Archives July 2014

The British have waged undeclared wars on First Nations peoples ever since 1788.

The murder and misery inflicted today reminds us of when settlers rode into communities on horse back and cut down extended families. In current times, the government does not only allow multi-national mining giants to rape the country and destroy ancient cultures, but they are trying to force First Nations people to live with the poisonous waste. [node:read-more:link]

The Black resistance: an introduction to the history of the First Nations struggle against British Colonialism.

Using material that was ignored by most 'white' historians, this book traces the dispossession of the Aboriginal people and records the strategic and tactical objectives of tribal defence as well as the aims and methods of the British invaders. [node:read-more:link]

The book argues the idea that the first Australians were hunter gatherers has been invented to undermine Aboriginal people.

"My message to my own people," he says, "is the rest of the country's not going to change if we don't stick up for our culture; and our culture was one where we had an agricultural economy. If we stick up for our culture, it'll be useful not just for us but for the whole of Australia, because some of those crops that our people were growing are going to be useful in the future." [node:read-more:link]

A great overview of the proposed changes in the WA heritage Act - The new and the old - the good and the bad by Nicholas Herriman of Latrobe University.

The fast pace of development in WA has destroyed much First Nations heritage. In recognition of this, WA’s parliament passed, in 1972, the Aboriginal Heritage Act. Now they propose an updated model but the revisions will make it easier for developers to disturb heritage sites. [node:read-more:link]