By Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassy and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic - London, 15 October 2016 - During our London-based International Consultative Preparatory Forum (ICPF) on Decolonisation and Reparations I was invited to an interview on BBC WORLD NEWS LIVE TV in order to open up the international debate on First Nations sovereignty. The London broadcast reached 200 countries worldwide on 14 October 2016, during Black History month.
[ https://youtu.be/Wm-AT7KBoB8 and https://vimeo.com/187465324 ]
The co-incidences of history can be very telling. After arriving in London on 5 October 2016, I watched former Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, on British TV boasting to Britain how under his and John Howard's leadership they 'stopped the boats'. He was suggesting that England after BREXIT should adopt Australia's policy and methodology, if Britain is successfully to ward off 'illegal' immigration and human trafficking.
But Tony Abbott misses the point of the historical realities. Ordinary British civilians are seeking to prosecute the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair over his conspiring acts with former US President George W Bush for going to war against Iraq and thereby causing the unnecessary death of many hundreds of British and American soldiers.
John Howard's complicit acts of support are also being talked up as he being one of the conspirators, because Australian troops made up the military units that attacked and destroyed Iraq.
The Chilcott Report concluded that there was insufficient evidence to justify invading Iraq. The Report also condemned the fact that there were no effective post war reconstruction plans in place after the war that destroyed Iraq. The country has been left in total devastation in terms of the economic and humanitarian realities.
The question is now: What is all this to do with us back home?
As First Nations peoples we understand the damage and legacies associated with genocide and mass murder, along with the almost total destruction of societal norms, economies and local governance through our own laws and customs.
Hitler was said to be an absolute tyrant for promoting the dominance of the Aryan race against all other peoples, but there was little difference in Australia.
In 1901 the first Prime Minister of Australia, Edmund Barton MP, with the approval Professor Charles Pearson quoted at length:
The fear of Chinese immigration which the Australian democracy cherishes … is, in fact, the instinct of self-preservation, quickened by experience … We are guarding the last part of the world in which the higher races can live and increase freely, for the higher civilisation … The day will come … when the European observers will look around the globe girdled with a continuous zone of the yellow and black races. It is idle to say that if all this should come to pass our pride and place will not be humiliated. We are struggling among ourselves for supremacy in a world which we thought of as destined to belong to the Aryan race; and to the Christian faith; to the letters and arts and charms which we have inherited from the best of times.
[Pearson, Charles H. 1893, National life and character: a forecast, Macmillan, London.]
Sir Robert Menzies, a leader of the Liberal party and Howard's and Abbott's political idol, said on his 1938 return from Munich, having met senior members of the Third Reich hierarchy, words to the effect that he was in support of David Lloyd George MP in England, who said he was not afraid
of Hitler; he admired him. This was one of the reasons why Menzies found him [Hitler] intriguing. Lloyd George had once said that Hitler was a ‘great leader’ and he shared the view that Menzies himself had formed on his visit to Germany in 1938. Menzies went further when he proposed adopting Hitler’s policies. [Williamson, K. 1984, The Last Bastion, Lansdowne, Sydney, p. 86.]
Abbott is also aware that his idol, Menzies, also promoted the idea of accepting some of the Third Reich’s policies into the Australian polity. I now express concern about the role and function of Tony Abbott's new position as a director to a London-based organisation promoting Western values
and Abbott’s promotion of xenophobia amongst countries with western values. This action by Tony Abbott is a return to the 1930s Third Reich ideologies.
I also have serious concerns about Warren Mundine's continued blind support for Tony Abbott when Mundine recently said to the Australian media, during a Fox News diplomatic news commentary, that Tony Abbott is the most supportive and strongest advocate for First Nations peoples in Australia. Clearly, Warren Mundine needs a lesson in the English language so as to understand word definitions and the reality behind them. Additionally, Mundine's lack of historical knowledge, association brings about his ineffective advocacy, because he fails to understand what has really happened in this country and which continues to this day.
The courts in this country call us subjects of the monarchy. Being a subject does not give us citizenship. We are peoples whose lands are now occupied by a foreign power and they have created a regime of subjugation, through protectionism of an alien race.
