Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought of golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would…
July of 1969 was a big month. Whilst the ‘civilized’ world was focused on the deployment of three men to the moon, Indonesia was finalizing steps to wrest control of…
Yesterday, Thursday I received a phone call from Captain Fred Martens, the man who spent a 1,000 days in jail, having been wrongly convicted of an offence under Australia’s Child…
Following on from the discussion of belonging and what the Australian flag represents to many Indigenous Australians, this post gives consideration to the current debate about acknowledgement of Australia's Aborigines…
These feelings which we Cubans have already acquired will have to be shared by someday. Today it hurts us if a Cuban is hungry, if a Cuban has no doctor,…
On the request of a friend, this post offers some insights as to why someone would wish to burn the Australian flag as an act of protest. The events in…
On 18 January 2012 the Solomon Star reported that RAMSI apologist and the former Solomon Islands Finance Minister and Member of Parliament for West New Georgia and Vona Vona, Peter…
The following is an extract of an interview between Bambang Dharmono, former Aceh military commander and negotiator representing Indonesia for the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), to lead the Presidential Unit…
What is self-determination? The notion of self-determination as a universal principle, whether viewed through a political, moral, or legal lens, has been and continues to be imprecise and in dire…
The following is an extract from a news article titled Keelty's rage at Moti manoeuvres which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on October12, 2006. Mr Keelty said yesterday he…
Best of the Season. This post is a little delayed, but hey, it is the Yuletide! “Does this discrepancy between reality and altruistic morality yield the positive effects which are…
The current humanitarian crises in West Papua, formally West New Guinea (“WNG”), has at its roots Western colonial greed and paranoia over Soviet influence in the region. WNG was and…
Former Kopassus commander Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto (who was “forced to retire because of his involvement in the kidnapping, torture, and murder of democracy activists in early 1998”) has…
A lot of noise is made about ‘closing the gap’ between Indigenous Australians and their non-Indigenous counterparts. There are so many factors to address; no one remedy is going to…
Congratulations Julian Moti QC on your well-deserved win over Australian racism and hypocrisy! "If the criminal justice system is corrupted, or otherwise interfered with, a community is left with few…
“Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex Australians are part of our community we’re not nameless, faceless people who live on the margins of society. We deserve the respect and the…
Blak and Black received the following from the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) last week. It is reprinted here in full and describes the damage to traditional sacred sites. Follow the…
There are many reasons behind Blak and Black’s decision to attempt to identify and expose Australian Federal Police (AFP) corruption where we can, the main reason however is the relative power…
For very many Aboriginal Australians the phrase 'Australian justice system' is an oxymoron. There are any number of reasons, many of which are justified, why we as Aboriginal Australians think…
Since writing my article Australia in the Solomons: A case study in 21st Century Gunboat Diplomacy I have had the opportunity to do some more research into AusAID and its…