Indigenous

Forgotten War By Henry Reynolds New South, 2013 In August, Prime Minister Tony Abbott attended a ceremony in Sydney to mark the 100 years since the Australian Naval and Military Expedition Force sailed out of Sydney Harbour to German New Guinea shortly after Britain declared war on Germany in 1914. The occasion was the official start of a four-year-long Anzac centenary of jingoism. Abbott was anxious that we “should know all our great war stories better” by the time the centenary commemorations come to an end.

Protesters rallied outside the South Australian Labor Party convention in Adelaide on November 15. They were protesting against South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill's endorsement of mining magnate Andrew Forrest's controversial Indigenous Employment and Training Review. The report's proposals went beyond the narrow terms of reference — employment and training for Aboriginal people — to include policy recommendations around welfare reform, school attendance, land rights, early childhood and prenatal services, and other areas.

We can count on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to add insult to injury. In front of the world at the G20 Summit in Brisbane, he arrogantly regurgitated the racist colonial fiction — repudiated in law by the High Court in the famous Mabo case in 1992 — that Australia was an empty land before the European colonial invasion.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, a direct action took place in Beit Hanina, a neighbourhood in Jerusalem.

The number of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land have doubled in the past 54 months, UN Commission on Human Rights member Cees Flinterman said ton October 31. Middle East Monitor said that day that Flinterman presented the fourth stage of a report monitoring activity of Israel's practices in Palestinian territory.

About 300 Aboriginal people and supporters from around NSW rallied against legislation being pushed through state parliament that threatens the land rights of coastal Aboriginal communities. On November 3, Hyde Park was awash with Aboriginal flags and community members, young and old, representing many of the 120 Aboriginal land councils across the state. They were there to protest against the Crown Lands Amendment (Public Ownership of Beaches and Coastal Lands) Bill. The bill was introduced by Minister for Natural Resources Kevin Humphries last week.

Hundreds of Aboriginal elders and leaders will gather in Alice Springs for the Freedom Summit at the end of this month.

Aboriginal activists in Western Australia are gearing up for a rally on November 12 to protect remote communities in the face of federal government attacks. It will follow a September 16 rally against state government threats to Aboriginal heritage and an October 23 rally against ongoing Black deaths in custody. The federal government announced on September 24 that it would withdraw funding for 180 remote Aboriginal communities in WA. It will grant $90 million to the WA government for a two-year “transition period”.

Ezekiel Ox is a long-term singer-songwriter and activist for social justice. He has a reputation for energetic live performances across Australia, the United States and Britain with bands such as Full Scale, Mammal and Over Reactor.

Predictions by pollsters and commentators that Evo Morales would easily win Bolivia’s October 12 presidential elections were confirmed when he obtained more than 60% of the vote. Most, however, differ over why, after almost a decade in power, Morales’ Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) continues to command such a huge level of support. Their explanations tend to focus on specific economic or political factors, such as booming raw material prices or the MAS’s ability to control and co-opt the country’s social movements.

National rallies were held on October 23 to protest against continuing Aboriginal deaths in custody. About 300 people rallied in Melbourne at an event organised by the Indigenous Social Justice Association, Melbourne and First Nations Liberation. The catalyst for the rally was the death of a 22-year-old Yamatji woman known as Ms Dhu in police custody in Western Australia.

The Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) has written to Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop over the banning of rallies in West Papua that had been called for October 13. The purpose of the rallies was to call on the Indonesian government to free the two French journalists Valentine Bourrat and Thomas Dandois who were arrested on the 6th of August in Wamena and remain detained in Jayapura. They could face up to five years in prison.