Let no one say the past is dead.
The past is all about us and within
– Oodgeroo Noonuccal 1970
On the night of January 26th, while drunken nationalists celebrated the 226th anniversary of a British military invasion, some unaustralians vandalised the facade of the Ryde electoral office of Victor Dominello, the state minster for Aboriginal affairs and for citizenship.
On the same day in 1938 Aboriginal activists demonstrated for citizenship rights in their stolen lands, rights which were not granted until 1967. Yet citizenship has done little protect aboriginal people from poverty, prisons and police persecution. It has not recovered their stolen lands, and neither will the new Abbott approved call to recognised indigenous people in the constitution, another empty gesture like Rudd’s cheap apology.
When politicians talk of reconciliation, they seek to silence those who call for land rights and autonomy, to put an end to Koori resistance with some hollow words and ceremonies, while leaving the sovereignty of the state untouched.
From the White Australia Policy to Operation Sovereign Borders, citizenship itself is mechanism of state oppression, where politicians and bureaucrats grant select privileges to some while excluding and criminalising those deemed unworthy or ‘illegal’. Continue reading “Sydney: (more) Invasion Day vandalism”
