Most Australians say “yes. We fully support the Uluru statement from the heart”. But do you actually know what is in it? Do you actually know where those words come from?
In the Uluru statement issued in 2017 by a key Aboriginal leaders and groups they spoke of their sovereignty. This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or 'mother nature', and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.
I have never met an Aboriginal person who has never met some of this language. “attached thereto”, “return thither” and “sovereignty”. What is going on here? Where does this quotation come from?
The Aboriginal people who gathered knew that these words came from the gathering of the High court of Australia in the epic decision on Native title. The Mabo decision. In 1992. But the 2 Australian High Court judges did not invent the words. They intern was quoting a Lebanese judge. Judge Amoon on the international court of justice in 1975 in what was called the West Sahara. What it goes even further. It was a direct quote from a Congolese Lawyer who appeared at the International Court to speak to the people the European people that the people of Africa were not primitive’s. That the notion of Tera Nullius was inhumane. That the notion of Tera Nulius denied the dignity of the people who were the traditional owners of the Land.
