°*%#+!!!!
The legislation just passed tonight. I’m so angry I could spit. “Aborigines lose welfare appeal right” | “Indigenous plan ‘won’t protect children’” | More reports. |
And this - “A Labor source says caucus resolved this morning to push for the removal of clauses exempting it [the laws] from the Racial Discrimination Act. Instead, Labor wants the bill to clarify that it’d qualify as ’special measures’ under the Racial Discrimination Act, meaning it’d be allowed as positive discrimination” (emphasis added). The ALP, of course, supported the legislation.
But, what? Say that again? They want the declaration of zones of exception - immunologically referred to as “affected areas” - defined as “positive discrimination”?!
For those not familiar with the abhorrent detail of the Australian Constitution: “Meanwhile, a retired federal court judge said the legislation was constitutionally valid but ‘extremely discriminatory’.” Yes, its constitutionality is based on section 51(xxvi) of the Australian Constitution, the ‘race power’.
Then again, in a country where the following passed late last year without jaw-dropping horror, anything is possible: “The federal House of Representatives has passed legislation to allow Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory to be used for a radioactive waste dump. The Government says the Bill will allow Indigenous groups to offer their land for use, but have it handed back when the land is no longer needed.”
Make no mistake, no confusion or distraction: it’s all about the land, (uranium) mining and toxic waste dumps …
On the 7:30 report last night Kerrie asked Howard if the legislation, specfically the removal of centrelink appeal rights, was discriminatory. Howards ‘response’ to the question was that it was not discriminatory because it was in the interest of aboriginal people. This kind of floppy response is usually enough to anger one - what makes it worse is that it seems to be not that far from current thinking. Interest, of course, is what is asserted, because it is obvious, by the government of the day and I suppose if this interest is not in line with the opinion of those affected it is because they are either insane, child-abusers or black (which is increasingly seen to imply the former two conditions).
kernal.corn [August 8, 2007 @ 9:57 am]
Here all, just on this point…
“it’s all about the land, (uranium) mining and toxic waste dumps”
while i agree with the above i have been wondering if a possible supplement is that the attempt to drive indigenous people of the land and into cities, presumably for the lowest rungs of employment, is just one of many attempts by the government to push as many people as possible into looking for work in an attempt to hold down wages growth in a period of economic boom? Its only a hypothesis….
rebel love
dave
grumpy cat [August 8, 2007 @ 11:59 am]
Yes and yes.
Three days ago (and when I wasn’t spluttering quite so much), this is the way I put it in a draft article: ‘recent moves to completely dislodge those indigenous peoples from lands that they are not deemed to be using ‘productively’ (for tourism, through contracts with mining companies and so on).’
So, the two are intertwined - but the relation between the movements of people and wage levels is quite complex: I doubt that someone moving from central AU to Darwin will impact upon, say, the wage levels of computer technicians. More likely those who are slowly dying will ‘disappear’ into urban areas.
Here’s some more from that draft, which is part of this:
After persistent campaigns for indigenous land rights that reached a high-point in the 1980s, in 1992 the High Court effectively voided the principle of terra nullius – ‘empty land’ – which had served as the legal condition of expropriation and colonisation. Promptly following this judgement, successive Labor and Liberal-National governments elaborated a series of so-called Native Title laws that placed increasingly difficult and complex restrictions on which lands could be re-claimed by indigenous people and under what conditions. Such laws, as was the case with wider multicultural policies whose object was the integration and representation of non-Anglo-Celtic communities, the very sense of who was represented and recognised as part of discrete ‘ethnicities’ and ‘communities’ became a matter that turned both around inclusion and exclusion, precipitating often bitter and sometimes violent contests for representation and its bureaucratic and/or largely minor fiscal benefits. To put this another way: the really-existing consequence of multiculturalism was the ‘internalisation’ of conflict in the form of disputes over authenticity, identity and its borders.
