracts for the dumping of foreign toxic waste in the Northern Territory………
If we had a free media in Australia, this would be exposed.

“Support NT Indigenous fightback.” Togs’s Place.Com.: John Pilger:, 7 May 2010, We are celebrating once more the resolve and courage and political determination, and imagination, of a group of Indigenous Australians.For just as Vincent Lingiari and his Gurindji comrades made their stand in the ’60s and ’70s, touring the country, forcing justice and land rights into the public consciousness and on to the political agenda, so Downs and his comrades are breaking a long and lethal silence that Canberra and the media have sought to inflict on the human rights and land rights of Indigenous Australia…………
What Downs and the Alyawarr people are saying is that they will not meet with Indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin or Prime Minister Kevin Rudd until the government abolishes the intervention and fully restores the Racial Discrimination Act.

In other words, they’re on strike — like the Gurindji — and the aim of tonight’s meeting is to call on all Australians to walk off with them: to stand with them……
The indigenous struggle all over the world is gaining ground, and many people in other countries are now looking past picture postcard Australia at the injustice imposed on the most enduring human society on Earth, the First Australians…..

I believe this walk-off — and the great coming-together planned for Alice Springs in July — can be a turning point. By taking direct action and shutting out involvement with the federal government until it ends the intervention, Aboriginal people are taking control over their lives.

For what this walk-off and tonight are setting out to achieve is an Australia where Indigenous people are no longer spoken for by those seduced by authority: the kind who are given space in the Murdoch media, telling the white elite what it wants to hear.

What this call-out is setting out to achieve is an Australia where Aboriginal people are no longer spoken down to, no longer depicted in paternalistic stunts like that staged by the billionaires Andrew Forrest and James Packer at the Opera House the other day, with Macklin and rich celebrities feigning concern for the poor native folk……….
believe this historic initiative by Downs and his comrades addresses all these issues as well as revealing the so-called intervention as an old-fashioned colonial land grab.
Every government since Bob Hawke has tried to claw back the land rights that were won in the Northern Territory. It’s now happening by stealth and it’s happening quickly. In 2006, there were 180 licences for the exploration of minerals on Aboriginal land. By 2009, this had leapt to 400 licences.

Uranium, gold, oil, iron ore — these are the reasons why Aboriginal people are being humiliated in supermarkets with their Basics Cards. This travesty of welfare manipulation is costing the federal government $351 million just to administer. That’s a lot of money, isn’t it?

And a lot of money is to be made in contracts for the dumping of foreign toxic waste in the Northern Territory………
If we had a free media in Australia, this would be exposed. And I take this opportunity to call on my fellow journalists to examine their consciences and to report the truth about what this intervention really means…..
The so-called special measures that control and restrict Aboriginal welfare are there to make it look as if the government is not discriminating, and they will apply eventually to the rest of the population.

Thousands of non-Indigenous people blighted by unemployment and homelessness will be quarantined and controlled; and I urge white Australia not only to listen to Richard Downs and his comrades but to support their action, because it concerns all of us.

Togs’s Place.Com.: John Pilger: “Support NT Indigenous fightback.”

May 7, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL | aboriginal, antinuclear, Australia, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radiation, radioactive