Following a period of relative and alleged calmness, during the last months three searches throughout Northern Germany and the entire country resp. based on § 129 a Criminal Law (constitution of a terrorist organisation) against left-wing activists and structures have taken place.
On May 9th 2007, 40 objects and in total 18 suspects and so-called “witnesses” were affected by a search wave in the context of mobilisation against the G8 summit in Heiligendamm. According to the federal prosecution, they are supposed to have constituted a terrorist organisation to the end of implementing a militant campaign against the G8 summit. Four weeks later, on June 13th, another search action based on §129a against persons from Bad Oldesloe, Hamburg and Berlin took place. The suspects are charged with participation in anti-militarist attacks. Finally, on July 31st four persons have been arrested in Berlin because of alleged membership in the “mg” (militant group). Merely one suspect’s warrant of arrest has at least temporarily been overruled, not least due to great public pressure. The remaining three persons are still in the clink, exposed to special conditions of custody.
OUR SOLIDARITY AGAINST THEIR REPRESSION
AGAINST CAPITALIST NORMALITY
„We have shot into the bush, and now we’ll see what or who is moving there” (Quotation of an investigator regarding the searches of May 9th, 2007)
Although the proceedings are targeting different political connections, the arbitrariness of the investigations clarifies that the state power is pursuing a comprehensive goal: the illumination and criminalisation of left structures, to the end of smashing them.
A total disclosure of the suspects’ as well as co-suspects’, witnesses’ and lawyers’ private sphere towards state institutions is resulting from the immense extent of the realised surveillance and search measures. Furthermore, substitution of confiscated property and necessary utilisation of legal support cause considerable financial hardship. Thus, enforced standstill and passivity on part of the suspects are being attempted.
Even though 95% of proceedings under §129a are dismissed prematurely, yet state repression results in preventing the persons concerned and their political environment from their original intention: to make revolution!
That’s gonna be fun …
The extension of the control apparatus utilising ever increasing technical opportunities has been intensified for years. A few catchwords in this context are: online surveillance, provisional data storage, utilisation of the toll system for the creation of databases or the storage of biometrical data on identification documents. The general security debate includes domestic operation of the Federal Armed Forces as well as discussions concerning the shooting down of civil airplanes and the targeted killing of so-called “terrorists”. These developments are accompanied by a substantial extension of police competences and an abolishment of the division between the secret service and the police – therefore, police investigations nowadays are based increasingly on findings of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The lessons from National Socialism which resulted in the separation of these institutions don’t matter anymore.
In order to legitimate the extension of the so-called „preventive state“ and the cutback of civil rights, a permanent threat is being constructed. A policy utilizing the fear of terror, staged by – among other things - sensational media campaigns presenting the extent of the menace in ever increasing superlatives, is supposed to be the hotbed for the readiness to change fundamental rights.
Where does this fear come from?
The extension of the modern security state is the reaction to a world-wide culmination of social conflicts. Reinforced by the enforced opening of less-developed markets by and for the leading industrialised nations, increasing competition pressure coerces people into even more dire poverty. As regional distribution conflicts are escalating, more and more people are seeking refuge in the countries of the originators. Simultaneously, Germany gains a geo-political power position in the struggle for markets and resources in the context of her EU policy. But also domestically, distribution inequity is coming to a head: Due to increasing economic competition, capitalism isn’t inclined to maintain minimal revenue participation of wage dependants anymore. The social components of the civil state are being exchanged for guiding ideas of an obvious authoritarian formation whose contents are predominantly accepted and internalised willingly by the society.
Ideological crime prevention is a fundamental element of this formation. Therefore, in the beginning of the 1990s, a debate on the police’s “zero tolerance” concepts has been initiated, claiming supposed or factual socially deviating behaviour to be the basis of increasing incidence of crime. Consistently, on the local level security and cleanliness programmes were realised, stigmatising and criminalising graffiti sprayers, homeless people and others. Town development approaches follow the idea of adjusting city centre areas as to-be-pacified cores of the metropolises by targeting measures in order to dislodge people to the urban periphery who don’t fit into the pattern of “blameless citizens”.
We want the whole bakery!
The recent culmination of the social situation is not a crisis of capitalism, but is tantamount to the system; it’s system-immanent. Accordingly, the rearmament of the state’s security apparatus serves as general riot prevention but primarily to maintain and secure economic power relations. Therefore, state repression is a safeguarding pillar of capitalism. The strike against the left serves to criminalise a movement consequently rejecting and fighting the development outlined above. But the degree of state repressive action is not determined by supposed or factual “jeopardy” from the left, but the fact of mere existence of left resistance structures is the repression institutions’motivation to attack with all means at their disposition.