Even so, the enactment of Native Title laws was widely hailed as an accomplishment of liberalism, a sign of beneficience and national maturity. But it would also serve to situate questions about indigenous life – and the persistence of slow death in the form of the well-known diseases and blights of destitution – as questions internal to indigenous ‘culture’, as dysfunction and pathology arising from an inherent failure by indigenous peoples to integrate, modernise, and ‘move on’. In “Disappointing Indigenous People: Violence and the Refusal of Help”, Gillian Cowlishaw puts it this way:
Indeed, the traumatic encounter by liberals with those who seemed to refuse the ministrations of the ‘helping professions’ would become the righteous bridge that would shift many to clamour for punitive and, at times, paramilitary measures. Most notably, the Australian Medical Association called for military intervention to stem gang violence, and the head of the Northern Territory branch of the Australian Medical Association wrote to the Prime Minister declaring that indigenous people were “culturally incapable of managing health services”.
And so, in mid-2007 – and the affective landscape of an impending election, in which authoritarian sovereign gestures have long served as leverage in Australian politics, cannot be understated – the Australian government declared a ‘national emergency’ on the pretext of an anecdotal ‘epidemic’ of child sexual abuse in remote indigenous communities. The emergency and the exceptions it elaborated were both juridical – insofar as the measures it elaborated suspended the normal functioning of the law – and depoliticising. One cannot deny the necessity and urgency of ‘doing something, anything’ – but, in reality, ‘doing this’ that the government has announced – to stop children being abused without risking moral and unquestionable rebuke. Therefore, questions about the specific measures enacted – including whether they might have any bearing or impact on child sexual abuse – have been constantly shadowed by accusations of denying the existence of abuse or, worse, excusing it on grounds of ‘cultural relativism’.
In other words, that indigenous peoples were more liable to sexually abuse children had already been established as fact, just as in 2001 government reports – since falsified – that undocumented boat arrivals had thrown their children in the water was similarly widely believed, and denounced as the abhorrent pretext for even harsher border policing. Here, racialisation steps in as a priori determination of the guilt of others and, thereofore, as the justification of every possible measure against them, not least those which liberalism regards as exceptional to it. To put this another way: liberals of both Left and Right can persuade themselves that they are obliged to resort to punitive or draconian measures because of the actions of others, an alterity so repellent that there is simply no choice but to suspend one’s own cherished precepts (of trial as the condition of assigning guilt, of the separation of powers, of the distinction between civil and military spaces, and so on) where these others are concerned. ‘They’ made ‘us’ do it by – and by being far too ‘they’ in the first place.
The particular measures of this ‘national emergency’ pronounce Victorian-era, protectionist understandings of sex, prostitution, children, disease and welfare directed toward accomplishing what over 200 years of colonisation has thus far failed to do. Under this ‘national emergency’, alcohol and x-rated pornography is to be banned, the permit system which restricts those who can enter communal lands will be abolished, conditions are to be placed on welfare payments (such as school attendance in areas which have teacher shortages or there are, literally, no schools), and communal title will be suspended through government seizure of land. At the time of writing, the Government announced it would also abolish the Community Development Employment Programme on the grounds that income from it went to buying alcohol. This means that some 7,000 people, who currently do low-paid work keeping stores open and removing rubbish, will be declared unemployed and expected to fulfill job search criteria, including perhaps having to move to areas where there is less unemployment. There is much, almost too much, that could be said about the derangement of liberalism that sees greater levels of impoverishment and suffering righteously tendered as the solution to already-unbearable levels of impoverishment and suffering.
But it remains to be noted that such delirium is occurring in the midst of the largest mining boom for decades, including an imminent expansion in uranium mining, and that many of these measures will undoubtedly produce significant movements of populations, whether as the effect of job-seeking conditions, to areas where it is legal to drink alcohol, or to places where welfare conditions regarding school attendance might be fulfilled.
s0metim3s [August 8, 2007 @ 12:44 pm]
Hello Ang,
i have an unrelated question. Im looking for analysis of organising forms at the Woomera 2002 ‘breakout’. Jolly recently asserted that “Anyone who was at woomera knows that the spokes council and affinity groups failed, the question has been answered” or something like that and I could only shake my head and splutter in indignation because my memory is like a sieve. Sorry to ask such mundane questions…if you can point me in a useful direction I’d appreciate it. We are putting some DA training together and everyone is so young they can’t blame dodgy memory when issues like these are raised- they were in high school.
x
cp
Carol [August 12, 2007 @ 10:45 am]
Hey C,
There’s the Desert Storm Reader, but I’m not sure if it addresses your question - Rosenthal had an article in there critical of affinity groups, but he’d written pretty much the same thing in another piece after the anti-WEF protests, and I recall being amazed at how divorced his approach to how one struggles was from what one is struggling against/for. (I’d say that the question of affinity groups isn’t at all unrelated to some of the discussion about multiculturalism in the above.) There are other articles there which take a very different, better view - one by Ben Hoh, I think (likely based on this).
