Book Launch – “The Secret War: A True History of Queensland’s Native Police”

by Jonathan Richards

 “The Secret War” will be launched by Henry Reynolds at the Avid Reader bookshop, Boundary St. West End (Bris) on Wednesday 19th March 2008 at 6.00 pm.

 From the publisher, University of Queensland Press….……

  Henry Reynolds describes Jonathan Richards’ controversial book, The Secret War: A True History of Queensland’s Native Police, as ‘a major contribution to Queensland and Australian historiography, and to the history of relations between colonists and indigenous people on a global scale’.

The health, housing and employment crisis facing Indigenous people today are a direct result of our white settlement history.

How did Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, from all over Queensland, end up being violently forced to leave their homelands and live in these communities?

Why were Indigenous people so terrified of the police, they allowed themselves to be herded into ‘prisons without walls’?

The release of The Secret War is timely given the new Labor Government’s official apology to the Aboriginal people.

The Secret War tells the story of organised racial violence and lawful mass murder on the Queensland frontier.

For many Indigenous people, white colonisation arrived with the armed men of the Native Police: a brutal force that operated on the 19th-century frontier, killing large numbers of Indigenous men, women and children.

Historian Jonathan Richards has spent ten years researching this contentious subject, picking his way through secrecy, misinformation and supposed ‘lost files’ to uncover and publish the truth.

In this first full-length comprehensive study of the Native Police in Queensland, he argues that they were a key part of a ‘divide and rule’ colonising tactic and that the force’s actions were given the implicit approval of the government and public servants, and that their killings were covered up.

The Queensland government, which so far has avoided blame due to an absence of direct orders to kill Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, stands responsible for the force’s deployment, techniques and ultimately for its genocidal activities.

The Secret War is an authoritative and groundbreaking contribution to our country’s white settlement history.

Guest post – International Womens Day 2008 by Fiona Noble

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY MARCH 8, 2008

To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn…
There Is A Season, Turn, Turn, Turn…
There Is A Time For Peace, Turn, Turn, Turn.

My name is Fiona Noble. I do Treaty under the Sacred Treaty Circles of Oodgeroo of the Tribe, Nunuccal, I am a mother of four children, two of which have non-Indigenous fathers and two of which have an Indigenous father.

Oodgeroo advocated “Don’t hate, educate”, and she maintained that the only healing that could come about in this country was through Treaty. Her family continue to do her law in the face of ongoing genocidal practices.

I would like to begin here with a poem Oodgeroo Nunuccal (Kath Walker) wrote for her son Denis, and which I would like to read for all my children, but especially to my son, Djindu, whom I hope will grow to be a fine warrior for peace, as are and have been his fathers.

Son of Mine (To Denis)
 Oodgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal, Custodian of the land Minjerriba. 

My son, your troubled eyes search mine,
Puzzled and hurt by colour line.
Your black skin soft as velvet shine;
What can I tell you, son of mine?
I could tell you of heartbreak, hatred blind,
I could tell of crimes that shame mankind,
Of brutal wrong and deeds malign,
Of rape and murder, son of mine;
But I’ll tell instead of brave and fine
When lives of black and white entwine,
And men in brotherhood combine –
This would I tell you, son of mine.

I am writing this letter because I am deeply disturbed with where women are at in this country, not only with the continuing difficulties all women world wide experience but more importantly with the role of the western mind set white women especially continue to uphold, continue to be in denial about, and which is essentially the root of the problems western women would consider to be universal to all women.

The society we see around us, the matrix in which we exist and often feel oppressed by, that which stems back to the Roman Empire, is based on a culture of man-made law as opposed to natural /God’s law, greed, self engrandisment, false idols, violence, and a lack of respect and understanding for spirit and country.

I am writing today to urge non-Indigenous women in this country to get real about who they are in this country, to be responsible for what has happened and what is continuing to happen. I urge all non-indigenous women who want to stop the Northern Territory Intervention, who want to see the social and economic conditions of Indigenous people improve, I urge you, to stop seeing your selves as saviours – you aren’t.

You are in fact the ones who need saving. Non-Indigenous people in this country are ‘rubbish people’ – no law, no dreaming. The only way this can be rectified is to acknowledge Aboriginal sovereignty, and to do Treaty, and I mean ‘do’ Treaty, not wait for it to come and get dropped in your lap. “Faith without action is blasphemy”!