Warren Mundine and his cohorts, like Pearson and Langton, need lessons in history and political manoeuvring. If they understood this, then they may be able to accept that Australia is very clever at disguise and subterfuge. The Australian government is clever at giving a false impression that the Commonwealth is looking after the interests and welfare of First Nations peoples by their campaign of 'Closing the Gap', but the real hidden active agenda is assimilation.
The fact that Tony Abbott took up the director position in London raises the red flag for all First Nations peoples of Australia. In this regard, I return to the Samuel Griffith Society of Constitutional lawyers’ advice to John Howard when his government was preparing the Ten Point Plan amendments to the Native Title Act in 1998. Dr Stephen Davis advised:
The issue of domestic sovereignty is set to dominate future international discussions of indigenous rights, and decisions made by the United Nations, together with precedents in other countries, could potentially change the map of this country. Land rights and native title in Australia are examples of a very dynamic debate which is open-ended, and which can be simply linked to international conventions and trends to develop a credible basis for a range of outcomes with far reaching and irreversible consequences.
Australians tend to take their sovereignty for granted. That sovereignty is now being contested. We must become more aware of the issues, the players and be prepared to defend our sovereignty if we are to maintain it.
[Davis, Stephen 1998, Native Title; A Path to Sovereignty, http://samuelgriffith.org.au/docs/vol9/v9chap11 ]
Clearly, Tony Abbott has heeded this warning and understands the true implications of First Nations’ assertion of sovereignty. He has now accepted the challenge to fight First Nations sovereign ambitions through an international campaign of like-minded westerners. In addition to this extreme concern, there is another factor that Tony Abbott has taken on as a personal campaign and that is his understanding of other advice given by Dr Davis which warned John Howard that:
A case is likely to be constructed by Aboriginal people, on the basis of sovereignty, to test the Crown ownership of minerals. If a case for sovereignty is successful, then there may be latitude for a claim for compensation in respect of at least the royal minerals (Gold and Silver), or royalty payable to indigenous groups for royal mineral extracted, both past and future. If Crown ownership of minerals is affirmed in the amendments [to the Native Title
Act 1993] then there may well be a case for compensation mounted by indigenous groups.
The States are wary of this possibility and have subsequently encouraged the Federal Government to avoid any affirmation of crown ownership.
[Davis, Stephen 1998, Native Title; A Path to Sovereignty, http://samuelgriffith.org.au/docs/vol9/v9chap11 ]
This concern stems from the 1992 Mabo (No. 2) High Court judgment where it was held that the Crown gained a radical title. The High Court goes on to hold that, in law, Australia did not gain beneficial radical title:
49. … It is not surprising that the fiction that land granted by the Crown had been beneficially owned by the Crown was translated to the colonies and that Crown grants should be seen as the foundation of the doctrine of tenure which is an essential principle of our land law. It is far too late in the day to contemplate an allodial or other system of land ownership. Land in Australia which has been granted by the Crown is held on a tenure of some kind and the titles acquired under the accepted land law cannot be disturbed.
…
51. By attributing to the Crown a radical title to all land within a territory over which the Crown has assumed sovereignty, the common law enabled the Crown, in exercise of its sovereign power, to grant an interest in land to be held of the Crown or to acquire land for the Crown's demesne. [added emphasis]
The question all First Nations peoples must ask here is: What in the world are they talking about, particularly when we read what the High Court said about acquiring land? So the question we must have clarified is: If the Crown assumed it held radical title and the power to create land grants, who in the world would they be acquiring land from if there were no other owners?
It is my argument that this question is the reason why lawyers support Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs) because they can only make past land laws legal once our people are asked to surrender all claims now and in the future to their sovereign inheritance to their lands. This action by way of ILUAs I argue is their way of formally acquiring land from our peoples for nothing through an immoral act by lies and deceit.
The 1992 Mabo (No. 2) High Court judgment continues at paragraph 51:
51. …The notion of radical title enabled the Crown to become Paramount Lord of all who hold a tenure granted by the Crown and to become absolute beneficial owner of unalienated land required for the Crown's purposes. But it is not a corollary of the Crown's acquisition of a radical title to land in an occupied territory that the Crown acquired absolute beneficial ownership of that land to the exclusion of the indigenous inhabitants. If the land were desert and uninhabited, truly a terra nullius, the Crown would take an absolute beneficial title (an allodial title) to the land for the reason given by Stephen C.J. in Attorney-General v. Brown (95) See pp 13-14 above; (1847) 1 Legge, at pp 317-318: there would be no other proprietor. But if the land were occupied by the indigenous inhabitants and their rights and interests in the land are recognized by the common law, the radical title which is acquired with the acquisition of sovereignty cannot itself be taken to confer an absolute beneficial title to the occupied land. [added emphasis]
….
