Assimilation & Oppression

Despite repeated assurances that no Northern Territory remote homelands would be closed, a lack of government communication has left leaders in the Arnhem land community of Milingimbi believing it to be inevitable.

Residents' concerns have been outlined in a petition sent to the chief minister, Adam Giles, the local government and community services minister, Bess Price, and the federal Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, and signed by 135 elders and senior people. [node:read-more:link]

BOOK REVIEW: Hannah McGlade bravely addresses the complex issue of Aboriginal child abuse, arguing that Aboriginal child sexual assault has been formed within the entrenched societal forces of racism, colonisation and patriarchy, yet cast in the Australian public domain as an Aboriginal ‘problem’. She believes that we should be guided by Indigenous human rights concepts and international Indigenous responses. In doing so she believes that we can help to stem the harm to our future generations. [node:read-more:link]

Nigel Scullion, federal Indigenous affairs minister said
the commonwealth did not seek an assurance from the Northern Territory government that remote Indigenous communities would remain open before it proposed a change in funding arrangements. The federal government set aside a one-off payment of $155m in the budget for the territory government to take full control of municipal services. In the 2014-15 financial year, the commonwealth provided nearly $21m for municipal services in 376 NT outstations and homelands. [node:read-more:link]

"We have never been given the opportunity to live in our own ways ... since occupation of our lands in 1829, we have been forced, by successive policies, to be a reactive people. Now we are trying to change to be proactive, but we need time to do that in our own way. We are in the process of re-piecing together our community with our own value system, starting here at Heirisson Island," said Bella Bropho at the Matagarup Refugee Camp on Heirisson Island, Perth, Western Australia. [node:read-more:link]

'Grandmothers Against Removals' (GMAR) is leading a conference at Matagarup, the Perth Tent Embassy from May 24 - May 30, to strategise for the future and to march on May 26. The gathering will hold a National Protest on 'Sorry Day', May 26th, as this date marks 18 years since the release, of the 'Bringing Them Home' report. This report detailed the horrors of the Stolen Generations in the 20th Century, and called for urgent action to stop the continued removal of Aboriginal children from their families by 'child protection' agencies. [node:read-more:link]

Suicides in First Nations communities are linked to extreme poverty and disadvantage from the beginning of life, intergenerational trauma, cultural identity, racialisation and racism. Often alcohol and substance abuse are considered by many as underlying causes but these are not underlying causes and rather they are at best contributing factors borne symptomatically of the conditions above.

This article and links to all many other articles by First Nation suicide expert Gerry Georgatos. [node:read-more:link]

Unofficially, Recognise claims the debate has moved on and no-one, except for Noel Pearson, is talking about ‘Recognition' being in the form of fluffy words inserted in the preamble (Pearson is calling for Constitutuion Recognition, which would sit above the constitution in an attempt to drum up support from constitutional conservatives. It flies in the face of statements made by Prime Minister Tony Abbott suggesting the opposite - that we are not looking at any concrete suggestion to remove discriminatory clauses from the nation's founding document. [node:read-more:link]