On 24 Dec 2000, at 5:33, Trudy & Rod Bray wrote:
> This is one of the areas addressed by treaties of the first nations in
> North America.
>
> "
> Fines for fishing after thousands of years unchallenged
>
> SMH Date: 23/12/2000
>
> By Ian Verrender
>
> For the past 40 years, Darby Nye has fished the bays and beaches of the far
> South Coast the way his grandfather taught him.
>
snip...
Clearly, as in many cases of indigenous imprisonment, these persons, so
incarcerated will be political prisoners.
Time is long gone when both non and indigenous Australians should accept
this fact of life, as the IRA argued, and eventually won. No uniforms, and
no acquiescence to the oligarchy and its alleged rules.
My father was imprisoned by the Gestapo for "distributing enemy propaganda"
in the Channel Island of Jersey in 1941. He refused to wear prison uniform
and agree with the regime of someone who clearly had a political agenda.
He was incarcerated in Germany for four years. He died in Canberra in
1977.
I wrote this some time in the early 90s...
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Next…" in the North-West…
by Jim Duffield,
A couple of years ago I was visiting a North-West town of Western Australia
where my wife was guest lecturing at that time. I arrived on a Friday and
as a visitor to the town was naturally curious about the town and its
people. My wife lectures at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin
University of Technology in Perth, the capital of the State.
I didn't have long to wait, I was in the town only an hour when I was told
that one of the other lecturers from Uni' had been 'booked' by the local
police for speeding and a number of other 'auto charges and he was to
appear in the local court on the following Monday. It was pure coincidence
that the man was an ex resident of the town, was driving a hire Fairlane,
and was an Aborigine, I'm sure...
But here he was, cruising into town in his hired Fairlane, in fact a local
boy made good, a university lecturer now, and he was booked by a copper
that had known him as a young tearaway a decade ago. Does the phrase
"uppity nigger" come to mind?
Anyway, on the Monday I accompanied him to court, out of intrigue and not
insignificantly, I guess also for moral support. His case was called and
he stepped forward to the rail, and then to the dock. It hit me like an
express train. Peculiarly from where I sat, the coat of arms behind the
bench - the imperial lion and unicorn - was caught in my line of sight
above his head, his black head.
The picture of imperial domination was complete, it encompassed the human
frame from blacks leg and neck ironed in the North-West of the first one
and a half centuries of invasion, to the crown, lion and unicorn over the
head today. Who the hell did this court think it was? I could hear my
response to the call for a plea now "Not Guilty" my mind cried.
"Not Innocent" either, I mused. "I refuse to plead. "I recognise not the
jurisdiction of this court being conducted under the auspices of an
invading foreigner" I cried.
"You what"? the bench in my musing responded.
"My people have suffered genocide by you and your fellow invaders and
subsequent illegal immigrants too long" I responded. "If this is an
Australian court, then let you as it's officer, yes you and your cohort
operate under an Australian icon, but whilst the Head of State that
perpetrated and perpetrates a genocide on me and mine is iconised as the
head of this court and this land, I shall not recognise you and any alleged
authority you may consider you have."
"I reiterate, I refuse to recognise your jurisdiction, I consider myself a
political prisoner, you must do your worse" my mind shouted.
My thoughts turned inwards even further as I contemplated that when Canada
achieved, no took, identity in the early 1960s it removed the lion and
unicorn from its courts and replaced them with the Canadian coat of arms.
I pondered "When can we expect the Emu and Kangaroo to grace our courts in
replacement of the imperial icon"? Has Canada inverted? Should we in Oz
expect to similarly self destruct, as when Canada moved from English Flag
to Maple Leaf?
The W.A. State Hansard reveals a recent question by Hon. Clive Brown, now
the member for Bassendean, then - Morley, about the iconography of the
imperialist that has been getting a real hammering recently in many royal
commissions. When questioned about this imperial British coat of arms
("armorial bearings") and its place in modern Australia, the (then)
Attorney General responded that it "reflected West Australian history." I
am bemused, the cipher in question was adopted by Queen Victoria in 1837,
eight years after the founding of Swan River Colony and its centre shield
even then was exclusive, quartered only between and representing only;
England, Scotland and Ireland, excluding Wales. Not incidentally, the
"English" (the lion) part is stolen from the island of Jersey, its heraldic
heritage from William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy in 1066! It's use
today is even more anachronistic and Anglocentric.
Of recent years Elizabeth Battenburg-Windsor, nee Sax-Coburg-Gotha, the
second of England, Wales, the Isles, Channel Isles and part of colonised
Ireland (and first of Scotland and the Australian Commonwealth?), has most
properly for such an etnically diverse nation, become the Queen of
Australia (second or first?) Perhaps coincidentally, in the intervening
period, our armed forces have adopted the emu and kangaroo, the Australian
coat of arms, in place of the lion and unicorn in their iconography.
Further, since the passing of the Australia Act (1986) we are now truely
"Australian." One has to wonder why a uniformed Australian is required to
fight and perhaps die under our national icon of the emu and kangaroo, yet
Mr, Ms or Mrs Average are obliged to pay parking fines and seek other legal
outcomes and redress under the icon of those in the British Isles. We
were, and peculiarly remain "A Weird Mob" not because of these
contradictions, but because we do not question the contradiction.
Why is it that the imperial coat of arms and not the Australian coat of
arms are emblazoned across the walls of our courts? Because the question
begs - "Why not OUR coat of arms?" The argument that the Judiciary
receives its power from the crown is fallacious as Elizabeth is the Queen
of Australia and as such has uniquely Australian and heraldically approved
armorial devices to fill that particular and peculiar role. I emphasise,
HER Australain armorial devices are not the lion & unicorn.
This is intellectual and jurisdictional dissonance of the most imperial and
Anglocentric order. Icons are powerful items of identity in our society,
as the media has demonstrated recently over many "royal" commissions.
Their use of the British coat of arms in lieu of the Australian must be a
peculiar colonist aspect of our artistic flair.
"Remove this archaic ironmongery from my legislatures and courts."
Who are we? Royal commission or Australian commission? Is royal closer to
a god and if so whose god? Further, is royal rather than Australian more
likely to arrive at the truth, whatever that may be, surely we are past the
concept of regal intercessors and papal indulgences. Can we yet stand
alone as Australians without dieu et mon droit (God and my right)?
"Guilty" I heard from my mate, bringing me out of my angry stupor.
"Very well, fined $100.00 and ..."
"Next…"
The following day I visited the town's cemetery, to discover that the only
Aborigine buried in the white apportionment is a Vietnam Veteran. I guess
us whites must have our grab at imperial military glory, even if involves
the post-mortem grasping at the war service of an Indigenous Australian.
Still, perhaps its better than another Aboriginal mate's grandfather. On
his return from active service in North Africa in 1944, he went into a
local pub for a beer, in uniform - slouch hat and all, wearing his medals,
only to be told "Not here, who the fuck d'you think you are? Piss off
nigger."
What's changed in half a century? Only the approach.
But then there we no black graduates and lecturers…the future beckons…
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since I wrote that, I've changed my mind. I am now less naive. I believer
that the empowerment can come only through a breadth of learning by all
Australians, not just by an intelligencia of black Australia, a black
meritocracy. That alone would see much of a continuance of what I perceive
has happened to many, assimilation through superannuation.
"I recognoise not the devices of the invaders and illegal and immoral
immigrants..."
bye for now,
------------------------------------------------------
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