Reconcilliation Talks Marred by Vanstone's Repugnant Ignorance

Amanda Vanstone - Minister for Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs got a snubbing at the National Reconciliation Planning Workshop [Canberra May 31/05]. With astounding arrogance and repugnant ignorance Vanstone denied she'd even noticed the silent protest. Several Aboriginal leaders either turned their back during her speech - or walked out altogether. They say her words were "divisive rubbish".



Earlier on this year, The Howard Government dismantled ATSIC - which ostensibly means there is no longer a formal representative voice for Aboriginal people to engage Commonwealth legislation. ATSIC has been replaced with a "hand-picked" Indigenous Council.

Former chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation - Pat Dodson - is not impressed with the Federal Government's approach to what it calls "practical reconciliation". He says it smacks of assimilation and does not respect Aboriginal difference.



In an earlier address to the National Reconciliation Planning Workshop, Mr Dodson speaks of an engagement as sovereign peoples to "confront the inevitable resolution of our Unfinished Business. We as Aboriginal peoples have survived for tens of thousands of years before the arrival of the Colonisers. We have survived the past 205 years despite the dispossession and mendicant status to which we have been reduced..."

He says: "Aboriginal people will continue to occupy that place deep within the national psyche that prevents this nation attaining true maturity, that reminds governments of their failure to engage with us on just terms in the past, and that continues to demand a just settlement between our sovereign peoples..."

31/5/2005

Patrick Dodson's address at the National Reconciliation Planning Workshop:
http://www.reconciliationaustralia.org/media/speeches.asp

"...A barrier that is constructed on the utter failure of Government to demonstrate the courage, the will, and the intent to achieve real justice and subsequent reconciliation for this nation.

It is a self imposed barrier that renders this young nation incapable of recognising the patent absurdity of the denial that our Indigenous people were the first Australians – a sovereign nation - with a unique law and culture that has served our society for tens of thousands of years and which, despite two centuries of cultural genocide, has survived – and will continue to survive and flourish.

It is a barrier and a wall of dishonesty that blinds our nation to the true understanding of the flawed relationship that has existed between our peoples, since the arrival of the first convict fleet in 1788. It is a wall of dishonesty that has condemned us to hide from subsequent generations the truth of our shared history and to offer them instead the historical sophism of benign paternalism and enlightenment. This deceit is the source of a spiritual malaise that afflicts this nation and will continue to be a source of crippling national ambiguity, until such time that we confront the reality of our relationship as two sovereign peoples inhabiting one land..."

SEE: http://www.reconciliationaustralia.org/media/speeches.asp

______________________

Pat Dodson Image
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200412/r36924_92307.jpg

Vanstone snubbed at reconciliation Talks
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1381069.htm

Patrick Dodson - Aboriginal leader
http://www.wadidge.com.au/didgeridoo-news/patrickdodson.html

'Practical reconciliation' ignores the problems of Indigenous identity
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=1763

National Reconciliation Planning Workshop - 30/31 May 2005
http://www.reconciliationaustralia.org/reconaction/planning_workshop.html
http://www.reconciliationaustralia.org/

Cultural Juxtapositonist

RESOURCING A NEW PEOPLES MOVEMENT Bruce Reyburn April 2005.

http://www.jargonless.com/~songline/

"The release of the book “Black and White Together” by Sue Taffe is very timely. Her work in collecting the oral histories of people involved in the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) reminds us that a peoples movement has a fundamentally important role to play in bringing about important social change.

In some ways we are now revisiting the stage when the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples was founded and brought a range of indigenous and non-indigenous people (including unions, academics and churches) together to work for recognition of indigenous rights (including citizenship).

John Howard’s ‘leadership’ has taken us back to a similar stage. But this time there are important differences. Not only are there many resourced Aboriginal organisations (compared with the 1960s) and a host of other social and environmental experiences but also there is a shift underway which removes the false certainties of the modern era..."