I would like to express to you briefly my own experiences. I grew up on military bases around Australia and when I became an adult, I chose to put all my energy into ‘fighting for peace’ but as yet I have been unsuccessful in tearing down the military industrial complex. Then through my peace activities I became involved with women’s rights and issues. I worked in women’s refuges for many years, did anti-military actions with Women for Survival, helped set up Women Behind Bars ( Bris.) etc, etc .

The problem was, unfortunately I mistook feminism for women’s business which I have only in recent years come to fully appreciate. Through my activities with the peace and women’s movements I also became acutely aware of the prison industry. My reason for being then became to ‘raze the prisons’ to the ground – another unsuccessful mission I set for myself.

After many years of feeling like I was hitting my head against a brick wall, where nothing seemed to have changed and in fact, where things had even gotten worse – in my ego state – I became disillusioned. There didn’t seem to be any sisterhood in the sisterhood, the anarchists, with whom I ran with, either went turn- cote or became manic depressives, etc. etc. The point is – what I had been doing, was exactly that – hitting my head against a brick wall and then wondering why it hurt. We can all have ‘issues’ dear to us, things we want to change, but they will remain just that -‘ issues’- until we address the root problem, and that is our lack of spirit and connectedness to country.

Once you do acknowledge who’s land you are on, once you acknowledge you know nothing about this country, once you bow down, chuck away everything you think you know and realise that most of what you think you know is utter crap, then you can begin to learn.

I have heard comments from white fella’s who say they know about spirit and country because they can ‘intuit’ it, they can go into someone else’s country sit under a tree or whatever and ‘intuit’ Baiame and the rainbow serpent moving – just like that! We are all spirit and we all seek spirit but it doesn’t mean we know it, own it, control it. One woman said to me about such individuals – People like that are like leaves blowing in the wind, blowing around and around, eventually blowing right away. She said she’d rather be connected to the tree.

In 1998 through my prison activities, I met the father of my two youngest children. He was stolen from his Pitjanjatjara family in S.A. when he was three and grew up in institutions. I was on a huge learning curve. He used to say to me “Chuck away my political ism-schisms” or, similarly, as my other husband says “You have to come to this like a child”. And so I am passing on to you what I see is essential for non-indigenous people to do before they can effect any real change – whether it be for the environment, the military, domestic violence, whatever. We need to get the proper authorities and disciplines right firstly, with the restoration of elders in council – blood lines back to territory. We truly need to seek truth and spiritual oneness.

Australia has the highest youth suicide rate in the world, and that’s white fella’s. “Why is this so?” you might ask.The lack of spirit, respect, the ongoing lies and thievery, and the belief in white superiority, which everybody seems to want to deny, is taking its effect. You can’t commit genocide, and expect no consequences.

My family is currently in a state of total chaos at the moment because of the factors I have just mentioned. The two fathers of my non- Indigenous children, in their arrogance and ignorance, are committing genocide on my family as we speak.

Knowing full well the failure of the white police and judicial systems to address anything, knowing full well that police kill blackfellas in jail – they have decided to use the police and the state and my two daughters to ‘divide and conquer’ once again. They may say they are against the invasion of the Northern Territory but fail to see that their own actions give testimony to such genocidal practices. What they are doing is as the rest of white Australia is doing – pointing the finger at blackfella’s to divert attention away from their own insidious behaviour. They like the rest of white Australia don’t seem to want peace.

They do not seek healing but ego gratification. They as white, wealthy, academics see them selves as superior to me and my family because they are white and they think they are men, and they think they know better. Like the Government is doing – they say sorry, and kick you in the guts again. And it’s not good enough.

The military invasion of the N.T. is in no ones interest except white Autsralia. I didn’t see activists running to the N.T. to stop the invasion. I saw people run to Shoalwater Bay for the military exercises – everywhere but the N.T.

. I was in Canberra for the convergence to ‘stop the N.T. Intervention . People from the N.T. weren’t there to hear “sorry, now off you go back home”. They want it stopped. This intervention is extending into other states. Whitefellas are now starting to experience some of the tactics of the oppressive regime. As James Baldwin said “if they come for me at night, they’ll be coming for you in the morning”.

