Antinuclear

The primary documents in Australian Aboriginals’ fight to keep their land

50 YEARS ON, YIRRKALA CELEBRATES BARK PETITIONS THAT SPARKED INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS MOVEMENT Yahoo 7 News, 11 July 13,  The remote community of Yirrkala in East Arnhem Land is celebrating 50 years since the signing of the historic bark
petitions that paved the way for the Indigenous land rights movement……… Local NAIDOC week coordinator Rosealee Pearson says what
the leaders achieved at a time before Indigenous Australians were even counted on the national census cannot be overstated.

“It’s pretty astounding that a group of people who weren’t even counted as human beings decided to do that,” she said.
“It’s because of them and the fight they fought that I exist as a person.”

The ochre-framed bark petitions were adorned with the clan designs of all that was threatened by mining – from the snakes to the sand dunes. They were first traditional documents to be recognised by the Australian Parliament.

Ms Pearson says the combination of traditional and modern forms of communication helped bridge a gap between the two cultures at the time. The petitions were created in 1963 to protest against the Federal Government’s removal of 300 square kilometres of land from the Arnhem Land reserve so that bauxite found there could be mined…… Despite not achieving the constitutional change sought, the petitions were the spark which lit the flame for the eventual recognition of Indigenous rights in Commonwealth law.

Less than five years later, a referendum was held and the Australian
Constitution amended to count Indigenous Australians in the national census.

Less than a decade after that, the Northern Territory Aboriginal Land Rights
Act was passed…….
http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/article/17938240/50-years-on-yirrkala-celebrates-bark-petitions-that-sparked-indigenous-land-rights-movement/

July 12, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, history