Read More - http://www.jargonless.com/~songline/

___________________________

The Redfern Park Statement

And, as I say, the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians.
It begins, I think, with that act of recognition
Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing.
We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life.
We brought the diseases. The alcohol.
We committed the murders.
We took the children from their mothers.
We practised discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice.
And our failure to imagine these things being done to us.
With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds.
We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me?

Speech by the Hon. the Prime Minister, P.J. Keating - 10 December 1992 Australian. Launch of the international year for the world's indigenous peoples.

http://www.keating.org.au/main.cfm

________________________________________

Aboriginal resistance: source material
http://www.curriculumsupport.nsw.edu.au/hsie/abstud/resistsource.htm

Neglected History of This Volatile Country - Aboriginal Resistance [draft]

"...the remainder were gradually picked out of their concealment by the crossfire from both banks, until 25 or 30 were left dead on the field and in the river..."

Diary of the colonial official, C. F. Moore. Describing Governor Stirling's mounted attack against Aboriginal people at Pinjarra, WA in 1834. The armed expedition trapped the Aborigines between the banks of a river and shot them as they tried to hide in the water...

[Note: This article is a draft of a longer work in progress - any feedback welcomed: cheers brother_x]

From the moment European explorers arrived on geographic Australian soil, the interactions between new arrivals and traditional owners have been volatile. In the last 220 years of occupation, an underlying policy of Genocide can be noticed.

From around 1810 Aboriginal people were moved to mission stations to be taught European beliefs, trained in Western White ways and used as cheap labour. A policy of "absorption" of the Aboriginal population was adopted - whereby the reproduction of Aboriginal peoples could be "controlled".

West Australian Aboriginal resistance was led in the early 1830s by people like Yagan and Calyute. The White invaders tried to break the resistance by imprisoning recalcitrants on Rottnest Island or sending them to remote missions like Moore River and Carrolup.

Across the Nation, conflict between European settlers and Aboriginal people escalated in 1824. Over 100 Aboriginal people are killed in a massacre at Bathurst, NSW and martial law was declared.

In the 1830s, according to British law and practices, NO treaties are made with the original owners of the land. Aboriginal people in Tasmania are forcibly removed and settled on Flinders Island. The living conditions lead to many deaths. Later the community is moved to Cape Barren Island.

A "Protector of Aborigines" was appointed in 1837, after a Parliamentary Select Committee examined reports of genocide of Indigenous peoples in British colonies. A massacre of Aboriginal people occurred at Gravesend, New South Wales with over 200 killed.

Myall Creek massacre [1838] NSW - 28 Aboriginal people are killed by settlers, 7 of whom are later hanged. It is the first massacre of Aboriginal people in Australian history where the offenders are punished by law. In 1840 a massacre of Aboriginal people occurred at Long Lagoon - the entire community was killed.

Around 10,000 deaths via massacre and battles of Aboriginal resistance have been recorded by various historians.

However, with little resistance to outbreaks, the biggest killer was Disease. In particular, chickenpox, smallpox, influenza, venereal diseases, and measles decimated the Aboriginal populations throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

It is now estimated that some 90% of the Aboriginal population decline was due to disease spreading in advance of the European colonists.

Robert Bropho said in 1997, "There was genocide, massacres, raping, kicking our childrens heads off, killing our children by swinging their heads against trees. lt is in the history books and white people close their minds to that..."

"One only has to look at Fowlers Bay where Aboriginal people were forced over the cliffs to their deaths, or the Great Massacre at Pinjarra, or the Mistake Creek Massacre near Turkey Creek, or the Busselton to Margaret River and Wonnerup Massacres where killing expeditions by the Layman Brothers took place every 3 months, or Boronia Gully at Collie, or Nightwell Massacre past Borden in WA. All this has to be left alone and not rewoken."

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/174.html


Forrest River: Phillip Knightley on the Forrest River Massacres of 1926: "The men moved from camp to camp along the Forrest River for the next week, killing as they went. When they entered a camp they first shot all the dogs, then the men, then the women and children. At one camp the women were chained to trees and forced to watch their menfolk being shot and the bodies burned. They were then marched for several miles before being shot and burned themselves. Estimates of Aboriginals killed ranged from 20 to 100..."

