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Es ist nicht das Ziel von Indymedia ein umfassendes Infoportal mit Kopien möglichst vieler vermeintlich wichtiger und lesenswerter Texte anzubieten. Indymedia will eine Plattform für engagierte MedienmacherInnen und ihre eigenen Inhalte bieten. Die strategische Zweitveröffentlichung von Texten gehört nicht zu den Zielen dieses Projektes.
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"Stop dreaming, start acting"
THE ABORIGINAL PEOPLES OF AUSTRALIA
THE GOVERNMENT OF AUSTRALIA AND
THE PEOPLES OF AUSTRALIA
The National Aboriginal Alliance represents the voice of the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia. This message is made on behalf of the people who are committing themselves to the National Aboriginal Alliance and who are prepared to share a vision of a future for Australia's Indigenous Peoples.
I write this article in the hope that participants in the next meeting of the National Aboriginal Alliance will give thought to these issues and start the movement for real social changes in Australia, not to wimpy ideas that Australia's so-called 'visionaries' might concoct.
Martin Luther King spoke of a dream where the African Americans lived in a society free of racism and the debt of slavery had been paid.
Like the African Americans the Aboriginal peoples of Australia can yet only dream of a future in Australia where racism has been eliminated, our people are free to choose their future, and where the debts of the past have been paid.
The 2020 Vision event of the Prime Minister served to remind us of the standing demand by our peoples for truth and justice, and our longing for our freedom and rights - rights that keep getting pushed to the background each time a new government is elected in Australia.
Since colonization we have clearly and consistently demanded our rights be respected, including our inherent rights belonging to us as the First Peoples of Australia and our rights relating to self-determination.
The Government of Australia still fails to acknowledge or respect these rights and freedoms. Government after government we are told to wait for justice.
The time for waiting is over. The time for dreaming must end and the time for change must start.
The rights contained in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be respected by everyone in Australia as the minimum standard for our rights as peoples.
For the future, we must set these following minimum requirements.
Our future must be determined by our peoples, through community decision-making setting local goals and through national processes ensuring our right to exist as indigenous peoples in our own lands, territories and waters.
Each single person of our Aboriginal peoples must ultimately make a personal decision, to belong and remain members of the Aboriginal Peoples, or to reject a future as a member of the Aboriginal society and assimilate and dissolve into mainstream society in Australia.
It is a choice to be made, as we are now over half a million of the population in Australia and our population is giving two different messages to the government about our future.
This message is for all the people who wish to survive as Aboriginal peoples, keep our cultures and traditions, maintain a distinct and independent society in Australia (as is our inherent right) and who accept the discipline of self-determination.
All Aboriginal persons who choose to retain membership to the Aboriginal peoples must give priority to our survival - culturally, spiritually, economically and politically - as Aboriginal Peoples in our own lands, territories and waters.
We must insist upon access to, and control of, our traditional lands, territories and resources, WHICH WE OWN!
Where access is not possible, because the colonising society has alienated those lands and will not recognise our right of ownership, and where no treaty or legal document exists to justify the theft of those lands, then the First People so affected must have reparation, paid or otherwise authorised by the government, through a continuing annual tax for the alienated lands, territories and resources plus other forms of compensation as may be just and fair in consideration of their past, present and future dispossession.
This call for the return of lands, or otherwise just and fair compensation, is not only a demand for the respect of our human rights but also for our property rights which rightfully belong to the Aboriginal people.
These are rights in the universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
These are rights which are legitimate but which have time and time again been shunned by the governments of Australia. But time does not erase this debt, it only makes the debt grow bigger. It is time for the Government of Australia to face this fact.
'Native Title' has turned out to be a cruel deception since the government passed laws to curtail the rights seen by the High Court of Australia. Native Title laws can no longer be expected to fulfil the Land Rights claims of all Aboriginal people in Australia.
We are highly conscious that less than 1% of the east coast of Australia has been returned to the Aboriginal Peoples under the Native TItle laws, yet 'extinguishment of native title' has been 'established' over 99% of the east coast by recent laws in Australia.
Australia, as a nation, cannot justify its existence while our rights as the First Peoples continue to be denied.
For our futures the claims made against the governments of Australia can no longer be settled by the governments of Australia.
Our future demands that, as set out in the universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, our claims be settled in a 'fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process' where Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Australia are treated as peers.
We have every right to expect the Government of Australia to accept that our claims be heard in the International Court of Justice or before an equally independent and objective international tribunal.
Such arbitration can be pre-empted if the Government of Australia signs a treaty with the Aboriginal Peoples, but whether a treaty is signed or not, the people of Australia must accept that independent and objective settlement of our claims is inevitable in a just society.
As Aboriginal Peoples with the right of self-determination in Australia we have the right to develop as a peoples, by using the natural resources on our lands, territories and waters.
For example, all mining that exists on or adjacent to Aboriginal lands must therefore expect, as a minimum requirement, to pay their royalties to the Aboriginal owners of the lands, territories and resources. The Government of Australia should also compensate these owners for the royalties previously received by the governments.