Anyway, my recollection of Jolly at Woomera was of him giving interviews to the media about how terrible it was that the detention centre was subcontracted to a private, foreign company - I don’t recall him ever insisting that the camps be closed down. Which is another way of saying that, had there been no affinity group structure, it’s unlikely he would have been allowed to put forward the peculiar national socialist position of his affinity group. Or do this: “Socialist Party president Stephen Jolly, who was at Woomera, says a small group of protesters spent five hours trying to talk the detainees out of running away” - via.
Indeed, most of the post-woomera debates were about whether those outside the camps should have stopped the escapes, handed them back, or had provoked the escapes by their presence. I guess that relates to the question of affinity groups insofar as it’s a question of whether detainees are seen as having (or should have) any capacity to decide for themselves. (Ideologies of control/sovereignty don’t seem to be interrupted by the fact that there’d been many escapes before and after, without the presence of so-called activists/citizens.)
Though it is true to say that there was debate about affinity groups post-Woomera, much like post-WEF, it didn’t constitute a ‘turning-point’ in the debate against them. The same people who argued for and against affinity groups before Woomera did so after. If there was anything new about the post-Woomera debates that relates to this, it was about what effect representational politics has on situations where there is a need for, well, discretion. Some on that here. You might recall how a couple of escapees were paraded out to the media by a certain fool, only to have them subjected once again to biometric testing in the form of voice-analyses and questions of whether they were legitimate refugees. There was also a lot of effort by some trotskyist parties in Melbourne - less than a day after those from Woomera returned and were catching up on sleep - to publicly present a ‘leadership’ and take credit for the events, at a film screening at Trades Hall. But I don’t think this was particularly effective, though I suspect a lot of thought went into how they might negate the widespread association of the protests with the politics of affinity groups.
The actual ‘turn away’ from affinity groups came a bit later, with the anti-war campaigns and the heightened presence/dominance of mainstream political parties and unions (some on that here) - and the employment of a number of people involved in Woomera by those organisations, among other things. Not so much a turn, certainly not one accompanied by any real debate. More a buying up of a few individuals who’d already displayed a penchant for speaking to the media, and the apparent self-evidence of assumptions about organisational forms among the unions/parties who made up the anti-war coalition groups.
So, there was no (as Jolly intimates) Historical Lesson on the Failure of Affinity Groups and the Importance of the Leninist Party. But I reckon he would ‘discover’ this Historical Lesson no matter what.
One more thing though: it would have been impossible to have had the protest camp so near the gates of Woomera without the decentralised structure. This you likely remember, yes? (Or not - I just remembered that you got there the day after police had failed to negotiate an agreement that people stay in the disused football field some 2kms or so away, because they couldn’t find anyone to make the deal with one everyone’s behalf.)
s0metim3s [August 12, 2007 @ 12:03 pm]
Hello all,
People might be interested in thoughts on the invasion at theoryoftheoffensive
As for the Woomera stuff - I too have been trying to track down the archived material. I found it interesting that the idea that “we” broke the detainees out is the basis for the fictional “Australian Underground” in Andrew McGahan’s latest: “Underground”.
And of course you’re correct - if we’d actually had either the inclination or skill for that level of organisation/co-ordination, we’d have been much more easily controlled by both red and blue police….
Liz [August 12, 2007 @ 9:15 pm]
Oh, and reading back over that article, this remark: “photo ops with escapees who had little say in the matter”, was a reference to Jolly, who grabbed one of the kids who’d just escaped, and held onto him like a prop while he made a statement to the media, cameras rolling. I’m not sure that took a high degree of skill so much as single-minded opportunism.
Btw, is it too late to persuade both of you, who are trawling around the archives, to not go where I think you’re going? Or has the latest version of the invasion given new (or meaningful) life to those impending protests?
PS on Andrew McGahan’s latest, from a review: “The Australian Underground is a nation-wide organisation made up of people from all walks of life who have one thing in common … they miss the old free Australia and want it back.” Puke.
s0metim3s [August 12, 2007 @ 10:32 pm]
Yeah - pretty much.