Exploration, invasion and massacres - early contact between Europeans and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and the many resultant killings and massacres of Indigenous people...

Sources/Links

Kooriweb History/Culture

Australian Aborigine - Wikipedia

Brief Aboriginal History Perth

------------------------

THE "BATTLE" OF PINJARRA...
In 1830 Thomas Peel, an early Western Australian entrepreneur, established a settlement at the mouth of the Murray River. Pinjarra was heavily grassed and the soils were rich loams. The European settlement of the area was met by strong resistance from the local Aborigines. Pinjarra is noted more for its infamous treatment of Aboriginal People. The Battle of Pinjarra, in 1834, is perhaps the most notorious massacres of Aborigines in Australian history.

In Bruce Elder's book Blood on the Wattle: the Massacres and Maltreatment of Australian Aborigines since 1788 the so-called battle is recorded as follows:

They might have called it the Battle of Pinjarra but like all of the massacres of the Aborigines it was more a case of wholesale slaughter than of some equally poised, European-style battle. it was the same story which had been enacted on every frontier: the same overreaction to black atrocities; the same desire to "teach the blacks a lesson"; the same random killing.

Ever since the small band of settlers rowed up the Swan River looking for good pastoral land there had been "trouble" with the Aborigines. The local people had resisted the white advance. Cattle had been speared. The occasional white had been speared. Life on the frontier was fraught with dangers. The settlers developed a sense of antagonism and hatred. They were happy to attack and kill Aborigines whenever the opportunity arose. Two years before the Battle of Pinjarra a Swan River settler declared that he was prepared "to watch and attack the natives, and kill, burn, blow up and otherwise destroy the enemy".

It was in this kind of hostile environment that Captain James Stirling, Governor of the Colony of Western Australia, responded to continuing requests for military protection from a small group of settlers on the Murray River. Stirling formed a party of about twenty-five whites. The group was a mixture of police, soldiers and a few settlers. Their plan was to "punish" (ie. massacre) any Aborigines in the local area in order to drive home the message that white settlers and their cattle must not be attacked or speared.

One account of the massacre explained the rationale for the attack as simply that "the moment was considered propitiously favourable for punishing the perpetrators of such and other diabolical acts."

The party came across a group of seventy Aborigines. The Aborigines, sensing trouble, fled into the bush. Stirling divided the party and attempted to encircle the fleeing group. They caught them at a river crossing and when the Aborigines showed signs of retaliation, Stirling and his men opened fire.

No one knows how many people were killed. Estimates vary from fourteen to thirty. Those who had not been shot cowered helplessly as the posse advanced.

Then, with the scent of victory in his nostrils, Stirling called out for the bugle to be sounded and for his troops to cease firing. The Aborigines many not have seen the massacre as a battle but Captain Stirling, who had seen action in the West Indies, South America and the American war, declared his forces victorious.

The remaining Aborigines were rounded up and taken prisoner but soon after this Stirling decided to set them free "for the purpose of fully explaining to the rest of the tribe the cause of the chastisement, that had been inflicted."

The "battle" was regarded by both Stirling and the settlers as a success - it certainly did much to break the will of the local Aborigines.

________________

Yagan: an Aboriginal resistance hero

HISTORY PERTH

TIMELINE

PRE 1901 - Wikipedia

Settlement or Invasion?

timeline


________________________

The "Windshuttle" Spin
More Windshuttle Whitewash
Debate rages over "peaceful" white settlement

Attempting to Define Aboriginal Sovereignty and Genocide in Australia

This is a work in progress...

In recent chats with various Aboriginal Elders, particularly in the eastern states, it seems there is a current push for the gnu-radicalisation of Aboriginal politics and Sovereignty. Groups are forming and poking at the current political fabric - much like the late 1960s and 70s Aboriginal activism.

With plenty of reasons and evidence to suggest continual "Genocide" in Australia various action groups are speaking and acting radical in the face of John Howard's Right-wing stance. However the responses by Australian authorities are less than sympathetic.

