Page 61 - 10th Annual International Charles Town Maroon Conference and Festival Magazine

Charles Town Maroon International Conference Magazine June 2018

The main thing that Camp Freedom still advocates for, Despite the fact that Camp Freedom actually paid tens
is that of a Truth Commission to investigate Human of thousands of dollars to the City of Gold Coast
Rights abuses, similar to other common mechanisms Council for an official permit and bond – ironically for
towards healing past wrongs initiated in South Africa Aboriginal people to camp on stolen land - the Police
and Canada. tried to serve Camp Freedom with a fake eviction
notice on April 10. When that did not fool the camp,
The 2018 Commonwealth Games were held in the the government also sent in the Department of
Australian State now ironically named Queensland, Children’s Services, The Health Department, The Fire
which has a well-known history of being a Police Department, but they were in turn, evicted by the
State. While Australia is not known for contemporary Freedom Campers who cited Sovereign Rights and the
Terrorism attacks, and has a relatively smaller popu- Illegal Occupation of Australia
lation, compared to other large countries.
Camp Freedom has released a “Statement of Reason”,
Yet in recent years, Police powers have drastically which, highlights our dissent from colonial common
increased (and accountability decreased) with the law and condemns the continued genocidal actions and
hosting of major events. This began with the 2014 illegal occupation of our sacred homelands.' Albert
$500 million+ G20 Economic Summit in Brisbane,
where “Operation Southern Cross” saw the intro- The 2018 Commonwealth Games was held on my
duction of unprecedented stop and search powers , a Ancestral Lands, on Yugambeh Country, which is now
new state of the art Command Centre and the intro- known as the Gold Coast. My only involvement was
duction of the policy of Police no longer having to in protest of The Games, and I felt like I had a lot to
wear name badges with their identifying number. The protest about. My direct ancestral line on my
strategic incapacitation of the protest likely to have Aboriginal side of the family, has had to deal with
drawn up to 120,000 people, to as few as 1,000 oppression for most levels of survival including the
occurred because of draconian protest laws. impact of massacres, the fear of child removal, living
Nonetheless this did not stop spending on a 10,000 under The Act (the Queensland Aboriginal Protection
strong Para Military force, or ramping up a new Act 1898) and the permit system, stolen wages, broken
bunker, and Police powers in time for the Gold Coast families and the culture war. Therefore, as an
Commonwealth Games. Police also employed Facial Indigenous person with old people who were grossly
Recognition Software and increased powers to affected by colonial expansion, genocide and cultural
conduct personal searches without keeping a record. assimilation, that also affects me, I view Indigenous
This was despite the Police publicly stating that there Decolonisation as a necessary and overdue process.
was no need “I have to reinforce that there is currently
no specific threat against the Games or against Thus it is important to me to understand the history of
anything in Queensland” the Police Commander said. our colonisation, rediscover ancestral traditions and
cultural values, while also Indigenising spaces, and
Aside from the over-the-top uniformed and undercover expressing my own contemporary world views
Police numbers at protests, the perimeters of Camp creatively. It is in this way that we can heal and write
Freedom were swarming with all sorts of Police all day ourselves into contemporary history making.
and night, Helicopters and drones overhead, rubber
dinghies on the water, along with dune buggies, However even in the mainstream arts the Gold Coast
horses, motorbikes, pursuit vehicles, buses and is well known as a Cultural Desert and Aboriginal
surveillance vans. people now make up less than two percent of the Gold
Coast population. Interestingly, the Gold Coast is
the focus for foreign land buyers more than anywhere

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