by Dave RileyThe Mayor of Palm Island (pictured right)says the relationship between Aborigines and police has been knocked back a decade because of a move to give bravery awards to officers who were on the island during the 2004 riot.
If you read the article there's a lot about the coincidence of the bravery award falling before Lex Wotton is to be sentenced for the Palm Island"riot". But there's another 'coincidence': that Wotton is to be sentenced and the police awarded (let's not mince matters: 'awarded' for killing an aboriginal man) as The Intervention marks its anniversary.
It's a line in the sand and in the space of a few years the gains of the indigenous movement over at least thirty years have been rolled back to a degree that the Mabo land rights judgement sits now as low hanging fruit ripe for picking.
Last night's documentary on the ABC TV -- watch The Intervention here -- was a keen exploration of the sham that comprised the ideological engineering and spin that made up the Northern Territory Intervention.
It's the same package that was utilized to excuse the killing of Mulrunji on Palm Island in 2004 -- a killing that next week Lex Wotton is going to wear the consequence for even though he had nothing to do with the death.
'Tis a touch unfair, don't you think? -- that those who are punished are the ones who objected to the act. But if you read the NT Intervention that's really the main agenda: to brutally vilify and denigrate the Indigenous population and blame every Aboriginal man and woman as a stereotypical incompetent and neglectful mother/father who warrants white over-lordship.
The brutal savagery of this onslaught is mind shattering. The chronic racism that underpinned Australian nationalism is herein fine tuned to a form of Antipodean Apartheid the sophistication of which is such that dedicated liberals cheer on these filthy paternalistic deeds and registered Jacky Jackies* promote it as a means to advance themselves as a new social layer of property owners and an indigenous bourgeoisie.
*Jack Jacky: I'm not sure if this term is generally known.It is used by local Murris activists to describe an 'Uncle Tom' as Jacky Jacky was the Aboriginal friend of explorer Edmund Kennedy, in his expedition to Cape York Peninsula . Jacky Jacky was later rewarded with a silver breastplate on behalf of the state Government for his loyalty.