We haven’t come to complain. Since wherever people are fighting the prevailing order, state repression will be the answer.
We want to overcome the conditions persistently bringing about the capitalist normality. We consider capitalism and its principle of total economisation of the living space as hostile to humans – as our enemy. Our utopia consists of a human and solidarity-based society and of all people’s freedom from exploitation and oppression. Our outlook is one of emancipatory, political and social movements locally and globally which are solidarily and collectively rejecting consequently capitalist conditions and put up resistance against them. Our dealing with state repression has to be as collective and solidary as our fight for liberation is to be fought. Only together we are able to response to and fight back attacks against the radical left.
The demonstration on 12/15 in Hamburg shall show that the state’s calculation of criminalisation, intimidation and division is bound to fail. Join the demonstration against repression and security state! Let’s show them also on the streets that we can make the circumstances dance!
Axel, Florian und Oliver have to get out!
Immediate dismissal of all proceedings!
Freedom for our imprisoned comrades!
For world-wide social revolution!
Demo Alliance Hamburg
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
italian state oppression
5 Italian anarchists arrested + contacts
Thursday, October 25 2007 @ 03:33 AM PDT
Contributed by: informa-azioneIn a repressive police operation named "Brushwood", 5 italian anarchist were arrested with the charge of "subversion of democratic order."
They are not directly accused of bomb-lettering EU and Prodi, but of having sent an envelop with 2 bullets to the governor of Umbria (their region), and having damaged some construction sites.
What is true is that ROS (a special team of the Carabinieri law enforcement) and ROS's general Ganzer (charged of narco-traffic a couple of years ago) say this guys are part of the Coop-Fai, which stands for "Against all political order/Informal anarchic federation".
Anyway, 4 of them are 20 yo, only one of the arrested is 45. This means that in 2003, the year when the "FAI informal" attacks took place, most of them were circa 16 yo !!!!
We don't know and dont' care if they are guilty or not.
State is the only terrorist!!!
They openly opposed the exploitation and devastation of their territory, they openly insulted this society and its jails.
Please send'em your support and solidarity:
Michele Fabiani
Andrea Di Nucci
Dario Polinori
Damiano Corrias
Fabrizio Reali Roscini
c/o casa circondariale di Perugia (it means prison of Perugia)
Capanne
strada Pievaiola km.11+800
06100 PERUGIA
Bologna, Italy: Anarchists arrested for resisting forced psychiatric treatment
Sunday, October 21 2007 @ 04:02 PM PDT
Contributed by: AnonymousThis morning, Saturday, October 13 [2007], at about 0400 hours, in Bologna, in the general indifference, a girl is stopped and, because her attitude is judged "abnormal", the guardian of order decides to book her into Obligatory Health Treatment [psychiatric].
AN ORDINARY NIGHT OF DEMOCRACY
FIVE COMPANIONS ATTACKED AND ARRESTED
This morning, Saturday, October 13 [2007], at about 0400 hours, in Bologna, in the general indifference, a girl is stopped and, because her attitude is judged "abnormal", the guardian of order decides to book her into Obligatory Health Treatment [psychiatric].
Some individuals in solidarity decide to manifest their opposition, trying to obstruct the police, but the police answered with their weapons, abundant baton strikes and by showing their guns.
A brief escape ends in via S. Vitale, where the police of six patrols unleash their rage upon the handcuffed boys, waking-up some residents who, taking the responsibility to express their indignation, also run the risk of getting arrested.
The accusations against the five are heavy: aggravated robbery (the henchmen have lost their handcuffs), damages (of a vehicle into which the girl was loaded) and resistance. They are in detention and have all been moved to the prison of Dozza.
We know very well what our friends and companions real crimes are: having decided with courage to oppose a world of legal violence where delegation and resignation are pulled into complicity with repression and exploitation.
To the prisoners goes our total total solidarity and affection, conscious that struggling, opposing and raising our heads high is the only possible road to not being complicit with the silence imposed by an assassin society.
FREE!!
Madda
Manu
Texino
Fede
Faco
Demonstration this afternoon in front of Dozza at 6:00.
- - - - -
Update
On October 14, five companions were arrested in Bologna for writing graffiti in solidarity with those arrested the previous day. Two of the writers, Juan and Bogu have already been sentenced to 10 months in prison. On October 17, a companion was arrested in Lugano, Switzerland, for writing graffiti at the Italian consulate in solidarity with the Bologna companions.
