This dispatch arrived some weeks ago – end of January and has languished (hidden) in my inbox. My apologies for not getting it out earlier.
Welcome to 2019,
Dangerous and worrying moves on the chess board of Global Hegemony, widespread record weather events (hot and cold) and so called Acts of God (humanity always ready to blame someone else), and too many bad things to mention, would be enough to cause us to despair. So every little spark of optimism is to be savoured.
The oft repeated ‘Things can only get better…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTWm0s7ZwDY
I was privileged to be given a book ‘Desert Lake (Art, Science and Stories from Paruku)’ which deals with what we kardiya know as Lake Gregory in an inspiring cross-cultural way.
The school at Mulan and the Ranger Programme on the IPA (Indigenous Protected Area) which encompasses Lake Gregory, are reasons for optimism.
Not all that long ago Mulan was one of many Western Australian remote communities under threat of closure. Lest we forget Oombulgurri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6ef-P8hgQI
Then Prime Minister Tony Abbott famously declared, when supporting WA’s former Premier Colin Barnett’s proposed closures, that his Government would not fund “lifestyle choices” Tony’s reward for his cultural sensitivity is his appointment by the current Prime Minister as special envoy on Indigenous affairs. Go figure.
A few years ago a Dispatch featured Kimberley musician Patrick Davis (accompanied by Steve Pigram) :
Rocky Old Road:
It’s a rocky old road that we travel
All the tricks that are tried are not new
They’re just wrapped in gift wrapping paper (Mr. Barnett)
And handed as favours to you
And no you can’t take all that you’re given
Oft times it means selling your soul
And all they can take has been stolen
…find you are the last one to know
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFAdylvx34c
“And all they can take has been stolen”
Alas Patrick Davies could not know that the assimilationists hadn’t finished:
The latest they’re taking is people’s life style choices.
Don’t hold your breath, it ain’t over yet. Well may the widespread protests (including in Australia’s large cities in the voter belt) have given pause to the assimilationists and transferred community closures from their immediate agenda to their hidden agenda, but it wouldn’t surprise me if closure by stealth isn’t happening somewhere right now, as you’re reading this. The price of freedom, is indeed eternal vigilance.
Ceremonies (funeral, initiation etc etc) are known by yapa as “the Business”. The last few days large numbers of Yuendumu residents have been drifting back from Balgo (not far from Lake Gregory) in Western Australia. Teeth euphorically glistening out of red ochre smeared faces, they had just taken part in the annual Jilkaja business, during which a significant number of boys (including from Yuendumu) had been initiated. I’ve been told that 2,000 participants came from Western Australia, and 2,000 from Central Australia. Whatever the actual numbers, it was many. They made lifestyle choices.
Despite the concerted assault on yapa identity by the assimilationist behemoth, which is kardiya society, there, in a parallel universe, yapa business refuses to be extinguished.
The 50th Anniversary of the incorporation of Yuendumu Mining Company No Liability (YMC) falls on 20th February. This is kardiya business, albeit yapa owned. YMC may well be the oldest surviving Aboriginal owned enterprise in the Northern Territory and perhaps all of Australia. Now is not the time to dwell on the countless acts of corporate sabotage suffered by YMC at the hands of the Establishment. Up yours! We have survived!
On the 20th February I’ll be starting long service leave. Yapa-kurlangu Ngurrara Aboriginal Corporation (YKNAC) the locally owned Yuendumu outstations/homelands resource organisation, is taking on management of YMC operations (now confined to running a store and fuel outlet). Myself I hope to cobble together ‘A Yuendumu Story’. Having arrived here with my family over 45 years ago, there is plenty to write about including the naming and shaming (subject to legal advice!) of the above mentioned saboteurs.
There are so many good books out there (my reading bucket list far exceeds the time I expect to remain on this planet with intact marbles) that I have no illusions as to the likelihood that many will read it (let alone buy it), but something I’m supremely confident of is that I’ll enjoy writing it.
Tadah for now,
Frank
And now a bit of music from two years after YMC was incorporated
Ike & Tina Turner – She came in through the bathroom window – Get back – Proud Mary, 1971
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx0hY2NJNVA