Antinuclear

Images of Manuwangku – a community fights against nuclear waste dumping

The words of Dr Nelson that the place constitutes ”the middle of nowhere” echo the old doctrine of terra nullius. If land is bare, then it is open. The land was not bare at Captain Cook’s discovery of Australia, it was not bare at the start of British colonisation, and it isn’t bare now.

Photographer Jagath Dheerasekara reminds us of this in a recent exhibition at Customs House in Sydney, curated by Sandy Edwards.

A community maintains its spirit in confronting ignorance, SMH, Erin Stewart May 31, 2012
Images of Manuwangku show the human face of the waste dump plan. IN 2005, then education minister Dr Brendan Nelson told Australians there would be no harm in putting a nuclear waste plant ”in the middle of nowhere”.

In 2007, the exact ”middle of nowhere” was identified as Muckaty, or Manuwangku, as the Aboriginal owners of this remote Northern Territory community call it. Despite local fear, dismay, and rejection of the proposal to dump nuclear waste there, the battle is ongoing. The residents fear for the future.

This Sunday it will be 20 years since the High Court’s landmark Mabo decision, which led to the passing of the Native Title Act. Moreover, Article 29 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples holds that ”no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous
peoples without their free, prior and informed consent”.

A Federal Court case continues over whether adequate consultation was conducted by the Northern Land Council prior to nominating the site. Regardless of common law, statute and international law that protects indigenous land rights, Manuwangku is still under threat.
The words of Dr Nelson that the place constitutes ”the middle of nowhere” echo the old doctrine of terra nullius. If land is bare, then it is open. The land was not bare at Captain Cook’s discovery of Australia, it was not bare at the start of British colonisation, and it isn’t bare now.
Photographer Jagath Dheerasekara reminds us of this in a recent exhibition at Customs House in Sydney, curated by Sandy Edwards.
Dheerasekara’s images depict deep blue skies, vivid red desert sand,
thriving shrubs, the colours of paint and rust. It may be ”the middle
of nowhere”, but Dheerasekara shows a community very much alive.
The tragedy of their situation is the threat of a nuclear dumping site
injecting a sense of precariousness within the community. The
collection features quotations from the people of Muckaty: ”We are
worried our grandchildren might get sick”, says Belinda Manfony. ”We
don’t want it, it’s not our spirit”, offers Dianne Stokes Nampin…..
disadvantage renders Manuwangku particularly vulnerable: a waste dump
in exchange for cash, improved services, education and infrastructure
can be tantalising. Such basic services ought to be available to all
Australians regardless of whether or not their home is a dumping
ground for nuclear waste.
The National Radioactive Waste Management Bill passed through both
houses of Parliament in March this year. It preserves Manuwangku as
the site of potential dumping of low to intermediate level waste.
In addition to the Federal Court proceedings brought by the
traditional land owners, the community has appealed to the
Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, asking her to refrain from giving the
bill her royal assent.
For many Aboriginal people, land has particular cultural and spiritual
significance. Marlene Bennett Nungarrayi’s comment on the proposal is
part of the exhibition, ”Once they put that thing there in the ground
and bury that, it stays there for hundreds, possibly thousands of
years. It gets into water systems, it starts poisoning the country.
And that’s breaking down land, law, culture, your spirit, your songs,
your dreaming. It’d be wiped out. It’d be nothing.”
The community may be small, but it is connected. Dheerasekara depicts
the close relationships with photos of three women protesting next to
a giant inflatable waste barrel; children playing on a bright yellow,
rusted truck; men playing pool. Far from being nowhere, Muckaty is a
place where people create and renew relationships.
There is so much at stake here. There is land, home, community. There
are also human rights and connectivity. Twenty years after Mabo, and
hundreds of years since the colonisation of Australia, acts to
dislocate people from their land and inflict trauma upon them are
still being repeated. : http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/a-community-maintains-its-spirit-in-confronting-ignorance-20120530-1zjbj.html#ixzz1wbQ4vvso.

June 1, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, Northern Territory