So finally, I would just like to reiterate the need for non-Indigenous women to stop focusing on how right they are, to stop blaming everyone else for their problems, to stop being so self righteous and judgemental.

Put your right to be an individual aside for five minutes, and start listening to the Indigenous women and men in the communities.

There are those who do things for mammon and ego and there are those who do things for spirit. Who are you? There are those who will judge others and accuse others. Ask yourself, what are their motivations and what are your own?

Please prioritise in your lives redressing the ongoing genocide. Support the move for Sovereignty; support a Treaty process; support international condemnation of this Australian govt. and the culture of genocide.

If you are interested in doing Treaty and supporting the move toward Sovereignty, you can obtain further information by contacting me on 0402541548

email – moongalba1@yahoo.com.au.

Or you can support the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra, which is desperately seeking support to drive Sovereignty, Treaty, and “Stop the Intervention”.

Peace, prosperity and healing,

Fiona Noble (Sacred Treaty Circles of Oodgeroo, Custodian of the Land Minjerribah)

Useful Readings….

Oodgeroo’s works

Germaine Greer – White Fella Jump Up,

Henry Reynolds – Law of the Land

Reflections on indigenous issues by a non-indigenous person for the consideration of non-indigenous people.

This is a post I have written for the blog “Public Polity” which is Run by Sam Clifford who is an active member of the Queensland Greens.  http://publicpolity.wordpress.com/   I will be writing regularly for Public Polity. 

 Firstly a note on vocabulary.  When I use the word “white” I am speaking of culture and worldview, I am not talking about skin colour.  White is a psychological, sociological and legal structure which dark skinned people can also be agents of, in fact this is the premise of our immigration policy and citizenship test.

 “Aboriginal” is not a matter of skin colour but of bloodline – a matter of family and that particular family’s connection to particular country.  There were no Aboriginal or Indian or native people in Australia before Captain Cook. There was just families, communities and nations connected to this land.   On this continent today there does indeed exist a colonial and an “Aboriginal” society. The Late Oodgeroo Noonucal coined the term “non-Aboriginal” to turn the colonial perspective around and  define migrant experience by its difference to sovereign Aboriginal Australian reality rather than define Aboriginality by its difference to “normal” colonial society.

The psychological, sociological and legal structure inherent in Aboriginal families and the Australian landscape is not exclusive of non-Aboriginal people.  It is in fact white Australia’s refusal to relate to Aboriginal Australia within the frameworks of Aboriginal society that has caused all the problems.

The history of invasion, genocide and colonisation is not just an Aboriginal story.  Aboriginal people have been the victims of this history but it is predominantly a history of what white people and governments have done.  The smallpox, massacres and poisonings, the missions and reserves, the slave labour, the stolen wages and the stolen generation are all part of mainstream Australia’s history every bit as much as Gallipoli, the Eureka stockade or Donald bloody Bradman.

It is important to understand the history to explain why Aboriginal Australia today is like it is.  But the history of war and colonisation also explains why white Australia today is like it is, how the forces of history built the new nation and our contemporary culture and structures.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Rudd’s apology and acknowledgement that we got it wrong in the past is overshadowed by his government’s indigenous policy and programs, or at least those that we have had a glimpse of so far.  They are a continuance of 20^th century Aboriginal policy paradigms and I am sad to say so are the Greens indigenous policy frameworks.

The radical departure from colonial bandaids that began with Whitlam and continued through the Fraser, Hawke and Keating years and is embodied in the U.N. declaration on indigenous rights appears to have been forgotten in the 21^stcentury policy framework of the ALP and the Greens.

Notions such as land rights and self determination have been sidelined as secondary considerations to the urgent priority of “Closing the Gap”, an inherently assimilationist campaign/policy that identifies the cause of Aboriginal problems to be inherent in Aboriginal society itself – ill health, not in the white society including government policy. 

  “Close the Gap” applies a bandaid to the symptoms that white society sees (usually on TV) but fails in any way to address the structural factors that cause and perpetuate illness and disadvantage.

The causal factors of Aboriginal suffering today  are inherent in white colonial society and are invisible to white colonial society, it is the background normality.

