Our Dispatch today was first published on 18 February 2011. The racist Intervention continues with white Australia’s complicity.
Wara nofsinhar Tajba nittamaw li intom huma kollha sew (Decode: Google Translate from Maltese)
Sorry to keep “running past you” so many Dispatches. It’s just that matters here are “on track”(Minister Macklin will be pleased) and “moving forward” (PM Gillard will be pleased!) at breakneck speed. I’m just trying to “keep you in the picture”, to “keep you up to speed”, “to keep you in the loop”. I don’t want to “get behind the eight ball”.
At 4:20 a.m. we got a phone call from a slightly inebriated sounding Napurrula at Alice Springs Hospital. Napurrula is walking on crutches. She told Wendy that her family was fighting at Little Sisters Camp (south of the Gap in Alice Springs) and that police had deposited her at the Hospital, presumably for her safety. The fighting is probably related to the court proceedings in Alice Springs. Hospital staff had made it clear to Napurrula that they didn’t want her there so she rang us to see if we had Japangardi (her step-father)’s number. Japangardi is in Alice Springs. We didn’t have Japangardi’s number so she again tried Jangala (her husband)’s number to see if he knew Japangardi’s number.
On Saturday Jangala came to my office. He tried to get a sim card registered and initiated by phone. Did he have a passport? Did he have a driver’s licence? Did he have any form of ID? After half an hour Jangala gave up and told the Telstra lady that he’d try again on Monday. Did Napurrula get through to him? No, his phone is “locked” and he doesn’t know the number to “unlock it”.
For Yuendumu people to acquire a passport requires at least one trip to Alice Springs, a distance equivalent to that between the northern tip to the southern extremity of my country of birth, the Netherlands. Yuendumu Council used to provide people with “photo ID” that people could then use to obtain driver’s licences or travel by plane etc. The Central Desert Shire that took over the Council does not provide this service. Without ID, a driver’s licence cannot be obtained. “Do you have a Birth Certificate?” “I see you have a drink/driving conviction, you’ll have to attend a drink/driving course”.
The Registrar of Births and Deaths is in Alice Springs. The drink/driving course is held in Alice Springs. Alice Springs is 300Km. nearer to drink outlets than Yuendumu (where white people continue to apply for and obtain drinking permits).
If a Warlpiri person gets caught driving to Alice Springs without a licence and/or registration they don’t get to go past go and collect $200. Neither do they get to go past go and collect $200 if they get into trouble drinking in Alice Springs. Sometimes they get to go to gaol without going past go. They don’t have any “get out of gaol” cards.
But we mustn’t despair. Our PM Julia Gillard has the answer. All Aboriginal people need to do is to “change their behaviour” and the Gap will miraculously close. Easy!
So the Federal Opposition have gone “slightly too far” in their fear and loathing campaign (“the timing was wrong” and “he’s a real man for having the guts to admit he was slightly wrong” according to Mr-Rabbit). It’s all getting curioser and curioser. It’s all good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZAVCL0NfzI
Thus the Federal Government have decided that here is their chance for once not to apply the true and tried tactic of “me too”-ism.
So much are the forces of xenophobia triumphing worldwide, that Angela Merkel threw away her dog-whistle and felt politically safe to come out with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKG76HF24_k .
The name Angela is derived from the Greek word ángelos (αγγελος), meaning “messenger of God”. Wow, some message from God!
I could mention Germany’s previous efforts at monoculturalism, but I won’t. We must not learn from history, that was last century. We must “move forward”.
Merkel’s speech in turn led to Cameron’s (“me too”) speech in Munich:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3xsnEzA8Fw
Neither should I mention that Munich was the venue of another famous speech in 1938 by a representative of the British Government, but damn it, I will:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZHpprf6HSM
In Australia the latest from our leaders: “multiculturalism has been a great success in Australia”.
Am I being paranoid when I detect the continuing use of the dog whistle? Nothing wrong with eating liverwurst sandwiches as long you embrace “Australian values” while doing so, preferably in the English language (“munch munch” not “hap hap”).
Why am I mentioning all of this? What has it got to do with Yuendumu?
Well, I’ll tell you: The Northern Territory is one of the most culturally diverse parts of Australia. We have a unique mosaic of languages and world views, yet the renewed “multicultural debate” thoroughly ignores this. It is as if remote Aboriginal Australia doesn’t exist. Terra nullius revisited.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe6eHppCcA8
A few days ago we received the following email from the Ginger Bread Man:
“The visit from the North Queensland Cowboys to Yuendumu tomorrow afternoon has been cancelled due to the weather in Darwin where they currently are and the airport being closed.
Thank you to everyone who was assisting in making this happen locally but the weather has intervened.”
This left me shattered and apoplectic.
Once again I felt “left out in the cold”. I had not been advised that the Cowboys were coming. Turns out no one else had been told either, so I needn’t have fretted.
Having never heard of the North Queensland Cowboys, I asked around and someone said they thought they were a Country and Western Band.
Turns out they’re a Rugby team that are playing in Alice Springs. There will be no mass exodus of disappointed Yuendumu residents to Alice Springs to see the Cowboys. They’re already there because of the court hearings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8
So where is all the usual nice music? Sorry folks, here it is then
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BZf50cScQw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti5aP_nyNig If you’re pressed for time, just listen to this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHpoGK1aX5Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxvq673F_3Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rZbvi6Tj6E
Jkollhom jum sabiħ.
Sakemm il-ħin li jmiss
Decode: Google Translate from Maltese