I call upon our people to get as many dictionaries as possible and learn the full meaning of the terms used above. By gaining a full understanding of what has just been quoted from the 1992 Mabo (No. 2) High Court judgment you will understand the advice given by the Samuel Griffith Society of lawyers to the invaders as quoted here. Both John Howard and Tony Abbott are very mindful of these facts and understand the political and legal gravity of the assertion of Aboriginal sovereignty by the individual First Nations.
As First Nations peoples we are entering into a deeper aspect of the ‘Cold War of Attrition'. The governments of Australia know that the Mabo (No. 2) High Court decision opened the floodgates of land tenure and sovereignty, which is why the media conducted a campaign of fear by informing the public that all the lands were now subject to Aboriginal (First Nations) claim. We can now understand why the Keating government grabbed all those so-called leaders, whom the government knew had something illegal and immoral hanging over them. This way, the government coerced them, by inference that they could be exposed for those wrong doings, if they failed to comply with the federal government’s ambitions to shut down Aboriginal (First Nations) rights under Australian common law.
The fact that I am now in London has created concern of international proportions. The uniting of descendants of former slaves with other First Nations throughout the Pacific and Canada is telling.
We are now negotiating a pathway to our liberation and the international acceptance of our pre-existing and continuing sovereignty and thereby resurrecting our ways of governance and disbanding the Westminster style of democratic governance, which is one of confrontational advocacy, while our way is one of ensuring the common well-being of all those we are responsible for, and does not include confrontational advocacy but rather respect for our leaders and consensus decision-making which is for the collective, not the individual. Currently, the system of governance is promoting the need for a middle class and a privileged section of First Nations peoples, which is in complete opposition to the collective nature of our societal norms.
Ghillar
Michael Anderson
Convenor of Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia
and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic
ghillar29@gmail.com, 0499 080 660 www.sovereignunion.mobi
Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia
Asserting Australia's First Nations Sovereignty into Governance
Defining Decolonisation (part 1)
Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia
Asserting Australia's First Nations Sovereignty into Governance
www.sovereignunion.mobi
_______________________________
MEDIA RELEASE 10 October 2016
Defining Decolonisation
Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassy and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic said from London today, on the eve of the International Consultative Preparatory Forum (ICPF) for
Decolonising: 2017 Pacific Alliance Gathering of Colonised Peoples & Sovereign Peoples Union for Global Justice through Decolonisation and Reparations:
“The Sovereign Union is now picking up the pace towards decolonisation, self-determination and independence for First Nations within Australia, while linking and forging international alliances with the shared experiences of other First Nations on and adjacent to the Pacific Rim and others who have been impacted by the scourge of colonialism. An example of ‘others’ is the descendants of slavery referred to as the international diaspora, who like the Rroma, Romany, are now stateless and without a land base of their own.
In the case of Australia we have the descendants of the Kanaka, who were enslaved by the British and foreign sugar cane companies, from which the slave owners gained enormous wealth. In the case of the ‘Italo’, Italian sugar cane cutters, who came to Australia as destitute refugees whose country had been ravaged by World War II, their arrival to Australia was timely because slavery was no longer acceptable. The ‘Italo’ workers filled the void left by the forceful deportation of hundreds of Kanaka, Chinese and other people of colour during the 1930s and 1940s. The ‘Italo’ Australians knew from their own experiences in Italy how to combine their incomes to break free from domination and dependency. They pooled their monies and ultimately became the owners of the farms they had worked on and thus became economically independent. Through this economic independence they developed influence and political power within Australia.
The move for First Nations to assert independence and the liabilities that will come in terms of self-government now need to be understood. Asserting sovereignty comes with the need to have established a process of self-government. Many First Nations, within and without Australia, have these desires, but do need to understand much more about asserting sovereignty and the methods by which a First Nation attains independence and self-determination in the modern era. We also need to understand that our invader oppressor State will defend itself by using ‘all means possible’ including their appointed judges, who must uphold the skeletal framework of the colonial regime and its power structure. This means the judges must locate and apply as many legal terminologies within the British common law system as they can to twist their arguments that permit them to defend themselves against our non-violent legal challenges. I describe below another legal doctrine of the British common law that we have not yet examined in full, so as to understand how it can be used against us.