The problem lies in such things as institutional modes of health care, paramilitary (police) and prison deterrence modes of maintaining law and order, exclusive legal title to our own back yard, mining and European modes of farming, welfare programs etc.  All these things that are the front line of the continued impoverishment, ill health and deaths in custody in Aboriginal society are taken for granted by the colonial society.  They are the morally righteous agencies of democracy and market economy.  These things that bring death, disease and dispossession to Aboriginal Australia bring health and prosperity to colonial society.  It is not easy to identify our own sociology as a causal factor in Aboriginal trauma and crisis.

The common Australian notion of reconciliation is a white myth.  Inherent in this myth is the assumption that white and black Australia must find some middle ground, shake hands and begin negotiations.  A simple formula but one that is no more likely to succeed than Palestinian Muslims finding a common ground with Israeli Jews while the state of Israel exists.  All Middle East so-called peace negotiations are not good willed, open-minded exchanges; they are power games where the dominant military and economic power – The U.S. – determines the framework and parameters of negotiations and raw power is played against raw power in the process. 

The whole “peace” process and the management of conflict in negotiations is tightly controlled by the vested interests of the U.S. who designed and maintains the state of Israel in accordance with U.S. interests.

So too with Australia’s reconciliation movement.  It has been designed and managed within the worldview of white Australia, the illegally imposed British state and its entrenched colonial society.   The meetings, petitions and bridge walks of the last 2 decades have been predominantly manifestations of white Australia.  Apart from the Aboriginal spokespeople and committee members, Aboriginal Australia has largely not joined this movement.  The reconciliation process has been a white commentary on black Australia, perhaps easing some of White Australia’s anxieties but it has not connected in any meaningful way to Aboriginal Australia.

The reconciliation movement has achieved no positive change in Aboriginal Australia, except of course for the Apology, which while spiritually significant, does nothing to address issues of Aboriginal poverty, disadvantage and ill health. 

This is a stark contrast with the land rights and self-determination movements of the 60s. 70s and in particular the 80s leading up to the 88 bicentennial protest. This movement was lead exclusively by Aboriginal people and the meetings, marches and other events were well attended by Aboriginal people including tens of thousands from Around Australia gathering in Sydney in 1988.

The early land rights movement of the 60s and 70s, while consistently promoting land rights as the primary agenda, built independent, self managed Aboriginal medical centres, legal services, housing services and childcare services to tackle the exact same issues that we are faced with today. 

As well as struggling for funding for these welfare crisis responses the movement forced on structural reform such as the native title act and ATSIC and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.  However, despite the existence of the reconciliation movement, all the gains of the 20^th century s have been deconstructed. 

 The mode for engaging in indigenous affairs that the reconciliation movement and presently the Greens and ALP operate in defines both the problem and a prescription for a solution totally within white notions and frameworks.  The essential task of facilitating and empowering the agencies of Aboriginal perspective has been reduced to allowing Aboriginal input into the decisions, policies and programs owned by the white government.

 At present Aboriginal people are only allowed to be part of white programs and policies, there is no funding or support for anything else.  The dominant mode of engagement with Aboriginal people is  “consultation” where Aboriginal people are told what the white policy and program is and are given advice and assistance as to how to conform to it.  The new ALP government and the Green’s policies do not suggest any change to this mode.

The challenge for us non-Aboriginal people, whether we are policy writers or grass roots activists is not to try and develop solutions to Aboriginal problems.

We non-Aboriginal folk should try and solve the problems of white Australia that cause the problems in Aboriginal Australia.

The challenge for indigenous policy and action is to allow and resource Aboriginal people to deal with their own problems within their own cultural frameworks and authorities and in accordance with their own priorities.  – self-determination.

The challenge for the Greens and the ALP, who both enthusiastically endorse the signing of the U.N. declaration on indigenous rights, is to develop policy in accordance with the core principles of the U.N. declaration – land rights and self determination.

Real reconciliation is about the colonial invader society paying reparations for the damage it has done and continues to do, when somehow and somewhere some land, wealth and power is transferred back to the people it was  stolen from.

Bandaids such as “Close the Gap” just won’t stick.