The Government of Australia cannot continue to prevent our right to economic development by denying our rights to our property and our rights for freedom of choice. It is the sheer brutality and ruthlessness of the continuing imposition of the sovereignty of the 'Crown' over our sovereignty as 'peoples' that all our property remains stolen.
It is time for the leaders propped up by white Australia - Noel Pearson, Anthony Mundine and others - to stop avoiding or belittling our rights and freedoms and return to this real agenda, the agenda of the Aboriginal Peoples.
Our legal rights to own, control and manage our property was suppressed for over two hundred years, until the Mabo case in 1992.
Then it took the Government of Australia only six years to nullify our rights uncovered by the Mabo case.
As Aboriginal Peoples we also have the right to form our own governments and to maintain our own institutions for Aboriginal society.
How this might develop in Australia is a matter for Aboriginal Peoples to decide, once we are given the freedoms to exercise our rights to self-government including the right to choose our own representatives.
Can you imagine an Aboriginal State being formed in Australia, incorporating territories from all the existing States and Territories, where Aboriginal government is formed and where exciting developments in Aboriginal languages, culture and traditions are made?
An Aboriginal State can set about to develop a major new city in Australia, on Aboriginal lands, as a powerful boost to the economy of the State. This is but a dream as I write, but a dream which show how a new and better future for Aboriginal Peoples can flourish.
Our future freedoms demand that we be freed from the perpetual racism in Australia that prevents our Aboriginal Peoples from being different to western society. The major institutions and structures of Australian society are inherently racist, and the populations of Australia, as typified by the mainstream media and the governments are so blind and ignorant to the rights of the Aboriginal Peoples that they foolishly continue to discriminate and oppress using their power and control.
Protection against racism is not a right that can be switched on and off like the governments are doing. Protection against racism is a fundamental principle of world order. All governments in Australia and Australian society are guilty at this point of time in 2008 - 'guilty as hell' - of evil and racism against the Aboriginal Peoples.
In a future Australia, one where our inherent and human rights are acknowledged and respected, we will need the space - in time and development - to achieve our goal of self-determination. We do not want to be constantly flagged, beaten down and denigrated by an opinionated, intolerant and mean-spirited Australian society.
It is time for the Aboriginal Peoples to stand together and fight for our rights and freedoms.
It is time for the Government of Australia to sniff the winds of change, to understand the significance of the universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to better inform Australian society of its precarious position on human rights of the First Peoples, to make a place for the Aboriginal Peoples to govern on our lands, territories and waters, to release the control over Aboriginal resources and to pay the financial debt to the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia.
Fight, Aboriginal Australia, fight for your rights! Fight this generation, fight the next generation, fight forever until truth and justice prevails. We will be here until the world ends.
That is the only future on offer at the moment.
Les Malezer
0419 710 720
[The next, and third, meeting of the National Aboriginal Alliance is
being planned for the last week in June, 2008, in Cairns.]
Martin Luther King spoke of a dream where the African Americans lived in a society free of racism and the debt of slavery had been paid.
Like the African Americans the Aboriginal peoples of Australia can yet only dream of a future in Australia where racism has been eliminated, our people are free to choose their future, and where the debts of the past have been paid.
The 2020 Vision event of the Prime Minister served to remind us of the standing demand by our peoples for truth and justice, and our longing for our freedom and rights - rights that keep getting pushed to the background each time a new government is elected in Australia.
Since colonization we have clearly and consistently demanded our rights be respected, including our inherent rights belonging to us as the First Peoples of Australia and our rights relating to self-determination.
The Government of Australia still fails to acknowledge or respect these rights and freedoms. Government after government we are told to wait for justice.
The time for waiting is over. The time for dreaming must end and the time for change must start.
The rights contained in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be respected by everyone in Australia as the minimum standard for our rights as peoples.
For the future, we must set these following minimum requirements.
Our future must be determined by our peoples, through community decision-making setting local goals and through national processes ensuring our right to exist as indigenous peoples in our own lands, territories and waters.
Each single person of our Aboriginal peoples must ultimately make a personal decision, to belong and remain members of the Aboriginal Peoples, or to reject a future as a member of the Aboriginal society and assimilate and dissolve into mainstream society in Australia.
It is a choice to be made, as we are now over half a million of the population in Australia and our population is giving two different messages to the government about our future.
This message is for all the people who wish to survive as Aboriginal peoples, keep our cultures and traditions, maintain a distinct and independent society in Australia (as is our inherent right) and who accept the discipline of self-determination.
All Aboriginal persons who choose to retain membership to the Aboriginal peoples must give priority to our survival - culturally, spiritually, economically and politically - as Aboriginal Peoples in our own lands, territories and waters.
We must insist upon access to, and control of, our traditional lands, territories and resources, WHICH WE OWN!
