Edited to add 11 Aug 2136(+8): The Indigenous people of north-eastern Arnhem Land have formed a federation and declared self-government — and nobody noticed. There is almost complete radio silence in the media, blogs, twitter… everywhere. It’s rather eerie.
SMH: “Yolngu clans decide on self-government”
Sixty Yolngu clans of East Arnhem Land representing at least 12,000 indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory say they will form their own government to determine the future of their people.
The clan leaders met over three days of the Garma Festival of Traditional Culture at Gulkula, on the Gove Peninsula, and emerged on Tuesday with the news. [...]
[Galarrwuy Yunupingu said], “The government, from the day of raising the flag by (Captain James) Cook and the formation of the parliament of this country, and the writing of the constitution that applies and talks about indigenous Australia, has walked right past this group of people,” Mr Yunupingu said.
“This is not today’s creation. This is thousands of years old. We are revising it to revive it for the benefit and the good of the future of indigenous Australia.”
awesome!
Good on them! :D
Interesting that there’s very little comment or news articles available yet about this other than the one you linked. Almost like the MSM doesn’t think it’s important, or wants to downplay its significance.
Goodonem I say, and good luck.
tigtog: I was thinking the same thing. I grabbed this hot off the presses, but it’s been hours now and the other news sites and blogs are silent. I can’t even see anything at the ABC’s Message Stick or the NT News.
Will watch the news tonight and see if anything’s said.
Wow! :)
I’ll have a look in the morning and see if the media have piped up a bit more.
Still nothing in SMH @ 10:05 p.m.
I really hope this goes well.
This is huge. At 9pm WA time still nothing on the ABC website nor the Oz and not even on the NT News website. It’ll be interesting what treatment the morning papers give it. There is such a reluctance on the part of the MSM to cover any news about Aboriginal Australians. It’s actually scary how easy it is to miss these things. Thanks for bringing it to my attention Lauredhel.
Still nothing in the News search on Google at 11:30pm. I’m gobsmacked.
Ah, the story has _just_ hit Sky News.
Holy shitsticks. I’ve been having some personal shit to deal with, so I haven’t been reading much on the blogs but … wow. Wow. This is awesome. This is amazing. Good luck to ‘em, I reckon. The silence is disheartening though.
There’s an article in the Australian now, but it’s heading is Yunupingu loses faith in intervention, with the Yolngu Nation Federation mentioned only as an afterthought.
Here’s the few lines on the Yolngu parliament:
The article ends with Jenny Macklin’s response to Yunupingu’s criticism.
I’ve been trying, but I can’t find anything in the media that hasn’t already been mentioned. I’m only half shocked at that.
this has me itching to be back in my Aboriginal studies course, i took the semester off but the teachers and tutors are all so awesome i would love to hear their take on the blanket ignoring of SOMETHING IMPORTANT like this. wtf!
Didn’t catch it all, but I noted a group of Yolngu people in the gallery at today’s televised Question Time on ABC. Still nothing on any news program I’ve seen in the past 24 hours.