(This dispatch first saw the light of day 28 January 2013, isn’t this a relief from all the crime we’ve been writing about?)

Gidday  mates,

Topical question: Did PM Julia Gillard do the right thing in ‘parachuting’ Nova Peris into a safe NT Senate seat
…. A puppet on a string?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT37zNj44JU

For those that live outside Australia, Nova Peris is an Australian Aborigine, originally from Darwin. She is an exceptional athlete and the first Indigenous Australian to win Olympic Gold (at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics as a member of the women’s hockey team).

Julia Gillard imposed her “Captain’s pick” (her words) on the NT Branch of the ALP (Australian Labor Party), which as well as the incumbent Senator Trish Crossin had several Indigenous (non-athletes) members putting their hand up as potential NT ALP candidates for the next Federal election.

The PM’s move raised a lot of controversy, centred around the fact that no Aboriginal Australian had ever entered Parliament as a member of the ALP.

An article in New Matilda (an online ‘news forum’) drew varied responses… this was one of mine:

“Many years ago when I first started living (with my family) on an Aboriginal community, I would on occasions get introduced (usually in Alice Springs not far from the Todd River) to some other white-fellow with the expectation that I would be thrilled to meet them. The fact that I had nothing in common with said white-fellows and the possibility that my reception of these strangers would be less than enthusiastic did not occur to my Warlpiri friends (Jungarrayi, come and meet our friend…. ).
I detect something of the same paradigm operating here. When Leigh Sales (who would do well to study Andrew Denton’s interviewing style) on the ABC’s 7:30 Report interviewed Alison Anderson, she kept pressing her “wasn’t the appointment of an Aborigine a good thing?” To her credit Alison stuck to her guns and was not drawn into discussing Nova’s merits (or otherwise).
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.”

“ ‘To be or not to be’ that is the question “, indeed the most famous question in the English language.

In Spanish there are two verbs ‘to be’: Sér and Estár, as in ¿Quien sós y donde estás?  (Who are you and where are you?) Soy Franklin y estoy en Yuendumu (I am Franklin and I am in Yuendumu).

Remote Australian Aborigines are denied the right to sér and increasingly the right to estár.

Enormous fiscal, legal and social pressures are being brought to bear that deny dignity respect and the right to be their distinct selves. Sus derechos de sér

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. Sus derechos de estár.

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

Q: Why despite much expenditure on ‘early childhood development’ was the Government seeing no results?

This question prompted a coordinator (for the seven early childhood initiatives currently competing for Yuendumu’s children) to come out to Yuendumu to find an answer.

Q: Nangala asked the lady: “what sort of results were they hoping to see? We think our little children are doing just fine!”

A: All children in remote communities are down on two indices.

Q: Nangala asked: “And what might those indices be?”

The lady didn’t know.

To which Manuél from Barcelona would have responded: “¿Qué? (‘niyaku-wiyi!?’ in Warlpiri …. In English: ‘Whaaaat!!!???’ or ‘WTF?’)

All I have is too many questions
Is there something someone forgot to mention to me….

How do I know if I am right in why I feel like I do.
And separate the truth from the lies…..

….Sam Sparro…. Too many questions…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqU0rzSm8Mo

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….

See yas later,

Frank