Prisoner names and address:
Cristian Facchinetti
Federico Razzoli
Andrea Tessarin
Miroslav Bogunovic
Juan Antonio Sorroche Fernandez
C.C. La Dozza
Via del Gomito, 2
40127 Bologna
Italia
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
greece - environment & state oppression
The morning of Sunday 29 July, an intervention was made in Mont Parnes (a casino in ,Mount Parnitha which was recently burned, the same casino which tries to expand to the burned grounds of the mountain):
banners where opened , some slogans where shouted and red paint was thrown.
The moving of the state mechanisms was constant, many-sided and long, different than the days the mountain was burning. Riot police, under cover police and helicopters where "guarding" the burned forest of Parnitha , the "natural" source of profit. The protection of profit and the unblocked work of gamblers seems to have greater importance than the natural environment.
26 people (of the approximately 35-40 that originally went there) were arrested with the help of the casino workers and the mayor of Thrakomakedones municipality , Themis Oikodomou. The arrested where beaten up while they where hand-cuffed and then held in the GADA (Central Police Control Athens) without medical help and even without water. It is also remarkable that when they complained about the conditions of their arrest they where brutally attacked inside the police headquarters by a squat of riot police.
Immediately after their move in GADA a group of people met in front of the headquarters to express their solidarity. They stayed there until late in the night when charges where announced . Disturbance of peace and unprovoked damages. The charges where announced after the complaint of the Casino.
After the holocaust of Parnitha and the anxious rescue of the casino (while the forest was indifferent), the company Regency Εntertainment, few days before showed it's hypocritical "ecological" feelings announcing that it will sponsor the re-foresting of the area, after though the bestowal of 62.5 acres for the expansion of Mont Parnes.
Athens, Greece
banners where opened , some slogans where shouted and red paint was thrown.
The moving of the state mechanisms was constant, many-sided and long, different than the days the mountain was burning. Riot police, under cover police and helicopters where "guarding" the burned forest of Parnitha , the "natural" source of profit. The protection of profit and the unblocked work of gamblers seems to have greater importance than the natural environment.
26 people (of the approximately 35-40 that originally went there) were arrested with the help of the casino workers and the mayor of Thrakomakedones municipality , Themis Oikodomou. The arrested where beaten up while they where hand-cuffed and then held in the GADA (Central Police Control Athens) without medical help and even without water. It is also remarkable that when they complained about the conditions of their arrest they where brutally attacked inside the police headquarters by a squat of riot police.
Immediately after their move in GADA a group of people met in front of the headquarters to express their solidarity. They stayed there until late in the night when charges where announced . Disturbance of peace and unprovoked damages. The charges where announced after the complaint of the Casino.
After the holocaust of Parnitha and the anxious rescue of the casino (while the forest was indifferent), the company Regency Εntertainment, few days before showed it's hypocritical "ecological" feelings announcing that it will sponsor the re-foresting of the area, after though the bestowal of 62.5 acres for the expansion of Mont Parnes.
Athens, Greece
Sunday, August 26, 2007
australia - racist laws target the indigenous
from the UK indymedia newswire
Recent Racist Policies against the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia
I am writing this article to inform people overseas of the abuse of human rights that is occurring in Australia at the present time.
I left Darwin, a city in the Far North of Australia, in 1995. At that time the situation for the indigenous people was shameful, with many Aborigines in remote communities living in third world conditions. But there were signs of hope with land rights claims being won and the introduction of innovative Aboriginal health clinics and employment and educational programs. Above all the then government showed signs of a commitment to the acknowledgement of the past wrongs perpetrated against the indigenous population.
Since then the government has been led by the right wing Liberal Party which has sought to erode many of the hard won gains made by indigenous groups. An election is looming and the Liberal Party has not been doing well in the opinion polls. John Howard, the Prime Minister, has a reputation for pulling rabbits out of hats when it looks like he’s about to lose an election. This usually consists of instilling fear in the population by demonising minority groups such as refugees or Muslims a.k.a. terrorists (this last is probably familiar to UK readers). This time it’s the turn of the Australian Aborigines.
A Brief Historical Background (with apologies to those for whom this is all too familiar)
Aborigines have inhabited Australia for over 40000 years. They comprise 700 language groups and many nations. Until invasion by the white settlers they were a hunter-gatherer peoples with a vibrant culture and a strong spiritual connection to the land
The more recent history of the Australian Aborigines is related to their dispossession. For the white invaders 200 years ago Australia was looked upon as Terra Nullis, uninhabited land with the original inhabitants seen as merely part of the flora and fauna, and it was only in 1967 that Aboriginal people were granted full citizenship and the right to vote. By then many tribes had been broken up and different nations forcibly removed from their lands and herded together on missions. The mission stations were often administered by white managers who controlled movement, food rations and tried to stamp out much of the traditional culture.
