Discover Top Posts Tagged with #first australians

22 July 2019

Y'all the ""Environment""" minister has today approved for works to resume on a road re-direction that the local aboriginal tribe have been fighting against for years . The proposed road cuts through three separate sites of massive cultural and spiritual significance to the local tribe, and to the women in particular.

There is a second potential route that could be used, but for some reason, the state government is determined to go with the route that is 65 million dollars more expensive, seven minutes slower than the alternate route, and -- most importantly -- that cuts directly through significant aboriginal heritage sites.

It cuts through Birthing Trees; trees that are several hundreds of years old (estimates range from 8-9 hundred years old) and that were specifically grown by the indigenous people by binding two trees tigether so that they would form a large cavity that pregnant women could give birth inside of, and where babies and young children could be sheltered inside of.

That's a woman standing in front of the entrance, in the white shawl and straw hat. It is a large tree. Inside that cavity behind her, it's large enough to stand up comfortably in, and to lay down in.

These trees have sheltered well over 10,000 Djap Warrung children as they were born. There aren't many of these trees left, because a lot of them were on what became farm land, and have long since been cut down. And the government wants to cut this one down too -- turn it into fire wood, and turn the place where it once stood into a road.

Also at risk of destruction is what the Djap Warrung people call a Directions Tree, which has massive spiritual significance to them. Huge significance. "Vatican to the Catholics" type significance.

It is directly in the firing line too.

A non-local aboriginal man gave permission a while ago to the state government for the road to go through this route -- problem being that he is not from the local tribe (he's not even connected to the main family at all) and has no ties to this particular section of land -- and certainly has no right to be donoling out permissions about it -- but the government keeps citing his permission as though it's all they need.

That would be like if I gave permission for someone to tear up your lounge room and completely destroy it and all your belongings that you have in there, and each time you protest, the people doing it say, "But some random woman who's not even a relative of yours gave us permission to do it." Total bullshit, right? But that's what's happening here.

There have been ongoing court proceedings and appeals to government, and they got an archeologist out there who specialises in indigenous sites, and she was having a conniption over how amazing this site is; there's weapon shavings, quarts pieces that had to have been manually carried in before being chipped into the desired shapes, old fire sites, and the trees of course -- and all of this has been untouched for hundreds of years and is literally just laying on the surface. She said she's never seen a site like it.

But the local council is all for it, the state government is the one doing it, and the federal government apparently doesn't give a shit. They're talking about the proposed "treaty" this year like it's going to fix everything for indigenous people, and yet, they're doing this to a tribe that wants nothing more than for the government to select the perfectly available faster, cheaper, non-heritage-destroying route for a road.

It's worth noting, by the way, that the local council? Yeah, a suspiciously high number of their members have shares in a particular tree removal company. A tree removal company who have been hired to clear this very land that's in contention, and who get paid for each and every tree they pull up. Which of course leads to bigger profit margins, which leads to bigger income for the shareholders. Many of whom are in the local council. Not to mention that the original estimate for number of trees to be removed was "7-13," and has since "blown out" to over 3,000. Bit of a dramatic blow out, isn't it. Thirteen to three thousand. Either someone royally fucked up the original estimate, or they're trying to pull up as many trees as possible.

Sound sus to you? Because it sounds dodgy as fuck to me.

Anyway, the supposed environment minister gave her ok for the route today, on the grounds that "that unrelated aboriginal bloke said we could," so works are due to start tomorrow, starting with the tree destruction.

There are protesters on their way up to prevent it happening, but last time they had a close call, where machinery was meant to move in and start clearing, the police were sent in in large numbers, so I'm worried this will happen again. Last time, several hundred protesters rocked up to blockade the way, so I'm hoping that happens again too.

My mum has gone in -- a 59 year old woman driving a Ute into the Australian country after dark, because she knows she needs to be there by morning to get in the way of heavy machinery that wants to cut down 800 year old indigenous trees. Not to mention that it's winter time here, at the moment, and Ararat routinely drops to negative temperatures overnight.

So if any of you are Australian, please shoot a quick email to your local federal representative. It won't even take you five minutes, just say "Hey I heard about how the Djap Warrung people in Ararat are having their heritage actively destroyed by you and your government, and I'm pretty damn displeased about it," and you're done.

Anyone who isn't Australian, can you please send positive vibes in the direction of the trees and my mum. Hopefully loads of protesters show up and are enough to thoroughly blockade access to the site. Please wish them success, and safety. The white protesters will be taking the front line, because the local police are a bit arrest-happy with regards to indigenous people (hi, blatant racism), so the white folk will be blockading the cop's access to both the indigenous people themselves plus obviously helping to blockade the trees.

My mum's one of those white people who will be getting directly in the way of police officers and large machinery.

So yeah -- success and safety vibes, please.

If you want to know more and/or help (regardless of which country you're in), here is a petition with more info included.

Please share this. I'm not one to ask for signal boosting but this is a hugely important matter to a lot of people -- a lot of indigenous Australians in particular -- and the government is just running roughshod over the local indigenous people as though they have no rights. As though there hasn't been quite enough of that in the past already.

#djap warrung #birthing trees #indigenous people #indigenous children #first Australians #aboriginal #aboriginal rights #2019 naidoc #naidoc 2019 #indigenous rights #signal boost

On Australia Day 80 years ago, 25 Indigenous men were told if they did not perform in a First Fleet re-enactment, their families would starve.

The men were taken away from their community for a week and forced to perform. Horrific.

#indigenous australians #australian history #colonial history #racism #anti-indigenist violence #first australians

MIRO - short Australian First Nations film

“When Miro returns home at the end of WWII he finds his land taken, his daughter stolen, his people relocated and his service record treated with contempt. But the battlefield has taught him how to fight and he sets out to reunite his family, waging his own form of justice.”

#australia #first australians #first australian nations #indigenous australians #miro #when i heard about this film i messaged the director to ask if it would ever be available for online viewing or purchase #and recently she put it online and linked me which was lovely :)#this short film includes kyle's fc as the protagonist #mark coles smith #and he does so GOOD here #this whole film has such massive kyle energy and i love it #the aussie western aesthetic is so [chef's kiss]#video #australia: film

In light of Australia Day, I wish to pay my respects to the first Australians, the Aboriginal people. The traditional custodians of this country. 🖤💛❤

#australia day #aboriginal culture #indigenous australian #first australians #happy australia day

Scare Tree. (used for shields and containers)

Cultural Walk with the Greens, Cambell ACT

annettefisher26@gmail .com

#first australians #cambell act #Canberra

Does your local member make the grade???

The dual citizenship saga is like NAPLAN for politicians. We are seeing their abilities to meet the standardised requirements for being a politician.

1. Tracking down annoying paperwork from anyone (family, overseas bureacrats etc.) before applying for the job of politician.

Susan Lamb = FAIL David Feeney = FAIL Katy Gallagher = FAIL Skye Kakoschke-Moore = FAIL Jacquie Lambie = FAIL Barnaby Joyce…

View On WordPress

#auspol #australian politics #constitutional change #dual citizenship saga #first australians #indigenous australians

Kelly, John Henry (1966) STRUGGLE for the NORTH Australasian Book Society

Seen at Curio Books in Hahndorf South Australia. Fliped through the first few pages, interesting pic on the inside cover of the white author with his indigenous “friend.”

#first australians #northern territory #antilibrary #wordsandpictures #out of print #60's