Page 63 - 10th Annual International Charles Town Maroon Conference and Festival Magazine

Charles Town Maroon International Conference Magazine June 2018

I actually had a valid ticket, so the charge was quickly because we were part of a staged template, or a circus
changed to Fail to Produce Ticket, and also Obstruct run by a circus, used by the Director of other Games
Police, and I was required to go to court. In order to formats already seen around the world.
get Legal Aid assistance, I was required to plead guilty,
and because I had no prior record, the judge put me on It was at Camp Freedom where our ongoing culture
a good behaviour bond for months, which happened and consensus was consistently present throughout the
to last until one week after The Games were over... two weeks, and as a parting gesture, a ceremonial Bora
This could have made protesting more of a risk for me, Ring was constructed with beach sand, in the shade of
but it is a human right after all. the space where yarning and decision making took
place. Aside from the extreme Police response to the
I wasn't the only one harassed, as the preparatory presence of Camp Freedom, I feel like our hopes were
Paramilitary exercises were being undertaken all fulfilled and we did justice to our ancestors from all
around the region in South East Queensland and across over the country. It must have been powerful, because
the state border into Northern New South, other people sadly the Bora Ring was immediately removed once
were being monstered and also had batons, pepper Camp Freedom was vacated.
spray and guns pulled on them which were recorded
in places like Byron Bay.

However, it does not seem like it is over, as one week
after The Games were finished, I also got a phone call
from the Police on the 22nd April, on a Sunday,
informing me to expect a fine for a car accident that I
had in 2017, which the Police had never even attended
on the day in question...

My personal hopes for Camp Freedom was for it be a
spiritual and cultural experience for locals and visitors
alike, such as I had experienced in 2006 during the
Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, it was at Camp
Sovereignty where the spiritual healing developed.

People felt peaceful and they felt safe, because the
smoking ceremony at the sacred fire was healing. The
introduction of our Aboriginal law, to the overall
protest efforts, was the biggest contributor to the
success of Camp Sovereignty. Similarly the
Indigenous Arts Community and others also showed Jenny Fraser
up to support Camp Sovereignty at The Gold Coast,
performing and creating new work, which also helped Jenny Fraser is a Murri aesthete with an interest in other ways.
to lift the vibration of the camp. We did this because She has refined the art of artist-curating as an act of sover-
real cultural practice happens, it cannot be stopped - eignty and emancipation. She is currently finalising her PhD in
not because there was money in it for us, not because the Healing Arts and Cultural Apartheid at Batchelor Institute
of Indigenous Tertiary Education in the Northern Territory. She
we were welcome at the Royals’ table, not because a initiated the online gallery cyberTribe and has produced over
government institution anointed us, and definitely not 50 exhibitions and events as dot_ayu.

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