Firstly, I feel the need to focus on something very important for many of our people in Australia and other First Nations brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.
When the original invasion occurred many of our Peoples lived on and within our homelands and waters, not realising or having any notion of the fact that someone had come with objective of laying claim to the ownership over our all of our Country, territories and waters that we all occupied. Our ancestors had no idea of the fact that these strange pale faced, white-skinned people with their strange clothing and animals, e.g. horses, were not only wandering through our lands uninvited, but were in fact exploring our Country for convenient locations to set up their own bases in the future. Our First Nations Peoples were completely oblivious to what this was all about. I am sure that had our people had any notion of what the intruders were doing at that time they would have killed them for sure.
In the case of Canada, the United States and New Zealand the First Nations had the population size to unite and fight the invaders on their borders. This might of resistance forced England and France, in the case of the USA and Canada, to negotiate Peace Pacts/settlements, which were called Treaties, even though they were only contracts, which can be and were breached, thus nullifying the terms of the whole contract. This has now been proven by the successful Supreme Court cases in the United States taken by First Nations, e.g. the Fort Laramie Treaty over the theft of gold from the Lakota –Oglala Sioux Nations of the Black Hills of Dakota.
In the cases of some North American and Canadian Treaties, the dominant occupying power set up an integrated relationship of domestic sovereignty, within the defined Indian Reserves. Some have advanced economically while others continue to be devastated by disadvantage and impoverishment, which, when analysed, comes from the fact that they continue to resist foreign domination, despite the ‘Treaty’ agreements.
In other regions of the world many First Nations Peoples have never relinquished their sovereignty over their lands and Peoples, in any shape or form, and continue to this day to argue their rights as distinctive First Nations, who have retained sovereign integrity under their own Law, cultures and customs, but have become impoverished and dependent, because of the scourge of colonialism.
Our invaders’ societies know how to run very successful campaigns against First Peoples, because the oppressors’ success is achieved through of our Peoples’ lack of understanding of the colonisers’ illegalities and dishonest ways of governing. First Peoples resist the oppressors' overtures of assimilation, while the resisters seek to maintain the integrity of their own sovereign national identity, and forge solutions for their liberation from the occupying State and its forces of oppression.
It is now time to define and identify what a movement for decolonisation and self-determination truly means. This can be best done by what has already happened successfully around the world. The following information is a descriptive narrative of decolonisation and what self-determination leads to. There are now many discourses on pathways to decolonisation but Wikipedia provides a simplified introduction. Wikipedia merely gives an insight and overview of these terminologies and I recommend to all our First Nations Peoples at home and around the world to seek legal and international definitions and pathways that will suit their own needs and experiences.
Before focusing your attention on these definitions it is important to understand that countries, such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia and many Pacific Islands remain, to a large degree extended colonial States of Britain.
In all these cases, it is said that after the second world war a process of decolonisation has successfully occurred, but that only applies to the invaders' citizenship and NOT to the native Peoples. Our native First Nation Peoples continue to be subjected to domination under oppressive political regimes, which exercise domination and force through excessive over-policing of our communities. If we were truly part of the invader society this ongoing terrorism and subjugation would not be tolerated. The silent and cold war that we are experiencing is proven when we examine the brutal statistics of incarceration; death; suicide; ill-health; under education; denial of cultural teachings; denial of maintenance of our own languages; the right to our own national identity; economic independence; and so the list goes on.
Defining decolonisation (part 2)
So we must ask ourselves: Where do we fit and what is really happening to our Peoples?
One thing is for certain our welfare dependency is not a voluntary choice by our Peoples. This was imposed and is maintained to ensure the continued marginalisation of our Peoples from the mainstream economics. In the case of Australia, when Land Rights was fought and won, and land was also returned through the native title process and land acquisition under the Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC), we now find that we cannot use this land under Australian law for our own successful economic purposes.
With this being the case, then our Sovereignty Movement is a mechanism and process, by which we can achieve our liberation, but to achieve this our Peoples must learn and understand what decolonisation and self-determination mean in practice. Moreover, it is imperative that our people get to understand what their legal and international Human Rights are and it is equally important to identify where and how the mind had been colonised and to actively decolonise one's own thinking.
