Insert tinnie/tinnie joke here

The Indigenous Affairs Minister, Mal Brough, has announced an exemption to the alcohol bans in 70 remote indigenous communities in the NT that were announced as a core component of the government’s Indigenous Emergency Plan to combat the sexual abuse of indigenous minors. The exemption applies to rivers being used for recreational fishing on or adjacent to Aboriginal land.

Why is such a core measure being undermined?

The professor of indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne, Marcia Langton, said yesterday that relaxing the bans would open the floodgates for alcohol to be smuggled into the 70 communities where it was banned.

“It will allow illegal grog runners to sell grog into the communities,” she said.

“It’s the kind of loophole that can bring the whole system undone, by giving the big tick-off to the grog runners. It’s not going to work.”

What could be more important than protecting the children who are the whole justification for the sweeping authoritian emergency plan in the first place?

Filed under: authoritarianism, indigenous, law, racism

Linkalicious: Big Tuesday Edition

A veritable smorgasbord for you!

1. “Intimate Politics: A Roundtable”: a downloadable podcast of a panel of feminist scholars and their reactions (not book reviews, but further musings) to the book Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel, by Bettina Aptheker.

2. “Who hates to hear they look great?”: amandaw on the “But you don’t look sick!” phenomenon and invisible disabilities.

3. “What are we doing here?”: magniloquence muses at length on the femisphere, its characters, and the dynamics of blogwars. Meta upon meta, lots to unpack here.

4. “Students use sex to promote healthy foods”: Two students in Canberra come up with the absolutely ground-breaking new idea of presenting scantily clad women’s bodies in order to promote a food group. Somehow, this is “Innovative!” national news.

Filed under: Meta, Politics, Read 'ems, bigotry, birth, indigenous, interblog, language, racism

Our own desert places

I have succumbed to the July lurgy, so today: an invitation to join me in Stuff I Have Been Reading. Don’t miss the stuff below the cut. Jane Simpson is amazing.

Aboriginal Poets

We are tired of the benches, our beds in the park,
We welcome the sundown that heralds the dark.
White Lady Methylate!
Keep us warm and from crying.
Hold back the hate
And hasten the dying.

The tribes are all gone,
The spears are all broken:
Once we had bread here,
You gave us stone

