Aboriginal summit: “Be prepared for the fight of your life”

Goodooga, northwest NSW, 16 January 2010 - - Euahlayi activist Michael Anderson says people coming to the three-day Aboriginal summit in Canberra two weeks from now should “be prepared for the fight of your life”.

“This will be heated and furious because when people are hurting they will not hold back. (But) it is important to understand that it is the system that we have to fight, not each other,” the veteran campaigner for Aboriginal rights says in a media release.

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“This summit is about the blood, guts and tears of our people. It is our intention to deal with the issues that nobody wants to know about, let alone do something about,” the last survivor of the four Black Power activists who set up the Aboriginal embassy in Canberra in 1972, says.

The summit will be held at the Aboriginal Centre ‘Jabal’ of the Australian National University. For those unable to come, Mr Anderson writes, meetings are to be organised around the country later.

“We need the people to know what we are doing and if you cannot come to us then we need to go to you.”

The first day is to be for listening to the elders and the youth, the second for delegates to workshop their issues and the third for setting an action agenda.

“I do hope that Noel Pearson, Michael Mansell, along with our intelligentsia, will come and share their thoughts. Without the broad spectrum of thought we may lose a little.”

Mr Anderson slams the proposed “sanitised national representative body” being put forward by the government-sponsored Tom Calma as “a farce and an insult to Aboriginal people”.

Mr Anderson’s media release in full:

The national Aboriginal summit in Canberra from 30 January to 1 February (inclusive) is open for all to hear elders and youth combining to set a ‘New Way’ agenda for our pathway into the future.

The proposed sanitised national representative body being put forward by the government-sponsored Tom Calma is a farce and an insult to Aboriginal people. Recent media releases by Tom Calma suggest that the government want only conservative Aboriginal people who are to be vetted and approved by the government.

Why bother to go through an expensive charade to hand-pick who can stand in a series of sham elections? It’s an insult of the highest order and Australia should never make condemnations of countries like Zimbabwe when they argue that national elections over there are a sham and rigged.

This summit that I have called for is open and free, unlike the South Australian government conference that had only chosen blackfullas who had to be approved by Minister Jenny Macklin.

I do hope that Noel Pearson, Michael Mansell, along with our intelligentsia, will come and share their thoughts. Without the broad spectrum of thought we may lose a little. But for those who cannot come, the intention is to come to you through state and Territory meetings yet to organised around the country. We need the people to know what we are doing and if you cannot come to us then we need to go to you. This will be hard but where there is a will there will be a way.

1. The first day of the ‘summit’ is for listening to the elders and the youth. It will give us a clear and defined agenda for the following two days. Our people are hurting and they are seeking to locate their own solutions to problems. A sanitised national representative body cannot and will not get down in the gutters and mess that has been created by all past government-sponsored programming.

This summit is about the blood, guts and tears of our people. It is our intention to deal with the issues that nobody wants to know about, let alone do something about.

Murris, Nyoongars, Goories, Koories etc need their space to let it all out. The pent-up pain and suffering requires a free and open environment for it all to be released and that is what we will be offering on the first day. So if you think the heat will be on and you cannot stand the heat then stay away.

2. The second day will be about having the delegates workshop the issues that they seek to address. We need to locate solutions and this will offer the people the freedom to come up with what they see as their ways of addressing issues. It is important to understand that we will expect the people to indicate their visions and outcomes for their planned way forward.

3. The third day is about setting an ‘Agenda of ACTION’. This will include amongst other things a declaration of our will and ‘sovereignty’. It will also include a ‘communiqué’ to be delivered to the Prime Minister and his parliament which we hope can be read into the Parliamentary Hansard.

Outcomes

We also intend to define our way of casting off the chains of colonialism and demand that the English colonisers PAY UP. This will be done by a delegation we will call for to take our fight to be de-colonised to the root, and that is England herself.

To be part of this ‘revolution’ just come. But be mindful that this our thing, our way, and this means we cannot help you get there and back home again. But knowing how resourceful my people are if they believe, they will come and we will all struggle for the three days, but we will start the revolution and we will not stop. This is our time so come and set the ‘New Agenda’ and be mindful that we do not need the white man’s permission.

This will be heated and furious because when people are hurting they will not hold back, so I ask that people be prepared for the fight of your life if you are intending to come. It is important to understand that it is the system that we have to fight, not each other.

Mr Anderson’s background:

Aboriginal name: Nyoongar Gurrajong Murri Ghillar

- Leader of the 3,000 Euahlayi.

- Last survivor of the four Black Power men who set up the Aboriginal embassy in Canberra in 1972.

- Led 1,000 of his Aboriginal people and 200 white people on a cotton field strike in January 1973 calling for increased pay. He won this case within three weeks after his Black Power colleagues organized for the matter to be heard in the NSW Arbitration Courts.

- The only Australian Aborigine to have worked in the US State Department, specially arranged by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and former Foreign Minister Don Willesee in 1973. During this period he was to study how the United States was responding to the race riots of the 1960s and 1970s by African and Native Americans.

- Engaged as a consultant by the Australian government on special race relations matters.

- Engaged as a special adviser to the Labor Opposition leader, ‘Bill’ Hayden.

- Engaged by the senior elected elders of Gulf Country for their fight against the Queensland government’s changes to Aboriginal designated reserves turning them into local shire districts.

- Advisor to the National Aboriginal Conference on the United Nations establishment of the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples.

- The first Aboriginal Public Prosecutor in the district court of NSW in the field of criminal law.

- Lecturer/senior lecturer at several Australian universities teaching Aboriginal studies and Aboriginal politics.

- Former Director of Research on the treaty process with the former National Aboriginal Conference. During this time he assisted in leading a joint delegation of the NAC and the former Australian (Labor) Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, on a five-nation tour of Africa on the issue of support for the treaty process and the call for the decolonisation of Australia.

- Attended eight years of negotiations at the United Nations on the drafting of the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

- Now lives on and runs a sheep and cattle property on his ancestral land on both sides of the New South Wales and Queensland border in the lower Ballone river system.