Did you know that the day George Bush is now arriving in Sydney (4th Sept.) is the 30th anniversary of the decision of Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Cabinet to ban street marches?
I’ve got a thing for anniversaries.
Yes - I think there is a strong desire to do something, something that is not controlled by the idiots in the Stop the War coalition, something that will at least indicate that we don’t want to be intimidated, even though we really are. The invasion I think gives everyone a sense of urgency about doing something, anything even….
I think I just don’t like the idea of being scared out of doing stuff. So I’m going. And when I get my head kicked in, I expect you to tell me that you told me so. I certainly would…
I did see something odd in the Age the other day about “Indigenous leaders joining APEC protests” or something similar. Reading the article, there was nothing in it to indicate that this was actually going to happen, just that there was going to be an attempt to make use of “international media coverage”. And then there was a report from some activist types of some indigenous crew in Alice being raided by cops, apparently APEC-related. But it seems that everyone is too scared to even do basic things like pass on information such as this, so I actually can’t tell you any more. Am trying to find out myself.
Yes - Underground is pretty revolting in all those ways. Though the citizenship test involving Don Bradman’s birthday was, I thought, nice touch.
Liz [August 12, 2007 @ 11:01 pm]
Muriel Bamblett, writing in the Age today on the laws.
s0metim3s [August 13, 2007 @ 11:38 am]
Right now a standing committee has presented to the House of Reps called:
:Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs—Standing Committee—Indigenous Australians at work: Successful initiatives in Indigenous employment. Yes - I listen to Parliament on radio sometimes….
Warren Snowdon (ALP - NT has presented a dissenting report. I don’t know what this hearing is, but it sounds like it is seperate to the invasion-related Senate Inquiry, and has been going on for some time (3 years?)
Snowdon talked about the 8,000 people now sacked cos of the abolition of CDEP. There was no debate on it, but there were some interesting snippets talking about labour force participation and business recognising the ‘opportunities’ presented to deal with labour force shortage through indigenous employment.
Liz [August 13, 2007 @ 1:09 pm]
Wow! Now they’re talking about the need to increase indigneous employment in the Intelligence and Security services, as part of another Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security ….!?… (there are not words, only symbols of confusion and horror….)
I’m going to stop listening now.
Liz [August 13, 2007 @ 1:12 pm]
~/woomera.php
dr.woooo [August 14, 2007 @ 1:24 pm]
Um, those links listed there haven’t worked for (as far as I know) over a year now. I’m not sure if the content is recoverable, or if anyone from indymedia knows where it might be. Maybe you could chase it up, doc?
s0metim3s [August 14, 2007 @ 1:48 pm]
Is this the one you mean?
http://www.antimedia.net/desertstorm/intro.shtml
ana [August 14, 2007 @ 2:28 pm]
That’s some of them (which were recompiled later) - but most of the links from the actual indymedia Woomera2002 archive aren’t working. Some of them were replicated here at the time, but not many.
The woomera2002.com site has, btw, been archived here, at the National Library.
s0metim3s [August 14, 2007 @ 2:55 pm]
Holly did some very relevant interviews and recordings while in the recently: some are here under ‘Northern Territory Intervention: Quotes and Recordings’ and she says more will be put up very soon.
benjamin rosenzweig [August 14, 2007 @ 4:30 pm]
welcome to pine ridge south dakota.
madame l. [August 14, 2007 @ 5:03 pm]
havent got much access and havent got an email for shane anymore. someone could try takver. his email and site are not hard to find for those with time.
dr.woooo [August 15, 2007 @ 10:12 am]
Apparently a couple of people have a copy of the Indymedia Woomera archive saved on their hard-drives. More info when I hear back.
az [August 15, 2007 @ 11:22 pm]
also email and[AT]axxs.org perhaps ( altho he was not in the collective for some time ) - i dont have email access from here.
v
dr.woooo [August 16, 2007 @ 9:58 am]
Just in case the above discussion seemed incoherent:
More.
s0metim3s [August 17, 2007 @ 1:54 pm]
quite a lot of the woomera posts from melb indymedia can be found through the internet archive. see:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://melbourne.indymedia.org/woomera.php
the earlier dates have more active links i think.
rebelrebel [August 24, 2007 @ 10:45 pm]
Hey thanks.
s0metim3s [August 24, 2007 @ 11:00 pm]