Aboriginal women suffered the same massacres and dispossession from land plus the added violence of being raped or used as concubines by the white invaders. Without the labour of Aboriginal people it would have been difficult for the colonists to run their farms and houses. Aboriginal women were used as servants and/ or farm workers for little or no pay.
Added to this there was the systematic taking away of Aboriginal children from their mothers which lasted until well into the nineteen sixties and resulted in a whole “stolen generation” of Aboriginal adults. Many of these children ended up in private homes or in mission schools where they were often physically and sexually abused and used as slave labour.
Many Aborigines now live in urban areas but there are many communities in remote areas some of which are old mission stations some of which are based on traditional land.
The result of all this is often desperate communities traumatised by dispossession with no work, so most people are on social security or what the locals call “sit down money”, often illiterate because of little or no schooling, no proper health care and overcrowded housing. Walking into an Aboriginal community is like walking into a desperately poor village in the third world whereas a few kilometres down the road there may be apartment blocks shopping malls, hospitals and schools.
Although the problem of Aboriginal communities have been known about for decades all programs have been piecemeal and under-resourced. This is the result of the neglect by successive governments to put adequate resources into housing, education and health in remote communities. As Aboriginal writer Alexis Wright said recently in an address to PEN:
I have often thought that indigenous people cannot break through the deafness caused by the walls of the status quo that surrounds our containment, even if we wanted to, because of the layers in the maze of institutional violence. Although individuals might create something for either themselves or their people, as we see in the difficult work our people undertake across the country in the unconnected policies of health, education, employment etc. our desire to survive as people in our own right, with a plan for our cultural future, has been impossible to achieve.
In these desperate communities there are often high levels of drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence and sexual abuse. When these problems occur it is the women who bear the brunt especially the women elders who have consistently spoken out about violence against women and children It is often the grandmothers who have the care of grandchildren because the mothers are unable to care for them and the women elders who have initiated night patrols to get drunks back home and look after children out on the streets late at night. Women elders in the far north community of Yirrkala have started a healing centre using cultural methods in order to help those with drug and alcohol problems.
The women of Yirrkala say that the problems started when the huge bauxite mine arrived. Aboriginal elder Gulumbu Yunupingu
was quoted as saying “Because of the mine the drugs came, the pub was built”
(Sunday Territorian 24/06/07)
In spite of all this inequality many Aborigines have maintained strong ties with their culture and a belief in the sacred duty they bear towards the land. There are also many remote area Aboriginal communities that have won back their right to their traditional land. Many communities have a permit system whereby outsiders are only allowed in with the permission of the traditional owners and most have established themselves as dry areas by banning alcohol and changing the kind of gasoline they use where petrol sniffing is a big problem amongst the young people
Aboriginal women have also been at the forefront of campaigns to stop uranium mining and nuclear dumps on their traditional lands notably the women in South Australia who prevented a nuclear waste dump from being placed on their land, and the Mirrar women of the Jabiluka region who waged a successful campaigns against uranium mining
I cannot ignore the fact that there is a problem of male violence within Aboriginal communities as there is in all communities. 16 indigenous women have been murdered by their partners or other family members over the last twelve months. Nor would I offer drunkenness and drug abuse as an excuse for this violence. It is extremely difficult for an Aboriginal woman to take proceedings against her violent partner or to leave him without giving up her whole community. When I worked in the north of Australia eleven years ago, as a sexual assault counsellor, I talked to women who had had to leave their communities and break links with their families in order to escape the violence and. they experienced huge sadness and loss Those who put the blame on Aboriginal men also ignore the numbers of white men who are perpetrators. The white men who smuggle alcohol into dry communities where alcohol is banned and sell it at exorbitant rates or who own the liquor stores outside the dry areas, the people who produce the pornography which is viewed by many of the community members on their DVDs, and the white men who rape the children and women and who get the young women to prostitute themselves in return for cigarettes and alcohol. They also fail to mention the high rates of domestic violence and sexual abuse in non=aboriginal communities.
Recent Interventions
So what is the response of the government to all this? Rather than being deeply ashamed of the neglect of their fellow citizens they are blaming the victim. Suddenly this is all the fault of dysfunctional communities that need to be brought under control. Without consulting the elders and ignoring all the under funded and struggling initiatives that have gone before they have declared the state of Aboriginal communities a “national emergency” and sent in the army and the police to “restore order”. Aboriginal artist Julie Dowling summed this up “It shows bad leadership to bring in the army. It means (the government’s) left it too long, too late”.