On 7 April 2005 Uncle Kevin Buzzacot was given good behaviour bond in the Emu and Kangaroo case [Regina v Buzzacott SCC 72 of 2004]. "Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, Arabunna Elder and traditional owner of Lake Eyre has just returned to the Aboriginal Embassy Fire, where he is continuing his healing after the Tactical Response Group brutally removed him..."

Currently Aunty Sue Rankin and members of the Jaara Briging Them Home Campaign are organising a national Sovereign Tour: The‘Sovereign tour’ is leaving from the Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra in January 2006, walking via communities along the Murray river, stopping in with the Yorta Yorta at the Barmah Beats festival and converging in Melbourne for the ‘Stolenwealth games’ actions in March. Post the Stolenwealth Games we will be travelling on to communities and major centres across Australia. [Burning the Sacred Fire]



END ABORIGINAL GENOCIDE: A recent attempt at High Court case involving the Genocide Convention [see notes below] was considered "vexacious and frivilous" at the first level and rejected at face value. [Aboriginal Tent Embassy]

The "BLACK GST" campaign is moving along with a recent well attended meeting in Melbourne. This group will take action at the "Stolenwealth Games" in 2006. What is the Black GST?




Aboriginal Genocide - International Criminal Court Genocide Litigation


Union of Aboriginal Nations: Aborigines of the Gumilaroi Nation are about to move onto several pastoral properties in western NSW to reclaim them as Aboriginal land, says the spokesman of the Nation, Michael Anderson. [Story]

I recently spoke with Michael Anderson - one of the founders of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972. We were discussing Aboriginal Nations, Self Management, Indigenous Sovereignty and a positive and powerful way forward for his people. He said "We intend to carry on our confrontation with the govermnent through peaceful dialogue... to be dealt with as a nation of people." He wants an end to "racist paternalism."

Michael Anderson, Sue Rankin, Kevin Buzzacot and many other respected Aboriginal people are speaking out - articulating the fundamental flaws in the legal and political systems of this country.

With strong Aboriginal voices like these and clusters of grass-root encouragement there is a growing movement messin with the political tectonics, a sway under the grand-suited politics of Canberra - and its a positive shift toward radical Aboriginal rights.



What is Genocide?

Australia's PASSIVE INDIGENOUS GENOCIDE

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948 and came into effect in January 1951. It defines and outlaws genocide, as a result of campaigning by Raphael Lemkin who had coined the term some years earlier. The total number of state parties is 135.

The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:"

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article 4: "Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals..."

Stolen Generation

Some recent stuff on Perth Indymedia:
URGENT! Aborigines to repossess NSW pastoral properties
Aboriginal Sovereignty NOT Sorry Day


Another Work in Progress:
Neglected History of This Volatile Country - Aboriginal Resistance


Aboriginal Activism
Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 - KOORIWEB

Australia’s Christmas Island Gift – A $300 Million Refugee Prison

Rough Draft of an Article in process about another massive detention centre - like Baxter but offshore...

The Territory of Christmas Island is a small, non self-governing Territory of Australia located in the Indian Ocean - 2623 kilometres north-west of Perth. It is 19 kilometres long, 14 kilometres wide and has an area of 135,000 hectares. 1500 people are residents. The Australian Federal Government is currently constructing a $300 million prison on Christmas Island.

Phosphate mining has been the main economic resource on the island for many years, 65 percent of its 135 square kilometres are now National Park and there are large areas of pristine and ancient rainforest. Whilst Christmas Island is an Australian Territory, it has been excluded from Australia's migration zone.

Australia’s Christmas Island Gift – A $300 Million Refugee Prison...

_____________________________________________________

In March 2002 the Howard Government announced the construction of a new detention centre on Christmas Island. The successful tenderer, Baulderstone Hornibrook, has been awarded the project's main contract for $207.9 million.

During 2001, Christmas Island received asylum seekers arriving by by boat, most from the Middle East and intending to apply for asylum in Australia.