Jack Davis, ‘Desolation’, published in The First-born, p. 36. Sourced from “Black Words White Page: Aboriginal Literature 1929–1988″ , chapter 8, Adam Shoemaker. Go read the link, it’s worth it.

~~~

See plain the promise,
Dark freedom-lover!
Night’s nearly over,
And though long the climb,
New rights will greet us,
New mateship meet us,
And joy complete us
In our new Dream Time.

To our father’s fathers
The pain, the sorrow;
To our children’s children
The glad tomorrow.

excerpt from Song of Hope by Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Filed under: Politics, Read 'ems, authoritarianism, bigotry, indigenous, racism

Some of these things are not like the other ones: a quiz

Six of these sentences appeared in the Australian mainstream media this week. Eight didn’t; they have been doctored by me. Can you tell which is which? Click each number for the original story.

1. Three young white people, one of them a police officer, have pleaded guilty to raping a male friend during a night of heavy drinking in Adelaide.

2. An Aboriginal preacher who pleaded guilty to child sex abuse will hear from his victims in court today.

3. Jessica was randomly abducted from her workplace in Ballarat on February 6 last year and raped repeatedly by a white man during a 29-hour, cross country ordeal.

4. Three men charged over the gang rapes of a 12-year-old boy in the remote Aboriginal community of Maningrida in the Northern Territory between April and August last year have been ordered to stand trial.

5. White man Martin, who claimed he was armed with a knife, then took his victim on a terrifying drive to Bacchus Marsh, west of Melbourne, during which time he threatened to rape her.

6. More than 30 Aboriginal men have been implicated in sex attacks on girls as young as 11 from one community after authorities uncovered a second child abuse scandal in a remote West Australian indigenous township.

7. John Nicholous Xydias, a 43-year-old chef living in white suburb Glen Iris with his parents, will appear in the Melbourne Magistrates court on Monday after police alleged he had drugged, raped and filmed 16 women between 1998 and 2004.

8. White serial rapist Robert Fardon is in police custody after being caught in the company of another sex offender who had breached his curfew. Fardon, 58, was arrested yesterday in Brisbane’s west along with fellow multiple rapist Trevor Toms, also white, when an electronic monitoring device worn by Toms alerted authorities to a curfew breach.

9. A man accused of taking a sleeping 10-year-old girl from her bed and sexually assaulting her at a remote Aboriginal community will remain in police custody.

10. A white aged-care worker digitally raped elderly women with dementia under his care, a jury has been told.

11. Police have rescued an Australian child at potential risk from a global internet paedophile ring that used a chat room to stream live videos of children being raped. Four Australian men have been arrested, with more arrests expected. [...] Investigators made the case public after the sentencing of white ringleader Timothy David Martyn Cox yesterday.

12. Three teenagers accused of raping a 12-year-old boy over five months at a remote Aboriginal community will stand trial.

13. In 1972, he was twice anally raped by an older Aboriginal man.

14. The panel appointed by the Government says there’s sexual abuse of children in almost every white suburb in Australia, possibly in all of them.

Filed under: bigotry, moral panics, racism

Living Black

First, a news snippet:

The Age: Indigenous land takeover angers NT govt

NT Attorney-General [and Member for Nhulunbuy] Syd Stirling said Aboriginal communities territory-wide were angry, confused and talking of legal action. He said the territory government was seeking advice from the Justice Department about what shape the commonwealth’s proposed amendment to the Land Rights Act might take “and then what we as a government might do”.

The Central Land Council and Northern Land Council (NLC) were expected to support any legal action and “present a united front”, he said. “If your rights are taken away there is generally a legal recourse and a legal challenge. This is critical to indigenous people in these communities… that permit is a signal to everybody else that they own that land. If that is taken away, and the views are that this is the first step, then you are beginning to unwind Aboriginal land rights.“

LIVING BLACK

But on to the meat of this post – SBS’s Living Black last night was a special on the Federal government’s Northern Territory “emergency plan”. I made a few notes, in case you missed it (or are following along from overseas). The “quotes” are paraphrase – I hope I have represented people’s statements accurately. I have added bits ‘n’ pieces ‘n’ links from the Web. My own comments and extra snippets not from the show are in italics. Bits I found particularly head-explodey are in bold.

Maningrida

First, a snapshot of the self-governing Maningrida community in Arnhem Land, home to 2600 people and a “high profile” abuse case. Their system for alcohol rationing is said to be working well, with everyone rationed two cartons of beer per fortnight. People worry that by banning alcohol completely, more people will go to Darwin to drink, leaving their children behind. The community is working on alcohol-related problems, with community “strong women” having started their own night patrol, getting children off the streets.

Filed under: Politics, Sociology, authoritarianism, bigotry, indigenous, moral panics, racism

Feminist read’ems: men harassing WOC online, iconic blondes, and party-pollie numbers games

Feminist read ‘ems!

~~
“A Disincentive to the Female Voice Online”

Jenn talks about men who cyberharass bloggers who are women of colour. Her experiences are harrowing and revolting, but she vows to survive:

When I participated in a popular APIA forum, I was disheartened to watch as feminist voices were shot down by male participants who threw around words like “whore” and “slut” within their counterarguments. In another forum, men angry that I am unabashedly partnered in a stable, eight-year-long interracial relationship have accused me of “loving to suck White dick”, “daddy issues”, and worse. They re-posted photos of my loved ones (that I used to host on this site to share with real-life friends) and made racially and sexually derogatory remarks about the people in them, including mean-spirited mockery of my boyfriend’s mother. . I no longer host personal photos for this reason. Still others have emailed me hateful judgements and presuppositions of my personal life while assuming materialistic, superficial motivations for all Asian American women. In all these behaviours — commonly received by many women in cyberspace – it is the woman and her experience that becomes decentralized; even in assaulting us, male aggressors shift the focus from a female blogger’s feminism to a denial of her self-worth based exclusively upon the men in her life.

~~

From Diary of a Goldfish, “Paris Hilton and the Iconic Blonde”. The Goldfish takes a generational look, drawing parallels between the misogynistic media treatment of iconic blondes Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, and Paris Hilton:

Filed under: Politics, Read 'ems, blogging, celebritism, cyberbullying, racism

NT Plan Read ‘ems: “white man’s burden”, Howard’s poll plunge, and reactions from Pat Turner and Lt Gen Sanderson