Without this knowledge we are firing blanks into the night skies. Being dependent on welfare and the fear of welfare payments being taken away is to have your mind imprisoned and controlled. Our independence and our right to own our lands and to maintain sovereign ownership over our natural resources is a pathway to clearing our minds and freeing ourselves from the scourge of this deceitful and covert colonial rule.
From Wikipedia ‘decolonisation’ is described as:
Decolonization (US) or decolonisation (UK) is the undoing of colonialism, where a nation establishes and maintains its domination over dependent territories. The Oxford English Dictionary defines decolonization as "the withdrawal from its colonies of a colonial power; the acquisition of political or economic independence by such colonies."[1] The term refers particularly to the dismantlement, in the years after World War II, of the colonial empires established prior to World War I throughout the world. However, decolonization not only refers to the complete "removal of the domination of non-indigenous forces" within the geographical space and different institutions of the colonized, but it also refers to the "decolonizing of the mind" from the colonizer's ideas that made the colonized seem inferior.[2]
The United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization has stated that in the process of decolonization there is no alternative to the colonizer allowing a process of self-determination,[3] but in practice decolonization may involve either nonviolent revolution or national liberation wars by pro-independence groups. It may be intramural or involve the intervention of foreign powers acting individually or through international bodies such as the United Nations. Although examples of decolonization can be found as early as the writings of Thucydides, there have been several particularly active periods of decolonization in modern times. These include the breakup of the Spanish Empire in the 19th century; of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires following World War I; of the British, French, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Belgian and
Italian colonial empires following World War II; and of the Soviet Union (successor to the Russian Empire)[4] following the Cold War.
Defining decolonisation (part 3)
Methods and stages
Decolonization is a political process and vital internalization of the rejection of colonialist mindsets and "norms." In extreme circumstances, there is a war of independence, sometimes following a revolution. More often, there is a dynamic cycle where negotiations fail, minor disturbances ensue resulting in suppression by the police and military forces, escalating into more violent revolts that lead to further negotiations until independence is granted. In rare cases, the actions of the pro-independence movements are characterized by nonviolence, with the Indian independence movement led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi being one of the most notable examples, and the violence comes as active suppression from the occupying forces or as political opposition from forces representing minority local communities who feel threatened by the prospect of independence. For example, there was a war of independence in French Indochina, while in some countries in French West Africa (excluding the Maghreb countries) decolonization resulted from a combination of insurrection and negotiation. The process is only complete when the de facto government of the newly independent country is recognized as the de jure sovereign state by the community of nations.
Independence is often difficult to achieve without the encouragement and practical support from one or more external parties. The motives for giving such aid are varied: nations of the same ethnic and/or religious stock may sympathize with the people of the country, or a strong nation may attempt to destabilize a colony as a tactical move to weaken a rival or enemy colonizing power or to create space for its own sphere of influence; examples of this include British support of the Haitian Revolution against France, and the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, in which the United States warned the European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the newly independent states of the Western Hemisphere.
As world opinion became more pro-independence following World War I, there was an institutionalized collective effort to advance the cause of decolonization through the League of Nations. Under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, a number of mandates were created. The expressed intention was to prepare these countries for self-government, but are often interpreted as a mere redistribution of control over the former colonies of the defeated powers, mainly the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire. This reassignment work continued through the United Nations, with a similar system of trust territories created to adjust control over both former colonies and mandated territories.
In referendums, some colonial populations have chosen to retain their colonial status, such as Gibraltar and French Guiana. There are even examples, such as the Falklands War, in which an Imperial power goes to war to defend the right of a colony to continue to be a colony. Colonial powers have sometimes promoted decolonization in order to shed the financial, military and other burdens that tend to grow in those colonies where the colonial governments have become more benign.
Decolonization is rarely achieved through a single historical act, but rather progresses through one or more stages of decolonization, each of which can be offered or fought for: these can include the introduction of elected representatives (advisory or voting; minority or majority or even exclusive), degrees of autonomy or self-rule. Thus, the final phase of decolonisation may, in fact, concern little more than handing over responsibility for foreign relations and security, and soliciting de jure recognition for the new sovereignty. But, even following the recognition of statehood, a degree of continuity can be maintained through bilateral treaties between now equal governments involving practicalities such as military training, mutual protection pacts, or even a garrison and/or military bases.