Following incidents in 2001, such as the SIEV-X; the MV Tampa; and the Children Overboard affair, John Howard pushed legislation through Parliament to excise Christmas Island from Australia's migration zone. This means that asylum seekers arriving outside the Migration Zone cannot automatically apply for refugee status, allowing Australia to relocate them to other countries as part of the “Pacific Solution”.

In June 2003 the federal government scaled back the development, in line with a drop in the number of asylum seeker arrivals. Originally devised as a 1200 place complex, a facility of around 800 places is envisaged, with a mix of purpose-built infrastructure for approximately 400 places. - with “overflow” accommodation for the remainder.

In May 2005, site works are now well advanced, with staff housing completed, and a construction camp commissioned. It is anticipated that the project will be completed in January 2006.

Some Christmas Island residents say the expensive capital works project poses a threat to local industry and the environment. The new detention centre will be sited on land that would have been mined. The site chosen [Mining Lease 138], was leased by PRL for its phosphate mining operations. The government has since resumed this part of PRL's lease, and compensation is being discussed.

Christmas Island Shire Councillor, Gordon Thomson said "Perhaps the Government's thinking is we won't need the mine, we'll have an invasion of people who'll turn the Christmas Island economy from a mining and tourism economy into a prison type economy," he told the ABC. "From the beginning the Government has conducted itself abysmally. There's been no consultation whatsoever," he said.

Mr Thomson is also concerned about environmental issues. The siting of the detention centre "is right in the flight path of the Abbott booby. There's potential for millions of red crabs to be slaughtered."

The Australian Government has waived the usual environmental impact assessment which applies to every other development on the island. The new detention centre is being constructed in the middle of a national park, which is home to endangered species of birds such as…

According to The Wilderness Society, there are several serious environmental concerns with the selection of this site, including the Howard government's self-exemption from environmental scrutiny normally required under the EPBC Act, and its commitment to "best practice" environmental measures during construction of the detention centre.

_________________

The Refugee Council of Australia is concerned the new Christmas Island centre will be even more distressful to asylum seekers than the mainland centres such as Baxter, Woomera and Curtin. Refugee Rights advocates believe that the potential for remote detention will exacerbate the problematic situation of those held in Australia’s border camps.

Margraet Piper says: “There are many advantages to processing people on the mainland.
First is the proximity to legal advice and to specialised medical and torture and trauma services.
They also come within full spectrum of Australian law which is something that doesn't happen on Christmas Island.

Refugee advocates are also aware that the territory is exempt from Australia's migration zone and may therefore not be subject to the same level of scrutiny as exists in other Australian detention centres.

Kaye Bernard: "The Palmer Inquiry must investigate the potential for remote detention to further exasperate the future possibility of those wrongly held. Australia must call for a moratorium on the extravagant construction of this remote mega prison subject to a cost benefit analysis of the social and financial cost."

27 MAY 2005

BACKGROUND/History XMAS – Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Island

Christmas Island Detention Centre Watch
http://www.nauruwire.org/christmas.htm

Christmas Island - Tourist Site
http://www.christmas.net.au/

Christmas Island - CIA The World Factbook
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kt.html

Christmas Island - General Information
http://www.dotrs.gov.au/terr/xmas/

CHRISTMAS ISLAND ACT 1958
http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/0/288/top.htm

Christmas Island National Park
http://www.deh.gov.au/parks/christmas/

The Territory of Christmas Island
http://www.naa.gov.au/publications/fact_sheets/fs157.html

Oh my that naughty BANKSY

Banksy's up to his old self - smashing the state of art. Fuck I wish I had the guts to do that shit...


"The British Museum has been exhibiting a cave painting of a primitive man ... pushing a supermarket trolley.

The "rock painting", entitled Early Man Goes to Market, depicts the outline of a spear-wielding caveman pushing a trolley, next to the outline of a pig.

The work was planted by anonymous "art terrorist" Banksy, whose creation failed to raise eyebrows at one of London's most famous museums.

Banksy had placed it alongside a caption, stating: "This finely preserved example of primitive art dates from the Post-Catatonic era and is thought to depict early man venturing towards the out-of-town hunting grounds."

