Dear reader,

 

Kameraden,

Rohald Dahl’s most famous quote is A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.

Not to be cherished is the humongous nonsense controversy which has broken out over the rewriting of his words more than three decades after Dahl’s death.  Where will it end?  Are we to obliterate Shylock and the Hunchback of Notre-Dame from literature?  But I’ll say no more about this. I have other fish to fry.

Almost three years ago the world was taught a lesson in empathy and how to deal with a crisis.  I recall Jacinda Ardern. saying she would not use the name of the person who had perpetrated the atrocious mass murder. The result is that that narcissistic psychopath is now locked up in deserved oblivion.

A bit late, but I.too will henceforth refrain from using Yuendumu’s own narcissistic psychopath’s name.

Unlike the Christchurch killer ours was found not guilty and enjoys the support of sections of the media and thousands of Facebook followers.  Go figure.

On a brighter note, next Wednesday, the Warlpiri Encyclopaedic Dictionary will be launched at Yuendumu School.

And now to the theme of this Dispatch- Asymmetry.

There is asymmetric warfare. I won’t delve into the countless examples of this such as in contemporary conflicts in the Middle East.  It is the asymmetric relationship between colonizer and colonized that my friend Forrest Holder recently wrote about.  It is so relevant to our situation in Yuendumu that without further ado I herewith render some of what he wrote

The relationship between our first nations peoples and:

•       the settlers;

•       our settler governments; and

•       the settler state’s mainstream institutions

is asymmetrical.

A most current example of this asymmetry is the asymmetry of trust writ loud in the public debate between the Yes and No sides of the Voice referendum.

The foundation document for the Yes campaign is the Statement From The Heart.  Central to this Statement, indeed embodied within the Statement, is trust.

It is a trust held by the first nations peoples in the good will, honesty and reliability of Parliament.

Indeed this trust by the first nations people in Parliament is foundational to their cause because without Parliament’s good will the Voice must fail and along with that the hopes and aspirations invested by the first nations peoples in this cause will be to no end.

On the other hand the foundational position for many of the No campaign is distrust.  The No campaigners do not trust the first nations peoples when they say the Voice will, indeed can only, be an advisory position put to Parliament which Parliament will be absolutely free to accept, accept in part or reject completely.

The No campaigners don’t trust our first nations peoples, preferring to believe instead that if enshrined the Voice will become an enforceable burden on Parliament, a burden foisted onto parliament by the High Court.

The No campaigners don’t trust that the Langton/Calma Report provides sufficient detail, despite the fact that it is very detailed.  Instead they make unsupported statements that the Yes campaign lacks detail.  They infer the Yes campaign can’t be trusted and that somehow there is a hidden agenda lurking away in the background.

In a nutshell the thrust of many in the No campaign is that blackfellas can’t be trusted.

Their lack of trust is without base, it is totally unfounded and unwarranted.  Never in our history have our first nations peoples been faithless or untrustworthy in their dealings with Government and the Parliament.

The lack of trust expressed by a solid core of the No campaigners is absent of any reason that they have in historical fact.  It is akin to paranoia, but I believe it has its roots in the bigotry of racism.

On the other hand our first nations peoples have many reasons to lack trust; our Parliament has broken faith with our first nations peoples many, many times.  Here are just four examples:

•       Governments around Australia refused to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, deaths in custody continue to rise nationwide;

•       Parliament failed to deliver the Social Justice Package which was the promised third core element of the settlement first nations peoples negotiated with Parliament following the Mabo decision;

•       Howard’s parliament broke more promises made by the Parliament on native title with the amendments he put through in 1996.  They gutted the Native Title Act, enacted “bucket loads” of extinguishment and severely weakened the already weak rights first nations peoples had under the right to negotiate;

•       Howard’s parliament completely ignored the recommendations of the Little Children are Sacred Report and instead sent the army in to take over Aboriginal communities.  I will not go into the very lengthy detail of exactly how Howard’s parliament legislatively overrode and interfered with the rights and interests of Aboriginal people in the NT, but the effect of the intervention put government in control of the very minute details of the lives of Aboriginal people.

NOTE Parliament had to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act so it would not apply to the legislative actions taken by Howard’s government.  Parliament had to do so because the actions were racist and would have been struck down by the RDA had it not been suspended.  This was done in the full glare of the public and the Media.

 Why was there no national revolt at such draconian and racist acts by our national government?????

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9TsbC9oAfo&t=2s

Sorry folks,

Here is an antidote to that song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVHOqrw3Jks

and one more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpW07HDd22I

Peace on Bougainville

(If you haven’t seen it I recommend you watch the film Mr. Pip. You won’t regret it.)

That’s enough for now,

Auf wieder sehen

Frank