A cause doesn’t drive itself. It requires dedication, research and interrogation of facts to sift out the fiction, to find buried lies. That’s what I do. I search and question and sift until pieces start to fit together and in that process, I have realised that my cause is part of something much bigger and much more complex. The issues at the seat of my cause have turned out to be driven by the same organs and bodies that direct the causes of other activists and I’ve realised that the issues are actually very similar.
Blak and Black started as a fight for recognition and redress of abuses perpetuated against Indigenous Australians by local police. It was the underlying premise behind the research that led me to collect the thousands of statements that form the basis of my studies. In them I found that corruption at a Federal level is endemic. I’ve pointed out interference and manipulation of evidence with Martens, Moti and Courtney. I’ve realised the close ties between the Australian Federal Police, Detachment 88 and the Indonesian military, who have been accused of human rights abuses in West Papua and East Timor. I’ve come across evidence of Australia’s manipulation of political stability in Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands.
Indigenous Australians want redress for their losses; acknowledgement of the devastation of their cultures and truly equal treatment under the very “rule of law” imported with European settlement. That’s fair enough. But what the Indigenous people of this country don’t realise is that unless we take our plea for acknowledgement to an international forum and engage with those with similar concerns suffering similar losses at the hands of the same regimes, they are doomed to failure. If the organs and bodies that tear at the heart of Indigenous culture are not targeted on an international level, the very justice that has eluded the people of Australia, West Papua, Timor-Leste, the Solomon Islands and individuals such as Frederick Martens, Jill Courtney, Julian Moti, Muhmaed Haneef and Mamdouh Habib will simply not ever be realised.
Look beyond your own backyards, your own turmoils and see just how many other people are marginalised and maltreated in the same way as you. In uniting for common aims lies the path to compensation and restitution.
I’ll leave you with these thoughts from from a contributor.
A realist’s view of the modern world
In this world of the sycophant, liar’s domain
What do you see, what dreams do you reap?
The man speaking truth, but you turn head away,
Woman still tall, yet you walk away;
In this fearful big world driven by power hungry hordes
Do you dream of what’s possible, do you wish on a star?
In this world built on globalised passion for more
Are you fighter for freedom, or fodderless poor?
Deep in the jungles and low on the plains
Are the few who would make world
What world wills for all
Burdened and hog-tied by society’s tape
Reddened by pens bleeding ink from lost souls
Cutting through flesh as they fight for their rights
Seeking ideals, some call them lost Dreams
Pragmatist’s scenes stripping man of his rights
United by Nations only puppet and tool.
Back in the bunkers, concrete bound ores
Bind Dreams of the future in stolen past’s walls
Taken and claimed as rules lawfully state
Ignoring precursors with primacy claims.
Within that small world sit the liars, black souls
That feed on naïve ones and corrupt stupid fools
Inching and sneaking in corridors dark
Once home of ideals, now nothing but dust.
In a world of the living, see the many now lost
To corporate slander and greedy man’s lust
The tribes and the cultures, burnt at heretic’s stake
For daring to keep their “unholy” state
Muslim or Buddhist, Koori or Cree
Papuan or Afghan, you see what I mean.
In the world of the corporate what makes YOU think you’re safe?
When the weaker ones fall, you’ll be next on their roll.