He added: "The artist responsible is known to have created a substantial body of work across South East of England under the moniker Banksymus Maximus but little else is known about him. "Most art of this type has unfortunately not survived. The majority is destroyed by zealous municipal officials who fail to recognise the artistic merit and historical value of daubing on walls."
From SMH - Read more



Banksy's Current Site:
http://www.banksy.co.uk/menu.html

Well I Wish I Was An Angry Fuck Response

I Posted a Comment On my friend Gemma King's blog:
Gempires: http://gempires.blogspot.com

She was having "feelosophical" moment. Pondering the passion of art, activism and life: "all the people with something to say, are those who are bitterly angry at the world, those who have things to hate... what makes me angry? I'm not an activist. I'd like to say I'm politically motivated, that I have the good of society and the world at heart, but I could never pretend... I am human-centred, or rather, me-centred, and I sometimes wish I was different, but I have discovered that I am not. And what makes me tick, what I think about, what I'm interested in, are other humans... "I decided long ago to start with me, and as far as I can see 'me' is a lifelong project, one that will never be perfect, one that will always need work, and world change just sort of happens as a result of that. My own happiness is at the forefront of my life. Excuse me if I'm a self-centred twat, but this is how I see things, and this is how I will remain..."

I said:

Exactly Gem. For me too - thats where its at. A compassion for others drives it. Yet the compassion for others is perhaps derived from the thank fuck "its-not-happening-to-me" thing - and I wanna stop it from ever happening to me. Refugees in Detention centres for example. I will never meet these guys [well I have met some - and interviewed others] - but I can fully feel their humanity - they are like me. The fact that they are people, REAL people; and not some distant other thing I cannot touch...

I have kids and think what it would be like - if it were me inside there after fleeing some fleeable crap - with my kids, my family etc. I feeeeeel for those guys in detention. And I feel for me - because in a way, I AM them...

But I am free [free from what i dunno]. Free from the mental insanity of those places, and the treatment. Free from the threat of indefinite detention, of constant surveillance; shitty food; ridicule from the guards and dimia etc...

We may want to think we're different, and hide in a credit-driven apathy - but we are all intrinsically connected - by sheer atoms and matter and chemicals etc at the very base level.

So MY happiness is his happiness etc. And His unhappiness is mine.

Thats what motivates me. If I don't act in a moment of compassion. We are all a little bit deader...

[Hmmm - i guess i write better poems than micro-philosophical essays]

al
WHO AM I TO DISAGREE - POEM

4:04 PM
Delete
antipoet said...

Hmmm - I might just add to that:

On "activism". Your blog entry is an act of dissidence. You don't need to break people out of detention or wave a placard or get hit by police or sing we shall overfuckingcome to be active... Your mere presence on the net here is a form of activism.

artists - writers, poets, musicians, visualists etc [are bloggers artists?] are perhaps the best activists around. They consciously or unconsiously tell us stuff about the world - good, bad or indifferent. They point out the foibles of culture, make notes towards change. Little active pieces of dreaming a different world...

DING! the activist is in you contribting to an anti-apathy.

I rckon its in us all. That desire for the end of suffering.

YOU, my good friend, are an activist - and yeah you can't possibly change the worlds systems of oppression and free ALL the repressive expression - but you can make notes on it.

You are angry by default. And active by definition.

Antipoet Workshop

i'm doing another "antipoet" workshop for the Fellowship of Australian Writers at Tom Collins House - 88 Wood Street, in Allen Park Swanbourne this weekend.

i really enjoy these things...

if theres any perth.wa folk who wanna come along...

please come.
_al



The Antipoet Workshop with Allan Boyd
Saturday 21st May 11 am to 5 pm
Cost: $20

What is "antipoetry"?

Come along and meet allan boyd [author of the antipoet manifesto] to find out.

We'll look at what it means to challenge the existing paradigms of dominant culture in 2005.
Why is now "not the time for decorative art"?

Learn that suffering for your art is a personal choice, not a foregone conclusion.

