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Flame of Freedom burns in Victoria Park

y Clive Smith

23 August 2000 - The last time an Aboriginal campfire burned in Victoria Park could well have been more than 200 years ago. The Gadigal tribe of the Eora people, traditional Aboriginal inhabitants of the area now known as Sydney's inner west, are known to have used the park as a meeting place long before European settlement. The fire then would have been for utility and warmth as well as a place to gather in tribal community.

On August 14th a new fire was lit. The "fire for peace and justice" is the focal point of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy which has sprung up in the well manicured park on the western fringe of the city.

"We're here in ceremony, this is a ceremonial fire of peace and justice," says Isabell Coe, Aboriginal activist, and original member of the first Tent Embassy established in 1972 on the lawns of old Parliament House in Canberra.

The Canberra Tent Embassy is the longest continuously running protest in the history of Australian political agitation.

The fire in Victoria Park was started with ashes from the Canberra fire and is a symbol of Aboriginal people's struggle for recognition as traditional owners of this country.

Since the first tent pegs were planted and the Aboriginal flag was raised, the Tent Embassy has grown rapidly, much to the chagrin of local authorities.

"Victoria Park is Crown Land managed by us," says Mr Liam Gash, of South Sydney Council. "It is land owned by the State which the council maintains."

Isabell Coe thinks differently "We are the soveriegn owners of this land," she says. "That means we own from one end of the country to the other end - no other country can come here and plant a flag 212 years ago and just call it theirs."

Coe says the reason for setting up the Tent Embassy in Sydney was to draw attention to Australia's embarrassing human rights record concerning indigenous people. The flame of the "Friendly Games" won't be the only one in town to symbolise unity.

The fight for conciliation has been a long and bitter one, punctuated by cruelty and atrocity since the first white person set foot on these shores. In the current climate of armchair "re-con-silly-ation", as Coe terms it, Aboriginal issues have never had a higher profile.

"There has been an undeclared war for 200 years," says Coe. "They don't even recognise that there is a war going on but go and look at the war zones. Go and look at Redfern, look at the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Enquiry, The Stolen Generation Enquiry and every other enquiry - our people are suffering the trauma of fighting the war. What we're saying is it's time to end the war."

With media focus on Sydney also at an all-time high for the Olympic Games, Coe hopes to gain international interest as well.

Already there are reports in international news media detailing plans for protest at games time. Local support groups are already rallying around the Aboriginal flag.

Olympic authorities have vowed to close the Aboriginal Arts Centre at Olympic Park, Homebush, if it was used as a point of protest. "No one is saying you can't protest, it's a case of where you can protest is more the issue," says Graham Cassidy, spokesman for SOCOG.

Aboriginal leader, Charles Perkins, grabbed international headlines as early as April when he declared visitors to Sydney would be greeted by "burning cars and burning buildings". He now encourages only peaceful protest but predicts "thousands of people will take part in spontaneous demonstrations across Sydney in September."

Environmentalists, anti-capitalists, student groups, trade unions and Games specific agitators are all in support of the Aboriginal cause and have even planned to downplay some of their own agendas so the spotlight remains on the aims of indigenous people.

Groups such as PISSOFF - People Ingeniously Subverting the Sydney Olympic Farce, and CACTUS - Campaign Against Corporate Tyranny in Unity, will be joining indigenous rights protesters outside games arenas.

While Isabell Coe's avowed aim is to "stop the war" she sees the current fervour for massed displays of reconciliation (such as the recent much publicised walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge) as middle class platitudes designed to assuage collective guilt.

"All that was, was a feel-good exercise for white Australia - now they can all go back to their armchairs, their TV's and their mortgages," she says.

It is not difficult to see why Coe feels her views should be shouted to the world. Attempts by SOCOG, and by extension this country's Liberal government, at portraying reconciliation to the intently watching world, fairly reek of tokenism.

An August 20th report on the Olympics.comweb site, describes the day long "indigenous opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival."

"On the steps of Sydney Opera House the air reverberated with the deep melodic dirge of the digeridoo and was permeated with the sweet aroma of burning eucalyptus from 44 gallon drums," says the reporter.

An earlier account of proceedings at La Perouse described the beach as "significant"- "the first point of contact for Australia's original inhabitants and European settlers."

When Isabell Coe and tent dwellers at the Embassy in Victoria Park were ordered by South Sydney Council to "contain the fire in a metal drum", their response was that the campfire was ceremonial and "the spirit of the fire cannot be imprisoned in a metal drum."

Coe said that the Council was trying to turn the Embassy into a "concentration camp" like the mission in Cowra where she was raised.

The way Coe sees it is that "We have to get the process right. I can't have anything to do with reconciliation," she says. "You must understand that all of our people who died here died under a process of reconcilition. It's like expecting the Jewish people to embrace and celebrate what happened in Nazi Germany."

Since it's inception, the Australian government has had an ignominious reputation when indigenous people are concerned. It is becoming clear to the white population of this country that we do indeed have a lot to answer for.

Coe's comments may sound to some like the rantings of a fringe extremist, but you only have to look at a recently drawn up map of Australia, with sites of Aboriginal genocide marked in red dots, to see that there are too many to simply whitewash by arguing the legal ramifications of the word "sorry".

Coe wants as many cameras, tape recorders and notebooks present at the Victoria Park Tent Embassy to document the forum she hopes to set up. "This isn't about Land Councils, this isn't about Native Title and it's not about reconciliation - this is real," she says. "The government have led the people up the reconciliation tree and cut it down after them - this country has been re-conned."

This article is from Reportage

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