The justification for this campaign is that they are rescuing children from abuse.
But as Aboriginal elder Banduk Marika states:
And now it seems that our whole culture is being blamed by government and media for the problems associated with grog, poor education, a lack of jobs, houses and health care. … I want to say very clearly that abuse of children is something we mothers and grandmothers are very worried about, because family is even more important to us than it is to most non-indigenous people. But such abuse is not limited to Aboriginal communities. And it occurs in Aboriginal communities because of the situation we are living in, not because of our culture. … The small number of persons who go against their families and bring shame on us all must be held accountable – but it is not the fault of our society as a whole. Many of us do not drink or take drugs and we protect, respect, love and care for our children, our families and our cultural traditions.
The government rushed five pieces of legislation through parliament aimed at controlling every aspect of the lives of Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory. This 500 pages of legislation gives government the power to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act in order to allow them to “quarantine” half of the social security payments of Aboriginal people living on most of the communities in the Northern Territory, up to 47000 people, so that the money can be administered by whites to pay for essentials such as food and clothing. This applies to all individuals whether caring for children or not and to all carers whether “good’ or “bad” carers and worst of all targets one particular group only and doesn’t apply to the rest of the population on welfare.
They also plan to “quarantine” up to 100% of welfare payments to families who don’t send their children to school and/or generally keep them well fed and healthy. What they categorise as child neglect is very sketchy and does this mean that a child kept from school for a few days to attend ceremonies or visit ancestral land (very important things for Aboriginal culture) will then be considered to be neglected?
Most of the funding for all this will be taken up by the bureaucracy and the employment of white managers to oversee communities, which as many elders have pointed out is taking Aboriginal people back to the days of the missions.
This legislation is an attack on our people. How would you feel if you had to allow a bureaucrat from … (the government) into your community meetings, netball committee meetings and business meetings? How would you feel is there was a law which made it OK for you to be discriminated against just because of your race? Muriel Bamblett Chairwoman of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care.
The government is also suspending land rights and the permit system. Suspending the permit system will open the door to white predators smuggling in alcohol and expose communities up to the unwanted gaze of tourists coming in to photograph “real Australian Aborigines”. Along with this is the suspension of hard won land rights of for many communities.
Curiously the 500 pages of legislaeion meant to concern itself with the welfare of children doesn’t include one mention of the word “child” or “children”. So what are the real reasons behind this racist intervention? The answer quite simply is a land grab. The government is in league with the mining companies to open up more land for uranium mining without having to face lengthy court battles with the traditional owners. It’s also promoting nuclear energy and Aboriginal desert land could provide a useful dumping ground for nuclear waste.
In a newspaper article
Pat Turner Aboriginal woman activist said: We believe that this government is using child sexual abuse as the Trojan horse to resume total control of land rights
The result of all this has been images on the news of the bewildered and frightened Aboriginal women and children who have already experienced centuries of oppression and dislocation. There have been reports of women in communities near Alice Springs terrified that the authorities would remove their taking them into the bush to hide them. A woman I spoke to said that women were desperately cleaning their houses creating echoes of the fifties when social workers inspected Aboriginal homes and took children away if they weren’t up to standard. There have been reports that Aboriginal women are so desperate that they think that anything that draws attention to the sexual abuse of children and the levels of violence could be a good thing but they practically all say that they wish to be consulted, that they have talked about these issues for years and nothing has been done and that they have seen measures come and go. What these women wanted was consultations with communities and resources to carry out meaningful projects not paternalism and punishment across the board.
… I want to say that we do honestly welcome any real help with the problems created by our contact with non-indigenous society, and by past failures to fund and deliver basic services, but we will not be treated as though we have no rights in our own land and lives.(Banduk Marika again)
Real help doesn’t appear to be coming as we have just heard that the government plans to cut funding to the refuge run by Aboriginal women at the Yuendumu community. So this is the way they plan to stop violence against women ?
The Northern Territory is enjoying a mining and tourism boom, but the prosperity of this wealthy area is off the backs of its original owners. Aboriginal spirituality and knowledge of country are used as selling points in advertising Australia to tourists, whilst at the same time totally ignoring Aboriginal spiritual places by establishing mines and trying to dump uranium on them. Aboriginal art is big business and paintings by Aboriginal artists fetch millions of dollars that were often purchased for a few hundred.
The one ray of hope is in the incredible resilience of the Aborigines themselves who have been in Australia for 40000 years. As Germaine Greer said in a recent article (The prime minister) will never defeat the Aboriginal peoples, but he will surely increase the bitterness of their suffering.