Where access is not possible, because the colonising society has alienated those lands and will not recognise our right of ownership, and where no treaty or legal document exists to justify the theft of those lands, then the First People so affected must have reparation, paid or otherwise authorised by the government, through a continuing annual tax for the alienated lands, territories and resources plus other forms of compensation as may be just and fair in consideration of their past, present and future dispossession.
This call for the return of lands, or otherwise just and fair compensation, is not only a demand for the respect of our human rights but also for our property rights which rightfully belong to the Aboriginal people.
These are rights in the universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
These are rights which are legitimate but which have time and time again been shunned by the governments of Australia. But time does not erase this debt, it only makes the debt grow bigger. It is time for the Government of Australia to face this fact.
'Native Title' has turned out to be a cruel deception since the government passed laws to curtail the rights seen by the High Court of Australia. Native Title laws can no longer be expected to fulfil the Land Rights claims of all Aboriginal people in Australia.
We are highly conscious that less than 1% of the east coast of Australia has been returned to the Aboriginal Peoples under the Native TItle laws, yet 'extinguishment of native title' has been 'established' over 99% of the east coast by recent laws in Australia.
Australia, as a nation, cannot justify its existence while our rights as the First Peoples continue to be denied.
For our futures the claims made against the governments of Australia can no longer be settled by the governments of Australia.
Our future demands that, as set out in the universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, our claims be settled in a 'fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process' where Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Australia are treated as peers.
We have every right to expect the Government of Australia to accept that our claims be heard in the International Court of Justice or before an equally independent and objective international tribunal.
Such arbitration can be pre-empted if the Government of Australia signs a treaty with the Aboriginal Peoples, but whether a treaty is signed or not, the people of Australia must accept that independent and objective settlement of our claims is inevitable in a just society.
As Aboriginal Peoples with the right of self-determination in Australia we have the right to develop as a peoples, by using the natural resources on our lands, territories and waters.
For example, all mining that exists on or adjacent to Aboriginal lands must therefore expect, as a minimum requirement, to pay their royalties to the Aboriginal owners of the lands, territories and resources. The Government of Australia should also compensate these owners for the royalties previously received by the governments.
The Government of Australia cannot continue to prevent our right to economic development by denying our rights to our property and our rights for freedom of choice. It is the sheer brutality and ruthlessness of the continuing imposition of the sovereignty of the 'Crown' over our sovereignty as 'peoples' that all our property remains stolen.
It is time for the leaders propped up by white Australia - Noel Pearson, Anthony Mundine and others - to stop avoiding or belittling our rights and freedoms and return to this real agenda, the agenda of the Aboriginal Peoples.
Our legal rights to own, control and manage our property was suppressed for over two hundred years, until the Mabo case in 1992.
Then it took the Government of Australia only six years to nullify our rights uncovered by the Mabo case.
As Aboriginal Peoples we also have the right to form our own governments and to maintain our own institutions for Aboriginal society.
How this might develop in Australia is a matter for Aboriginal Peoples to decide, once we are given the freedoms to exercise our rights to self-government including the right to choose our own representatives.
Can you imagine an Aboriginal State being formed in Australia, incorporating territories from all the existing States and Territories, where Aboriginal government is formed and where exciting developments in Aboriginal languages, culture and traditions are made?
An Aboriginal State can set about to develop a major new city in Australia, on Aboriginal lands, as a powerful boost to the economy of the State. This is but a dream as I write, but a dream which show how a new and better future for Aboriginal Peoples can flourish.
Our future freedoms demand that we be freed from the perpetual racism in Australia that prevents our Aboriginal Peoples from being different to western society. The major institutions and structures of Australian society are inherently racist, and the populations of Australia, as typified by the mainstream media and the governments are so blind and ignorant to the rights of the Aboriginal Peoples that they foolishly continue to discriminate and oppress using their power and control.
Protection against racism is not a right that can be switched on and off like the governments are doing. Protection against racism is a fundamental principle of world order. All governments in Australia and Australian society are guilty at this point of time in 2008 - 'guilty as hell' - of evil and racism against the Aboriginal Peoples.
In a future Australia, one where our inherent and human rights are acknowledged and respected, we will need the space - in time and development - to achieve our goal of self-determination. We do not want to be constantly flagged, beaten down and denigrated by an opinionated, intolerant and mean-spirited Australian society.
It is time for the Aboriginal Peoples to stand together and fight for our rights and freedoms.
It is time for the Government of Australia to sniff the winds of change, to understand the significance of the universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to better inform Australian society of its precarious position on human rights of the First Peoples, to make a place for the Aboriginal Peoples to govern on our lands, territories and waters, to release the control over Aboriginal resources and to pay the financial debt to the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia.
Fight, Aboriginal Australia, fight for your rights! Fight this generation, fight the next generation, fight forever until truth and justice prevails. We will be here until the world ends.
That is the only future on offer at the moment.
Les Malezer
0419 710 720
[The next, and third, meeting of the National Aboriginal Alliance is
being planned for the last week in June, 2008, in Cairns.]
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