Students of Sustainability, RADelaide

by Jay Fletcher, Wollongong

The bus pulled into Flinders University at around 9.30pm on Saturday night July 3, we were greeted by cheers from people in the car park and the organisers boarded the bus to promise us a hot meal and showers. A film crew that was working on a documentary about Richard Downs and the walk-off filmed up disembarking and promised to catch up with us again in Alice Springs.

The following day, about 80 people attended the “Aboriginal Resistance Today: the Alyawarr walk-off” to hear Richard Downs discuss the frontier of the anti-intervention campaign. Richard spoke about the gross injustice of forcing Aboriginal communities onto 40-year leases by starving them of essential and basic services if they refuse.

“It’s blackmail is what it is,” he said. “My people tried to engage with the bureaucrats and their government, but we’ve been denied and denied and we decided we wouldn’t tolerate this.”

Several Aboriginal people in the audience reiterated Richard’s call for unity among Aboriginal rights campaigners, and that solidarity and organised opposition to the government’s laws and policy was necessary. The change of prime minister meant nothing to him, he said.

“I’ve got no respect for Julia”, he said. “They won’t change unless we force them to.”

Richard reported that people from right across the Northern Territory and the rest of the country would be arriving in Alice next week, and many people in the room said they were attending (including people not on the bus).

That night more than 50 people, both bus participants and people from the conference, packed the solidarity bus to get along to the “Rap Intervention”, a benefit gig for the walk-off. Local and interstate performances were phenomenal (including Adelaide-based Local Revolution and Doc Fruit – AKA the Indigenous Solidarity Rides’ very own Zane Alcorn). Richard Downs also addressed the gig, and got massive cheers when he declared that the racist Labor government had to go and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people needed to work together to create justice.

There were many other inspiring Aboriginal speakers at the conference, including Arabunna elders discussing the fight against the uranium mine at Roxby Downs. Zane, the bus organiser, told the workshop that our return trip will be via Roxby on July 16, and expressed the possibility of meeting with the campaign groups and media on our way through.

Tonight is our final night. The bus is almost packed, anticipating the very early 6am start to get to Coober Pedy. We’ll camp there overnight and shoot through to Alice Springs in time for an evening film and forum.

So to cover the trip so far: Newcastle/Sydney => Cowra and a meeting with Uncle Chappy Willams on the campaign to save Lake Cowal => Wilcannia => Mutawinji, a beautiful national park, and a meeting with Steve (from Arhnem Land, who we met by chance but who spoke about his experience teaching English and was strongly opposed to abolishing bilingual education and forcing kids to learn English) => Adelaide and two days of radical action and info at SOS!