But the last word should be given to Banduk Marika senior community elder and famed artist from Yirrkala Arnhem Land
Don’t use our children as an excuse for stealing our land away from us.
References
The Whitefella’s Tyranny Germaine Greer The Guardian Weekly 13.07.07
A Question of Fear Alexis Wright An address to Sydney PEN, 4 July 2007
For those who want to read more there is a wonderful novel by Alexis Wright called Carpentaria which has recent ly won major prizes for this indigenous writer.
Lack of respect will not help indigenous children, Banduk Marika Sydney Morning Herald 14/08/07
Recent Racist Policies against the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia
I am writing this article to inform people overseas of the abuse of human rights that is occurring in Australia at the present time.
I left Darwin, a city in the Far North of Australia, in 1995. At that time the situation for the indigenous people was shameful, with many Aborigines in remote communities living in third world conditions. But there were signs of hope with land rights claims being won and the introduction of innovative Aboriginal health clinics and employment and educational programs. Above all the then government showed signs of a commitment to the acknowledgement of the past wrongs perpetrated against the indigenous population.
Since then the government has been led by the right wing Liberal Party which has sought to erode many of the hard won gains made by indigenous groups. An election is looming and the Liberal Party has not been doing well in the opinion polls. John Howard, the Prime Minister, has a reputation for pulling rabbits out of hats when it looks like he’s about to lose an election. This usually consists of instilling fear in the population by demonising minority groups such as refugees or Muslims a.k.a. terrorists (this last is probably familiar to UK readers). This time it’s the turn of the Australian Aborigines.
A Brief Historical Background (with apologies to those for whom this is all too familiar)
Aborigines have inhabited Australia for over 40000 years. They comprise 700 language groups and many nations. Until invasion by the white settlers they were a hunter-gatherer peoples with a vibrant culture and a strong spiritual connection to the land
The more recent history of the Australian Aborigines is related to their dispossession. For the white invaders 200 years ago Australia was looked upon as Terra Nullis, uninhabited land with the original inhabitants seen as merely part of the flora and fauna, and it was only in 1967 that Aboriginal people were granted full citizenship and the right to vote. By then many tribes had been broken up and different nations forcibly removed from their lands and herded together on missions. The mission stations were often administered by white managers who controlled movement, food rations and tried to stamp out much of the traditional culture.
Aboriginal women suffered the same massacres and dispossession from land plus the added violence of being raped or used as concubines by the white invaders. Without the labour of Aboriginal people it would have been difficult for the colonists to run their farms and houses. Aboriginal women were used as servants and/ or farm workers for little or no pay.
Added to this there was the systematic taking away of Aboriginal children from their mothers which lasted until well into the nineteen sixties and resulted in a whole “stolen generation” of Aboriginal adults. Many of these children ended up in private homes or in mission schools where they were often physically and sexually abused and used as slave labour.
Many Aborigines now live in urban areas but there are many communities in remote areas some of which are old mission stations some of which are based on traditional land.
The result of all this is often desperate communities traumatised by dispossession with no work, so most people are on social security or what the locals call “sit down money”, often illiterate because of little or no schooling, no proper health care and overcrowded housing. Walking into an Aboriginal community is like walking into a desperately poor village in the third world whereas a few kilometres down the road there may be apartment blocks shopping malls, hospitals and schools.
Although the problem of Aboriginal communities have been known about for decades all programs have been piecemeal and under-resourced. This is the result of the neglect by successive governments to put adequate resources into housing, education and health in remote communities. As Aboriginal writer Alexis Wright said recently in an address to PEN:
I have often thought that indigenous people cannot break through the deafness caused by the walls of the status quo that surrounds our containment, even if we wanted to, because of the layers in the maze of institutional violence. Although individuals might create something for either themselves or their people, as we see in the difficult work our people undertake across the country in the unconnected policies of health, education, employment etc. our desire to survive as people in our own right, with a plan for our cultural future, has been impossible to achieve.
In these desperate communities there are often high levels of drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence and sexual abuse. When these problems occur it is the women who bear the brunt especially the women elders who have consistently spoken out about violence against women and children It is often the grandmothers who have the care of grandchildren because the mothers are unable to care for them and the women elders who have initiated night patrols to get drunks back home and look after children out on the streets late at night. Women elders in the far north community of Yirrkala have started a healing centre using cultural methods in order to help those with drug and alcohol problems.