 

Maori and peace activists rounded up in N.Z. anti terror operation

                                                           Maori Sovereignty activist Tame Iti was one of the 17 people arrested yesterday.  Background on Tame Iti here

Yesterday New Zealand Police broke into several houses, raided a Maori community and arrested 17 people including peace activists and charged them with various firearms offences.

The raids were the culmination of a police operation which had been underway for some time including surveilance and phone tapping. The operation was co-ordinated through the prime minister’s office and is the first time the N.Z. suppression of terrorism act has been used.  According to police they had uncovered a terrorist training camp and a terrorist plot.

The story on  “Stuff”

I don’t know enough of the Maori struggle to give any substantial comment on this development.  However I do know enough about terrorism hysteria and neo-fascism to say the new international anti-terrorism regimes are desperately intent on finding targets to justify their existence, creating hypothetical and just plain false hypotheses to investigate and prosecute. 

I also know enough of the nature of the colonial state to say it will always use the force of the police to repress indigenous power when it begins to threaten colonial interests.

Tame Iti has been previously charged for the ceremonial use of firearms in accordance with tribal protocol.   From nga korero o te wa ……

“Mr Iti had been found guilty of two counts of possessing a firearm in a public place after he fired a shotgun during welcomes for the Waitangi Tribunal at Ruatoki in January 2005.

The court said the prosecution failed to prove any criminal harm from Iti’s action.

Mr Iti says the case was brought because of the grandstanding of former ACT MP Stephen Franks, and he has no grudge against the police for taking it.

“Tuhoe tikanga or any other iwi hapu tikanga always will be in conflict. As long as the judicial system continues to marginalise indigenous people of this country, we always will be in in conflict with it,” Mr Iti says.

He says over the past 15 years he has discharged shotguns on Tuhoe marae in front of a prime minister, a governor general and a police commissioner with no complaints.”

Hearts and minds

As readers may know I am an occaisional writer for the greenish leaning “Dead Roo” blog. I have also begun writing for  “Leftrights”, a leftish leaning blog.

My first post on Leftwrites is entitled “The Eurocentrism of Australian Socialism”

Here is my most recent comment on that discussion……

The point of real connection with Aboriginal Australia is spirituality, not ideology. It is about the heart not the head.

The war at home

Huey P. Newton – interview from jail.                                                                 Thanks to Whenua, Fenua, Enua, Vanua  for drawing my attention to this video.

The Late Dr. Huey P. Newton was one of the leaders of the Black Panther movement in the 1960s and 70s.

There are many differences between the situation African American people and Australian Aboriginal people. The most basic difference being the Africans were stolen from their homelands and transported to another continent. Aborigines have been dispossessed within their own country the same as Native Americans.

However Newton’s perspective on the colonisation of African American communities and the Vietnam war is very relevant to the situation in Aboriginal Australia and Iraq today.

APEC protests – A symbol of Terra Nullius, foreign occupation and colonisation.

The blogosphere is now full of self congratulatory reports of the great success of the  Sydney anti-APEC protests.

I am not impressed though.

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy was camped at Victoria Park for the duration of APEC but there appears to have been no connection to it or to Aboriginal Australia in any of the protest propaganda before the event or the glowing reviews since the event.

Here are some of my comments around the blogosphere…..

On Leftwrites

“I am astounded that in the context of Howard’s NT emergency and the existence of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Victoria Park the protest movement ignored Aboriginal Australia and Aboriginal issues.

Peter Garrett – Whatever happened to the revolution?

“Whatever happened to the revolution?    We all got stoned and it drifted away”    So sang Skyhooks in the 1970’s about the demise of the anti Vietnam war movement.

The 70’s revolution may seem to have disappeared in a puff of strange smelling smoke but it really went “underground” into the public service and mainstream capitalism and got stuck there.

In Australia there was another revolution in the 1980’s which highlighted the need for justice and land rights for Aboriginal Australia as well as the need for an independent Australian foreign policy and a rejection of U.S. warmongering and imperialism, including the removal of US military bases such as Pine Gap from Australian soil.

Midnight Oil was the band that was the natural successor to Skyhooks as the Australia’s rock voice of the times. The “Oils” songs “Beds are Burning” and “U.S. Forces” became anthems of a new Australian radical nationalism that blasted out at just about every drunken barbeque in the country.

Whatever happened to that revolution?