This Dispatch from 31 January has been edited. It was written in response to our Prime Ministers unilateral decision to “parachute” a prominent (for representing Australia in two different sports at different olympic games) indigenous person into a “safe” Senate seat.

A big step towards co-existence and reconciliation or whatever you want to call it will be made, when the idea that any (token) Aborigine …Token Angels… http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3mjmzCEcI … will be better than none is abandoned and instead the many very talented Aborigines with varied backgrounds are respected and appreciated on their merits and given free rein to express themselves instead of being stereotyped, stigmatized, used, controlled and suppressed (as under the NT Intervention).

A respect for different languages and different world views instead of the ethnocentric assimilationist imperative currently operating in Australia might be a good starting point. This could eventually evolve into a Parliament of varied and free thinking individuals, and no one giving a toss as to the Parliament’s ethnic make-up.”

Enormous fiscal, legal and social pressures are being brought to bear that deny dignity respect and the right to be their distinct selves. Enormous fiscal, legal and social pressures are being brought to bear that push people away from the bush (where they lead happier and healthier lives) and draw them to urban centers. They are being denied the right to self-determination. A right they have, by virtue of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Australia has endorsed but fails comprehensibly to comply with. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUU17FUj9Gc

From that inexhaustible source of inspiration, an Eduardo Galeano book…. On a wall in Quito (Ecuadór): “ Cuando teniamos todas las respuestas, nos cambiaron las preguntas” (When we had all the answers, they changed the questions)

In remote Aboriginal Australia, so often have they changed the questions, no one (including those that ask them) seems to know anymore what the questions are, nor what they were, nor what they should be. Not that it matters much, no longer are we asked and they come armed with their own answers anyway.

No one listens, so people here have given up answering, or out of expediency tell them what they think they want to hear. Most Warlpiri people now steer clear of bureaucrats and others, and hardly any attend the unending meetings.Myself I don’t know what the question is either, but I think I know the answer: Respect!

Gimme gimme respect Show me show me respect…..

Respect me, for who I am And not what I am http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEcomflSWV4 For who I am and not what I am….Vale Lucky Dube….