The march was called by the Indigenous Students Network to precede a conference entitled "Which way? Towards an ongoing Black movement," held here July 2–3. The gathering drew people from as far away as north Queensland and Western Australia. Buses, including nonindigenous students, came from several Sydney campuses.

The day began with a traditional ceremony at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which has been in existence since 1972. The "sacred fire" here has been kept alight since then as a permanent symbol of protest against the oppression of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Sally Brown, an Aboriginal woman from the Canberra area, told the crowd that despite the official hype about the centenary of the federation of Australian states in 1901, "the constitution is based on racism and dispossession." She asked, "How can there be reconciliation when the whole system is based on lies against Black people?"

"Reconciliation" is a government-sponsored process, promoted by the capitalist rulers since the early 1990s, to try to defuse the issue of ongoing Aboriginal oppression. A series of officially sponsored "reconciliation walks" a year ago, however, were an opening for hundreds of thousands of people to express their support for justice for Aboriginal people and their opposition to racist government policies.

"Aboriginal people are lost without their land," said Charles Moran, an Aboriginal elder from Canberra. He explained why he mistrusted both "reconciliation" and a treaty. "The government, white men, write these treaties up for themselves, not us. Our people are divided by government policy. We need to unite and fight as one."

The march ended in a rally in front of Parliament to hear Aboriginal elders as well as young indigenous student activists. Isabel Coe, a longtime leader at the Tent Embassy, explained, "This isn't about reconciliation, it's about sovereignty!" Ray Jackson, a longtime Aboriginal campaigner against Black deaths in police custody from Sydney, said, "It is a disgrace in such a rich nation that so many of our people die of preventable diseases," or at the hands of the police.

Kevin Buzzacott, an elder of the Arabunna people of Lake Eyre in South Australia, called on the government to "pull those jails down and let our mob out." Aborigines comprise 15 percent of New South Wales's record prison population, despite being about 2 percent of the general population.

Earlier, Buzzacott talked of the "unfinished business" of the history of massacres, desecration of Aboriginal sacred sites and land, and the need for justice over "stolen generations" of children removed from their Aboriginal parents by authorities during decades of government assimilationist policies.

A number of Aboriginal students and youth spoke out on their experiences and on the need for the younger generation, including Black students, to help develop "a new movement based on Aboriginal people," the theme of the indigenous student-sponsored conference.

One indigenous student, Delephene Fraser from Canberra, answering the claim that the oppression of Aborigines is "in the past," explained that Black deaths in police custody, whether behind bars or on the streets, has "increased by 50 percent in the past few years. Racism [against Aborigines] is happening today," she said to loud applause. Another young Aboriginal woman expressed her view that "reconciliation is aimed not at all people, but only at the Aboriginal community," and is meant to quell Aboriginal anger, not stop racist attacks and government actions.

In a July 6 interview, Fraser referred to "the amazing strength" of last year's mass reconciliation turnouts, which "mean so much to Aboriginal people." She explained, "People who walked have to know why we're angry at the government." She concluded that the conference had helped to "reignite the Black movement," bringing a younger generation of Aboriginal students and others together with older fighters. "Aboriginal communities have been waiting for this, and welcome it," she said.

Ron Poulsen is a member of the Maritime Union of Australia.  
 
 
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