The women of Yirrkala say that the problems started when the huge bauxite mine arrived. Aboriginal elder Gulumbu Yunupingu
was quoted as saying “Because of the mine the drugs came, the pub was built”
(Sunday Territorian 24/06/07)
In spite of all this inequality many Aborigines have maintained strong ties with their culture and a belief in the sacred duty they bear towards the land. There are also many remote area Aboriginal communities that have won back their right to their traditional land. Many communities have a permit system whereby outsiders are only allowed in with the permission of the traditional owners and most have established themselves as dry areas by banning alcohol and changing the kind of gasoline they use where petrol sniffing is a big problem amongst the young people
Aboriginal women have also been at the forefront of campaigns to stop uranium mining and nuclear dumps on their traditional lands notably the women in South Australia who prevented a nuclear waste dump from being placed on their land, and the Mirrar women of the Jabiluka region who waged a successful campaigns against uranium mining
I cannot ignore the fact that there is a problem of male violence within Aboriginal communities as there is in all communities. 16 indigenous women have been murdered by their partners or other family members over the last twelve months. Nor would I offer drunkenness and drug abuse as an excuse for this violence. It is extremely difficult for an Aboriginal woman to take proceedings against her violent partner or to leave him without giving up her whole community. When I worked in the north of Australia eleven years ago, as a sexual assault counsellor, I talked to women who had had to leave their communities and break links with their families in order to escape the violence and. they experienced huge sadness and loss Those who put the blame on Aboriginal men also ignore the numbers of white men who are perpetrators. The white men who smuggle alcohol into dry communities where alcohol is banned and sell it at exorbitant rates or who own the liquor stores outside the dry areas, the people who produce the pornography which is viewed by many of the community members on their DVDs, and the white men who rape the children and women and who get the young women to prostitute themselves in return for cigarettes and alcohol. They also fail to mention the high rates of domestic violence and sexual abuse in non=aboriginal communities.
Recent Interventions
So what is the response of the government to all this? Rather than being deeply ashamed of the neglect of their fellow citizens they are blaming the victim. Suddenly this is all the fault of dysfunctional communities that need to be brought under control. Without consulting the elders and ignoring all the under funded and struggling initiatives that have gone before they have declared the state of Aboriginal communities a “national emergency” and sent in the army and the police to “restore order”. Aboriginal artist Julie Dowling summed this up “It shows bad leadership to bring in the army. It means (the government’s) left it too long, too late”.
The justification for this campaign is that they are rescuing children from abuse.
But as Aboriginal elder Banduk Marika states:
And now it seems that our whole culture is being blamed by government and media for the problems associated with grog, poor education, a lack of jobs, houses and health care. … I want to say very clearly that abuse of children is something we mothers and grandmothers are very worried about, because family is even more important to us than it is to most non-indigenous people. But such abuse is not limited to Aboriginal communities. And it occurs in Aboriginal communities because of the situation we are living in, not because of our culture. … The small number of persons who go against their families and bring shame on us all must be held accountable – but it is not the fault of our society as a whole. Many of us do not drink or take drugs and we protect, respect, love and care for our children, our families and our cultural traditions.
The government rushed five pieces of legislation through parliament aimed at controlling every aspect of the lives of Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory. This 500 pages of legislation gives government the power to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act in order to allow them to “quarantine” half of the social security payments of Aboriginal people living on most of the communities in the Northern Territory, up to 47000 people, so that the money can be administered by whites to pay for essentials such as food and clothing. This applies to all individuals whether caring for children or not and to all carers whether “good’ or “bad” carers and worst of all targets one particular group only and doesn’t apply to the rest of the population on welfare.
They also plan to “quarantine” up to 100% of welfare payments to families who don’t send their children to school and/or generally keep them well fed and healthy. What they categorise as child neglect is very sketchy and does this mean that a child kept from school for a few days to attend ceremonies or visit ancestral land (very important things for Aboriginal culture) will then be considered to be neglected?
Most of the funding for all this will be taken up by the bureaucracy and the employment of white managers to oversee communities, which as many elders have pointed out is taking Aboriginal people back to the days of the missions.
This legislation is an attack on our people. How would you feel if you had to allow a bureaucrat from … (the government) into your community meetings, netball committee meetings and business meetings? How would you feel is there was a law which made it OK for you to be discriminated against just because of your race? Muriel Bamblett Chairwoman of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care.
The government is also suspending land rights and the permit system. Suspending the permit system will open the door to white predators smuggling in alcohol and expose communities up to the unwanted gaze of tourists coming in to photograph “real Australian Aborigines”. Along with this is the suspension of hard won land rights of for many communities.
Curiously the 500 pages of legislaeion meant to concern itself with the welfare of children doesn’t include one mention of the word “child” or “children”. So what are the real reasons behind this racist intervention? The answer quite simply is a land grab. The government is in league with the mining companies to open up more land for uranium mining without having to face lengthy court battles with the traditional owners. It’s also promoting nuclear energy and Aboriginal desert land could provide a useful dumping ground for nuclear waste.