In my research I have come cross an important word that crystallises colonial domination over others, but more importantly how it is practised in Australia. It is ‘suzrainty’ and the concept is easily introduced by its legal definition as:
1. A sovereign or state having some control over another state that is internally autonomous.
2. A feudal overlord. [Oxford legal definition]
Wikipedia states that:
Suzerainty (/ˈsjuːzərənti/ or /ˈsjuːzərɛnti/) is a situation in which a powerful region or people controls the foreign policy and international relations of a tributary (The Colonised) vassal state while allowing the subservient nation internal autonomy. (My comment is that we have not yet achieved this on our terms)
When the Australian High Court ruled in Mabo (No.2) that Australia’s land law is still a feudal system, in which the Crown asserts ownership and title to ALL of our Country, it created a complicated legal terminology that not only related to a land system, but also placed us as Peoples, into a category unheard of before. That is, the High Court of Australia re-defined us as subservient minorities, who could attract certain rights subject to the will of our oppressive colonisers and not through our sovereign inherited rights as First Nations. This is despite the High Court itself ruling that our Law and customs had survived British invasion. The use of the term ‘Feudal’ by the High Court in Mabo (No.2) is what established this new definition, even though the judges knew that the feudal system and its related land tenure was made obsolete in Britain in 1660.
Our people now need to understand what a vassel is:
1. A holder of land by feudal tenure on conditions of homage and allegiance.
2. A person or country in a subordinate position to another. [Oxford legal definition]
Or according to Wikipedia:
A vassel or feudatory is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain privileges, usually including land held as a tenant or fief. The term is applied to similar arrangements in other feudal societies.
If we now look at the Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) and the Native Title Act 1993 as amended in 1998, our people must realise that according to these laws ‘Traditional Owners’ cannot own the land that they acquire, because it falls under the British feudal land system and is called an ‘Escheat’. A legal definition of ‘escheated property’ is:
a : the reversion of lands in English feudal law to the lord of the fee when there are no heirs capable of inheriting under the original grant
b : the reversion of property to the crown in England …
[Oxford legal definition]
Defining decolonisation (part 4)
In respect to understanding the invader society and the colonised Native Peoples, it is important to know that:
The dominant entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the more powerful entity itself, is called a suzerain. The term suzerainty was originally used to refer to the relationship between the Ottoman (Turkey) Empire and its surrounding regions. It differs from sovereignty in that the tributary (the invaded Native People) enjoys some (often limited) self-rule.
A suzerain can also refer to a feudal lord (Britain), to whom vassals must pay tribute. Although it is a concept that has existed in a number of historical empires, it is a concept considered difficult to reconcile with 20th- or 21st- century concepts of international law, in which sovereignty either exists or does not. While a sovereign nation can agree by treaty to become a protectorate of a stronger power, modern international law does not recognize any way of making this relationship compulsory on the weaker power. [Wikipedia]
There is another basic fundamental facet to achieve true decolonisation, that is, we must learn to decolonise our minds. This essentially means that we must stop thinking like our oppressor and thereby stop trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. I say this because every time we talk about progressing forward in our ambition to achieve self-determination and independence, too often our people revert to saying: We have to ask the government, or we need to ask them for money. Our people also exhibit the Stockholm Syndrome, in which case our people become conflicted because they think that by being friendly though developing partnerships they can become equal to their oppressor. The confusion is when we then ask to take control independently of our cultural rights by taking ownership and protecting our land and our cultural inheritance as First Nations Peoples.
At present we are loosing this fight and we permit ourselves to be referred to as a ‘past ancient culture’, which was the ‘oldest continuing culture’ on earth, and some of our people now act as tourist exhibits with a song and dance routine. Our culture has been prostituted for financial gain. This is to be colonised. To change this means we must decolonise our mind and our practices to that of being proud owners of the oldest living culture on the earth and who retain to this day our own national identity and the right to be called by our own nationality, that is Ngoongar, Gomeroi, Wiradjuri, Murrawarri and Euahlayi, etc.”
Ghillar
Michael Anderson
Convenor of Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia
and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic
Mogila Station, Goodooga NSW 2838