MDFF 11 July 2020

Buenos dias,

Around half a century ago Kim Beazley Sr. said:
“In Australia, our ways have mostly produced disaster for the Aboriginal people. I suspect that only when their right to be distinctive is accepted, will policy become creative”

In 2011 Prime Minister Julia Guillard when presenting the third Closing the Gap report to Parliament stated that: “Indigenous Australians have to change their behaviour if the Closing the Gap initiative is to succeed

Australian Crawl- Reckless ….she don’t like that kind of behaviour…..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIrUqsB-0vw

In 2020 Prime Minister Scott Morrison in the Foreword to the Closing the Gap report concluded:
“I want to make sure Indigenous Australians are genuinely positioned to make informed choices, forge their own pathways and reach their goals. I want to make sure all governments renew our efforts to help close the gap…

Last night (Sunday 5 July 2020) the film ‘In my blood it runs’ was shown on ABC TV. In the film 10 year old Dujuan and his family are confronted by dominant assimilationist authority.

Much of Dujuan’s story is mirrored by the stories of Yuendumu children.

I’ll confine myself to only a small excerpt from the latest draft of my attempt at a book:

When Yuendumu school was told that funding would depend on numbers of NAPLAN tests administered, all children were required to fill in the tests even when they obviously could not read English at all….. A few children who were progressing and thought they were doing well in reading [in Warlpiri], actually cried when they found they couldn’t read any of it…”

The film drove home that the right for Aboriginal people to be distinctive has not been accepted and that the Gap is not being closed and never will unless the authorities change their behaviour.


Hot off the press:


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-06/in-my-blood-it-runs-how-to-help-indigenous-kids/12421408


Chau

Frank

Fifteen minutes ago Terere Jere from Paraguay uploaded the latest from the Ojeda Brothers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTdbGZ9P7Qw
and there was this a month ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkzuw0tARSM