Reconciliation 'past its use-by date'
PERTH — John Howard's "Ten Commandments" regarding the Wik judgment "are just 10 ways of saying 'no' to Aboriginal Australia", says Yaluritja (Clarrie Isaacs). The well-known anti-racist activist says that, because white Australia hasn't signed a treaty with the indigenous people, Howard "really has no legitimacy whatsoever to present such a plan. He wants to reinstate terra nullius by overturning the Wik decision."
The National Farmers Federation's push for extinguishment of native title, Isaacs says, is simply a land grab. "The farmers went in with their eyes open, taking up leases in the first place. There are leases in WA that are bigger than some countries, and these pastoralists pay the most minimal and tokenistic rents. It would be grand theft if they take the land.
"It's against the national interest that such great tracts of land could ever be handed over and against any notions of decency, honesty and justice."
He points out that the government's attempts to extinguish native title have brought criticism from other countries, adding to existing criticisms of the way Aboriginal people are treated.
"The refusal of the federal government to acknowledge the recommendations of the Human Rights Commission's report on stolen children is another example of how this government has to be brought kicking and screaming into the real world.
"The vast majority of Australia's parliamentarians are living in the past. They don't want to own up to it, they don't want to hear about it, they don't want to become involved in this dirty business which they are part of, so it is going to take outside pressure to deal with these acts of genocide.
"The Australian government is in no position to judge itself, because it is and has been the perpetrator of the terrorism against blacks, human rights abuses and extreme racism."
John Howard gives way to Pauline Hanson, Isaacs says, "because he also has a racist agenda. He doesn't want to clash with her and is letting her do the political and damaging dirty work. The Labor Party is equally standing back and watching the show.
"John Howard doesn't see anything wrong with people like Pauline Hanson who wants to take Australia back to the 1960s. It supports part of his policy of dispossession."
On reconciliation, he says that it "was a knee-jerk reaction to the condemnation of Australia's treatment of Aborigines by the World Council of Churches in 1993. So far, it has achieved absolutely nothing. It's an old Labor policy which has passed its use-by date.
"They still talk about reconciliation, oblivious to the real world of racism, stolen children, dispossession of Aboriginal people.
"As long as non-Aboriginal people hold the authority on Aboriginal rights at a political level, there will be no change to our situation. While we have Aboriginal affairs run at a state level, we will continue to get bogged down. Aboriginal Affairs needs to be a national policy, and it should be administered by Aboriginal people or run as an Aboriginal government, out of the hands of the manipulators of Liberal and Labor parties. Aboriginal rights won't go anywhere until there is some self-determination."
Yaluritja is one of the featured speakers of the Justice Tour against racism sponsored by Green Left Weekly. "The Justice Tour is a new dimension to the campaign which is dynamic and moving and something that people need to get behind and support", he said.
"As we go around Australia we will give the opportunity for people of diverse communities and cultures to come forward, to take part and to act against racism. The struggle for justice and against racism is the struggle for human dignity and human rights."