Here are your Northern Territory Aboriginal “emergency plan” read ‘ems for today! I’ve included excerpts, but do read the whole articles for context and elaboration.

Mark Lawrence: The white man’s burden: Howard’s attack on Aboriginal self-determination

Excellent post on the new paternalism, Howard’s “white man’s burden” mentality and his “classic ‘Pauline Hanson’ lies about Aboriginal self-determination, resources, and “special treatment”.

The Howard-Brough plan clearly attacks self-determination through such moves as seizing control of 70 Aboriginal controlled communities and townships in Northern Territory and forcing Aboriginal parents to meet stringent conditions in return for their welfare and family support payments. All this on top of the ‘law and order’ approach of sending in extra police and military to spearhead the ‘campaign’. This is the ‘shock and awe’ aspect of the Howard-Brough plan, (the overtly militaristic tone in the government spin is no accident).
[...]
By effectively saying ‘your way failed, now make way for our way – we will do what is needed to protect children,’ Howard is simultaneously trying to wash his hands of over a decade of neglect, chronic under-funding (and in many cases de-funding), and destabilisation of organisations, initiatives, resources and basic services for Indigenous people by his government, and blame the problem on Indigenous people and their leaders to justify his jackboot actions.

It also allows him the grandiose (or rather grotesque) gesture of taking up the white man’s burden and inviting the rest of Australia to join him.

[I've been brewing a post myself on militarism and 'othering' in the NT plan - bear with me.]

Filed under: Politics, authoritarianism, bigotry, indigenous, moral panics, racism

Read ‘Ems: more on the NT plan, barefaced hypocrisy, and a couple of amusing tidbits

What I’m reading today:

1. The AMA call has come. Yesterday’s email brought a plea from the AMA to volunteer 2-4 weeks in a central Australian community to perform governmental health checks on children. The email opens with a big fat BLAME:

The Federal Government is currently implementing a reform package to modify behavioural patterns in Aboriginal communities that have over many years had a serious adverse impact on their health.

Given that the AMA Indigenous Health Report Cards have focussed over and over again on the role of colonialism in the indigenous health situation, why the stilted behaviourist blamefest? Is this a subtle back-handed stab at the government’s approach to black-blaming, or is the AMA swallowing this hook, line and sinker?

The email goes on:

In a matter of weeks, the Government is planning to deploy the ‘first wave’ of health teams to conduct health checks for children in the communities. The teams will comprise doctors, nurses, Aboriginal health workers, and social workers. The doctors who lead these teams will be made aware of the cultural and social sensitivities involved in this operation. If you have had previous experience with Indigenous communities, this would clearly be an asset.

I am writing to Australian doctors seeking expressions of interest from suitably skilled and committed doctors to lead these teams on this important mission.

No specific skills are requested, and the email recipients have clearly not been targeted in any way. The commitment requested is two weeks, with the possibility of extension to four weeks, so there will obviously be no opportunity for any comprehensive training or mentoring.

Lots more after the cut – reactions from the RACGP, an Aboriginal women’s group in Katherine, the ACT HREOC, Rex Wild, government hypocrisy in discontinuing funding for the CDEP employment plan in WA, and some fun with antifeminist conspiracy theory and a baby dwarf hamster.

Filed under: Politics, Read 'ems, authoritarianism, bigotry, fun, fundies, moral panics, racism

Triple J youth radio’s “Hack” panel on the NT indigenous plan: Davis, Wenitong and Doyle

Youth radio station Triple J’s “Hack” Indigenous Panel yesterday had a look at the Howard/Brough Northern Territory “emergency” plan. The full mp3 is available here.

Triple J’s Alice Brennan asked: “Who haven’t we heard from yet? The next generation of indigenous Australians – the ones who will be carrying this plan into the future.”

The panel participants were:

Megan Davis: director of Indigenous Law Centre UNSW. Davis is currently completing her Doctorate in Law, focusing on Aboriginal women in Australian democracy.

[image credit: UNSW]

Mark Wenitong: Australian Indigenous Doctors Association

[image credit: RHEF]

Floyd Doyle: Coordinator at the Remote Indigenous Radio, Alice Springs. You can listen to CAAMA Radio online here (it’s only working in Safari for me, but give it a go!).

A map of remote radio stations in central Australia.
[image credit: Australian Community Broadcasting Online. Modified slightly.]

My detailed show notes follow, arranged by panel participant. Most of this is paraphrase, with bits and pieces of my own commentary. (in italics)

Filed under: Media, Politics, authoritarianism, bigotry, indigenous, moral panics, racism

Fear, funding, and failure to listen: today’s indigenous news roundup

Today’s News Headlines:

[Edited to add:] The two transcripts from tonight’s 7:30 report have just gone online:

7:30 Report: Police, military arrive in NT for intervention plan talks

Journalist Murray McLaughlin reports an “argy bargy” with an officer from Minister Mal Brough’s Department of Community Services who didn’t want reporters at the arrival of police and military personnel at the Aboriginal community of Mutitjulu near Uluru. This came after a meeting of the local community who decided that they did want the media present.

McLaughlin reports that a senior army officer present addressed assembled police thus:

“you’re going to be there kicking in doors, maybe, but we are concerned that we are there to be seen as the good guys.”

7:30 Report: Mal Brough talks to Kerry O’Brien about the intervention plan

[If you read only two of today's links in their entirety, read this one and the Crikey one below the cut.]

O’Brien had a solid go at pinning Brough down on the details of the health-checks plan, and any ongoing plans to properly resource healthcare. Brough steadfastedly refused to answer his questions.

At one point, Brough completely panics and tosses his cards into the air. When asked, “For instance, the concern has been expressed and the question has been asked: “Are children going to be physically examined for signs of sexual abuse?’”, he responds: “Well, Kerry, it’s very interesting how we are having this discussion because, let’s turn it around. Let’s do nothing.”

~~~

ABC News: PM urges Aboriginal communities not to fear intervention plan

ABC News reports that John Howard and Tony Abbott are attempting to cast a Spell of Soothing on Aboriginal people who fear another Stolen Generation with the new NT “emergency plan”:

Prime Minister John Howard has urged Northern Territory Aboriginal communities not to fear his intervention plan to curb child sexual abuse.

Aboriginal leaders claim some parents have fled with their children fearing heavy-handed tactics by police and the military.[...]

Health Minister Tony Abbott says he is confident that once it is properly explained that the Government does not want children to be taken away, parents will allow their kids to have the checkups.

~~

Filed under: Politics, authoritarianism, bigotry, indigenous, moral panics, racism