This dispatch was first released on 20 June 2012
All stand!
Last Thursday was an important day on the Yuendumu calendar.
A plane load of bureaucrats arrived to launch a ‘Closing the Gap’-Federal Government initiative: the $1.5 billion Remote Jobs and Communities Program with its inevitable acronym ‘RJCP’. Free lunch and a barbeque were provided under the ‘Telstra Dome’ like roofed basketball Court. Invitation posters had been put up (see attachment below) inviting the Yuendumu citizenry to an ‘Information and Consultation session’
Do you recall that famous 1970 “Suppose They Gave A War and Nobody Came” poster?
Three locals attended the ‘I&CS’, all because it fell within their job sphere to do so. (Must confess- couldn’t resist and made this acronym up myself)
Meanwhile at another Yuendumu Court, 35 criminal cases were being heard.
Whilst these important events were taking place two police vehicles in tandem were prowling the streets of Yuendumu. They were hunting. They were revenue hunting that is. I did not ask the police how their hunting was going but know they caught at least one person who went to pick up someone at our airstrip and got done $420 for not wearing a seat belt and another $70 for not having his driver’s license on him (that he subsequently found in his pocket- too late!). Total $490, only $10 short of a fine a contractor received for placing a portable toilet on a sacred site near the top-end community of Numbulwar, after gaining an Intervention contract in 2007.
That evening many of us drove to Yuelamu (Mt. Allan) 35 Km east of here on the ‘back-road’. The language spoken at Yuelamu is Anmatyerre; most Yuelamu residents also speak Warlpiri which is as different to their language as Polish is to French. A screening of ‘Coniston’ was held at the Yuelamu Basketball Court which had been opened the previous day. http://www.pawmedia.com.au/library/coniston-massacre-by-lander-river-band-987
The murder of Fred Brooks in 1928 took place at Yurrkuru 55Km north east of Yuendumu. This triggered the so called Coniston Massacre in which during a series of punitive raids probably more than a hundred Aborigines were indiscriminately killed. A subsequent inquiry found the killing of ‘blacks’ to be ‘justified’. Over the years much has been written and filmed on the Coniston Massacre, but what makes this movie refreshingly different is that the story is told from a Yapa (Aboriginal) perspective.
The virtual absence of rancour and animosity could be a lesson to peace makers everywhere.
There is an old ‘joke’, I think originally from the Pacific: “We had the land and the missionaries had the Bible, then they came and now they have the land and we have the Bible”
In the film it was gently stated “Our land is no longer ours, it now belongs to the Pastoralists and the Miners. We never got justice” without anger or blame.
¿Que te ha pasado Justicia? (Justice what has happened to you?) http://youtu.be/DF8sIGlI7sg
No justice and no Respect….http://youtu.be/cYbs_O_iMfU
Just as I was starting to despair for the fate of Warlpiridom under the sustained assimilationist multipronged attack, along comes this film showcasing Yapa strength and humour. Any society that can experience deep sorrow yet so heartily laugh at the oppressors and themselves, has a future. I’m not talking the Federal Government’s euphemistic Stronger Futures either.
The day following this eventful day the funeral of a teenage boy was held. If I die young… funny when you’re dead people start listenin…
The teenager was a good friend of a grandson of mine and my wife remembers him singing Warlpiri songs at Yuendumu school with enthusiasm and joy. That is the kind of place Yuendumu is, everyone has many relatives and many friends. http://youtu.be/jVC4ixWYw28
Yuendumu’s Baptist church was filled to capacity and many had to sit outside.
A long procession of immaculately dressed (white shirts and black trousers,skirts and shorts) men women and children followed by several motor cars walked to the church. The women were wailing and ‘sweeping’ with branches as they walked.
It was very moving to watch and a never in Yuendumu before seen event.
Two days later the teenage boy’s grandmother’s funeral took place, again a large procession. Again many beautifully dressed healthy well behaved children.
Funerals are just about the last thing that haven’t been taken over by kardiya. Yapa own their funerals. Yapa don’t own much else.
After the church service the crowd drove out to the grave site near where other family members lay buried. Yapa have the right to choose where to bury their relatives, at the Yuendumu Cemetery or out bush on their land. This right is one of few rights remaining to Yapa. I probably shouldn’t write this as I’m sure there are assimilationists that would not tolerate this if they knew of it.
The way funerals, of which there are way too many, are done in Yuendumu has undergone dramatic changes over the years. I won’t elaborate. Suffice it to repeat this quote:
“Cultural survival is not about preservation, sequestering indigenous peoples in enclaves like some sort of zoological specimens. Change itself does not destroy a culture. All societies are constantly evolving. Indeed a culture survives when it has enough confidence in its past and enough say in its future to maintain its spirit and essence through all the changes it will inevitably undergo. ”
― Wade Davis, The Wayfinders
Any day now, any day now I shall be released…. http://youtu.be/55o40XkUNWk
You are free to go,
Frank