What is a "Zine"

Where are all the real poets?

Contemplate Art and Activism.

Discover how adverbs are fascist. Discuss web-writing and Internet Publishing.

"Be the change you want to see" and incorporate integrity into your art and writing.

Why is there no such thing as "writers block?"

Take the power back and shape words to your own wants, needs, desires.

We'll do some radical writing excercises using bizarre rules and tools.

We'll look at Performance Poetry techniques - see what works and what doesn’t when poetry becomes performance.

Bring work to be performed/critiqued on the day.

We'll record some poetry and play it back.

All sorts of stuff. Come on - he won't bite

Plus, if you treat him well, the anti-poet will let you in on wordworksecrets you've previously never even imagined. So be nice, cause he has much to teach...

PHONE: (08) 9384 4771 EMAIL: mailto:fawwa@iinet.net.au
FAWWA WEBSITE
http://www.fawwa.iinet.net.au/
Tom Collins House, 88 Wood Street, in Allen Park Swanbourne

MAP:
http://www.fawwa.iinet.net.au/images/map2.GIF





antipoet_manifesto allanboyd 2004:
http://al.perthimc.asn.au/antipoet_manifesto_allanboyd_04.html



Some recent stuff by allan boyd - antipoet:
http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=8971

Emergency Action: Don't Let Douglas Wood Die FRIDAY MAY 6

Perth Indymedia Feature: Emergency Action: "Don't Let Douglas Wood Die - Bring the Troops Home Now" - This Friday, May 6, 5pm. Outside Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Office. Assemble on corner of Sherwood Crt and St Geoges Tce, City - Info ph 9218 9608

The No War Alliance is calling an emergency action this Friday, May 6 - to urge the Howard government to act immediately to do what Douglas Wood, the Australian hostage in Iraq, is urging it do: REMOVE The Australian Troops From Iraq! [ Bulgaria to pull troops out of Iraq

At a rally in Sydney this week, Green's Kerry Nettle said: "The only sure way to end the violence in Iraq is for the foreign occupation of Iraq to end. It's quite wrong for the Foreign Minister to suggest that people ought not protest now that Mr Wood has been taken by a group calling for the withdrawal of troops. John Howard must be reminded that it was his decision to invade Iraq, not supported by the Australian people, that has led to the terrible mess we see in Iraq today and he must withdraw Australian troops..." [ Stop the War's rally for Douglas Wood outside John Howard's Sydney office on Wednesday ] [ Illegal War ]

No War Alliance say:
"We do not condone the tactics of the group holding Mr Wood. But neither do we support the Howard government which refuses to concede that Australian and other occupation troops are not wanted in Iraq. A majority of Iraqis, in all recent polls, and at the elections, are saying that they want the occupying troops to leave."

PM Howard states that Australian foreign policy is not to be dictated to by terrorist organisations. Fine. But he should listen to Mr Woods, and "be dictated to" by a majority of Australians who are saying, in poll after poll, that our troops should not be in Iraq, and we should let the Iraqi people get on with running their country." [ 300,00 Iraqis protest occupation ] [ 1000s of Iraqis Protest - April 11 05 ]

The No War Alliance wants the killings to stop. More than 100,000 Iraqis are thought to have been killed in this unjust and illegal war. [ 100,000 Iraqis Dead - Perth Indy Feature ]

It's clear that sending more troops and foreign contractors to a war zone is likely to have them killed, taken hostage, or wounded. The Howard Government, as part of the Coalition of the Willing, has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of foreign troops on its hands.

"Don't let them add Douglas Wood to the list. The Philippines government did the right thing last year and pulled out their troops when a Filipino contractor was taken hostage. The Howard government must do the same." More info on Douglas Wood

READ MORE/Comment at PERTH INDYMEDIA...

[Coverage of Sydney emergency actions ] [ Hostage Douglas Wood's statement ] [ IRAQI PRESS MONITOR ] [ SYDNEY SNAP RALLY: DON'T LET DOUGLAS DIE - BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW ] [ STOP THE WAR COALITION ] ]