Solidarity Statement On The 50th Year Of NAIDOC Week
Press Release: IPMSDL
Photo/Supplied
Warm solidarity greetings to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters across the Australian continent. We are overjoyed to send our solidarity to all of you as you observe the 50th year of the National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) Week.
These celebrations remain an important part of Indigenous Peoples' struggle in Australia as you continue to reclaim your history, and forward your demands. This year's theme 'The Next Generation: Strength, Vision, & Legacy' deeply resonates with the international Indigenous movement as Indigenous youth around the world take on greater and more critical tasks in the course of our struggle.
Our young Indigenous Peoples are faced with the great task of learning from our ancestors, applying these lessons in leading the fight for land rights and protection of sacred sites, truth-telling and historical justice, and cultural survival and revitalisation. Moreover, it is the young that are most interested in pushing back against climate-catastrophe, and to fight for a world they can live on, and for future generations to prosper in.
Colonial Continuities
As of today the legacy of colonialism remains deeply entrenched in the systems that rule over Australia. Racism and discrimination is systematized through a long history of colonial occupation. A disproportionate share of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly in remote regions, face significant poverty and deprivation, making them among Australia's most disadvantaged.
Racial discrimination and outright neglect has been weaponized to open up Aboriginal lands to plunder, foreign-backed ventures are milking ancestral lands dry through mining activities, even sacred sites of Indigenous Peoples are not spared in the conquest for profit.
Greenwashing Colonialism
To make matters worse the state and corporate actors use 'green energy' and climate action as schemes to appropriate the ancestral lands of Indigenous Peoples. Recent data shows that over half of these critical mineral projects are built on Indigenous Peoples land.
In reality, Indigenous Peoples are dispossessed of their land for mere carbon credits to legitimize capitalism's further destruction of the planet. These bogus solutions should be exposed, and thus forward genuine, pro-people solutions centered on the right to self-determination.
Militarism on Stolen Land
On top of plundering Indigenous Peoples lands and resources, lands are being used as arenas for imperialist war. The Pine Gap, a United States intelligence facility built on Aboriginal Arrernte land has been operating for almost six decades positioned to collect data in the Indo-Pacific region. It plays an important role in US-NATO's war against China in the region.
While Pine Gap remains the beating heart of the US's militarism in Australia, under AUKUS (the trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), more ancestral lands are poised to become avenues for military logistics, nuclear infrastructure, and waste facilities.
Youth Hold the Fire
With the persistence of systemic oppression and land dispossession, the worsening state of the planet and bogus green solutions, and a rise in the global wars and aggression of imperialist countries, young Indigenous Peoples are called upon to carry forward the anti-colonial legacy of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestors.
Now more than ever, the struggles for the recognition of Indigenous Peoples for Sovereignty and Self-Determination link more clearly to the global fight of peoples against the global system of monopolies, exploitation, plunder, and profit-driven wars.
These challenges compel everyone to mobilize and take action. But in the final analysis, the future of this world belongs to the youth, and for the youth alone.
Indigenous Youth, Carry the Struggle Forward! Fight for and build a future built on justice, peace, and people-centered development!
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