In a newspaper article
Pat Turner Aboriginal woman activist said: We believe that this government is using child sexual abuse as the Trojan horse to resume total control of land rights
The result of all this has been images on the news of the bewildered and frightened Aboriginal women and children who have already experienced centuries of oppression and dislocation. There have been reports of women in communities near Alice Springs terrified that the authorities would remove their taking them into the bush to hide them. A woman I spoke to said that women were desperately cleaning their houses creating echoes of the fifties when social workers inspected Aboriginal homes and took children away if they weren’t up to standard. There have been reports that Aboriginal women are so desperate that they think that anything that draws attention to the sexual abuse of children and the levels of violence could be a good thing but they practically all say that they wish to be consulted, that they have talked about these issues for years and nothing has been done and that they have seen measures come and go. What these women wanted was consultations with communities and resources to carry out meaningful projects not paternalism and punishment across the board.
… I want to say that we do honestly welcome any real help with the problems created by our contact with non-indigenous society, and by past failures to fund and deliver basic services, but we will not be treated as though we have no rights in our own land and lives.(Banduk Marika again)
Real help doesn’t appear to be coming as we have just heard that the government plans to cut funding to the refuge run by Aboriginal women at the Yuendumu community. So this is the way they plan to stop violence against women ?
The Northern Territory is enjoying a mining and tourism boom, but the prosperity of this wealthy area is off the backs of its original owners. Aboriginal spirituality and knowledge of country are used as selling points in advertising Australia to tourists, whilst at the same time totally ignoring Aboriginal spiritual places by establishing mines and trying to dump uranium on them. Aboriginal art is big business and paintings by Aboriginal artists fetch millions of dollars that were often purchased for a few hundred.
The one ray of hope is in the incredible resilience of the Aborigines themselves who have been in Australia for 40000 years. As Germaine Greer said in a recent article (The prime minister) will never defeat the Aboriginal peoples, but he will surely increase the bitterness of their suffering.
But the last word should be given to Banduk Marika senior community elder and famed artist from Yirrkala Arnhem Land
Don’t use our children as an excuse for stealing our land away from us.
References
The Whitefella’s Tyranny Germaine Greer The Guardian Weekly 13.07.07
A Question of Fear Alexis Wright An address to Sydney PEN, 4 July 2007
For those who want to read more there is a wonderful novel by Alexis Wright called Carpentaria which has recent ly won major prizes for this indigenous writer.
Lack of respect will not help indigenous children, Banduk Marika Sydney Morning Herald 14/08/07
Sue Leigh
Sunday, August 12, 2007
MG/par 129(a) repression - germany
Different groups had called for a spontaneous manifestation at the prison in Moabit, where the four prisoners Axel, Florian, Oliver und Andrej arrested at the 31st of July are hold in custody. They are accused of being members of the “militante gruppe”.
Around 200-250 people came to show their solidarity with the prisoners. The content of the manifestation was oriented on the good call to the manifestation that you can find here (http://de.indymedia.org/2007/08/189826.shtml)
According to the police a planned action that has been prevented by the police had lead to the arrests of the four comrades. Especially if one considers the scheduled continuation of the deployment of the german army Bundeswehr to Afghanistan, to be decided by parliament in September, a successful sabotage of arms production and concretely of Bundeswehr-trucks would have been a nice rising-to-speak of the radical left.
Among the various statements at the manifestation were those of the Initiative Zukunft Bethanien [a local initiative against anti-social restructuring of the city and for the squatted social centre Bethanien], the tenants-initiative Mieterladen Kreuzigerstraße, the network of political prisoners, Mediaspree-versenken [also aimed against gentrification] and of TAYAT. Meanwhile declarations of solidarity came from the International Communists Berlin, Ulla Jelpke (left party) and the scientific board of ATTAC. Numerous banners were brought to express solidarity and demand freedom for all political prisoners.
In parts the preventive controls of the police were quiet sharp, not only looking into bags but touching all persons that had not found their way around the cops.
Another possibility to show solidarity with the anti-militarists imprisoned will be the demonstration against the extension of the deployment of the Bundeswehr to Afghanistan at the 15th of September 2007, starting at 12 at the Rotes Rathaus [Alexanderplatz] in Berlin. There will be a radical left block on this demonstration, as there will be one the following week on the demo against the Schäuble [minister of interior] surveillance-state.
Website in support of the 4 prisoners and the 3 accused:
here
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