#john pilger

I let myself get wrapped up in yesterday and I got angry at a mountain of things. Things that wont change, things that cant change and things that are so damn hard to change. 
You start to get the overwhelming feeling that you’re fighting a losing battle against Ignorance… and it wears you down!

I was so angry before I even sat down to watch the film Utopia, which is unsettling to put it mildly but was nothing i didn’t expect to see. Point is I had a shitty day but it turned around and as i was reflecting last night, i realised its the same thing that always turns my day around.

I got reminded of Vincent Lingiari and the Wave Hill walk off… I know this story inside out, but it always stops me in my tracks and makes me reflect - firstly because of the collective sense of unity and belief from the workers, their families and communities that they could change what needed to be changed and that they didn’t stop until they got what they were asking for - the Wave Hill walk off is still the longest strike in Australian history. 

Then there is Vincent Lingiari who to me represents the type of leader that anyone black or white should aspire to be - sadly our kids still don’t learn about him in school - they learn about MLK and Mandela but not Lingiari. You know how people say that this person or that person didn’t know at the time that there actions would continue to change peoples lives… Lingiari to me is different, even though he was a humble man, I always feel like he did know that what happened at Wave Hill would continue to be a catalyst for change for Indigenous people for years to come. 

There was some footage shown from the walk off that i cant recall if I’ve ever seen before, but yesterday it really captured me - the reporter was asking one man about what they wanted etc, then he asked him if all the families and workers supported them, the man said yes, he asked if communities supported them and the man said yes, then he asked if the whole of the Northern Territory would support them and the man said yes and that was it. 

The thing that inspires me most about Wave Hill is that today - in my lifetime - I know men and women who are leaders like Lingiari, they work tirelessly because they know that change in our communities will happen eventually and they know that they are supported by our communities.

Im paraphrasing here but one old aunty was responding about racism and she said that the reason we don’t respond with violence and the reason we keep moving is because we have too much dignity. As soon as she said it, it picked me straight up. 
Truth is Indigenous people aren’t defined by stereotypes, ignorance, struggle, statistics or anything that the media says. We are defined by two things only Resistance and Dignity.

I got more then a few facebook deletions yesterday - but I wont apologise for the things that I write, its how I feel and not intended to offend you. My whole identity is as an Aboriginal woman and as an Aboriginal and as a woman, that may seem like double dutch but its true, these 3 things sit on par with each other at the top. Its difficult to explain to people who live with the idea that everyone is Australian that the part of me that identifies as Australian is very insignificant - to me its 9 or 10 letters that you fill in a box - nationalism has never appealed to me, i believe that the world is a bigger place and the only things of importance here are the people in it and the land we live on - not boarders.

I’m not saying that I’m better than you, Im saying that to me being Aboriginal is more than being Australian, and yesterday I was proud of being Aboriginal.