At the end of this message is an appeal for funds to assist Clarry Isaacs Yaluritja rebuild his house after it recently the subject of an attack by an arsonist. I sent this out shortly after Yaluritja's house was 'torched' in October 1998. It transpires now that on 19 December 1998, the same or similar action occurred to Murandoo Yanner, another indigenous activist, in the Gulf Country of Queensland. Coincidence? One has to wonder. Anyway, to the point of this missive. Clarry was not insured. Please read on... =============================================== Wreck-Conned-Silly-Nation. News is not when dog bites man, news is when man bites dog! Is it? Well, the old adage used to hold true, that is until it crossed the Nullabor plain in australia and adjusted it's watch back two hours and half a century. News in the west is sometimes when it is not news at all and that is even more worrying. On Saturday the 17th October the house of Yaluritja (Clarrie Isaacs the well known activist) was broken into and set on fire by a person or persons unknown. Clarrie is presently involved in a number of legal actions and he held much evidence in support of his defence in his second bedroom, converted to an office. In that office were two computers, a fax machine and over 500 files. Yaluritja is a Nyungar man who has been an activist for his people nearly all his life. He has been imprisoned many times because of his beliefs and actions. He is ALWAYS news in this State. I have seen the remains of Clarrie's home and the fire damage. It's my opinion that the criminals who perpetrated this event broke in through the front door, painted as an Aboriginal flag, and then moved through Clarrie's home without damaging or stealing any electrical appliances such as the TV, video or microwave, and then to the most distant room in his house. In this room it is apparent that the fire was initiated by the arsonists. Just about everything in the room was destroyed. The police and the fire brigade attended the fire and it was extinguished before it damaged the roofing timbers. It did however, burn out window frames, door frames, wall timbers, doors, and in extinguishing the fire, the ceiling has been destroyed also, as have many plasterboard walls. All this notwithstanding the smoke damage to the entire house and the need now, to make the house again at least habitable in a swag, to completely rewire the entire building. Significant damage, Clarrie's next door neighbour said to him that if the same were to happen to his home, he'd slash his wrists. Fortunate for us that this Nyungar man is made of sterner stuff. And the reporting of this arson was seen at the beginning of the next week the "West." It had three lines about the fire in Clarries house. Anyway, some questions arise out of this event that must be answered. Questions such as: Why was this event reported by the mainstream media so scantily? I suggest that if a settler's house were subject to such an arson attack, we would all know about it from the mainstream media. Perth is such a parochial town that Mrs Brown's cat is reported on! Why not an examination of the fire in Yaluritja's house? Why, when Yaluritja has such a high profile in all things West Australian and Aboriginal was his heartache not illustrated to the rest of the community, as surely it would have been had he been a whitefella? Why, when Clarries is before the courts, and his claimed supporting documents destroyed in the fire, was scant attention paid to the event? Just a couple of days before the fire, with elders Mingli McGlade and Uncle Ben Taylor, when Yaluritja attended the "celebration of the centenary" of "responsible" government in this state to protest the Section 70 action of John Forrest (see http://www.omen.net.au/~staffy/sect70.html), Clarrie was news then, and his photograph was in the "West." Why was his house fire not equally newsworthy? This is a new form of media management, censorship by an absence of reporting. I believe that the reason Clarrie's house fire was not reported was because he is Yaluritja - Clarrie Isaacs and black! A similar "blackout" occurred on the opening of Elder Bropho's alternative power system and on John Pat Day. Seems only to happen when its at its heart is a need for indigenous people to be seen in a light that contrast the norm. An elder from La Perouse had a comment on the warm and fuzzies we've all seen happening over the past few years, some call it Reconciliation, Chicka Dixon called it "Re-conned-silly- nation." In the southern states of the USA they are still burning churches, in Perth is the thin end of the wedge Yaluritja's house attack and fire? Clarrie has re-named Chicka Dixon's re-naming yet again. Wreck-conned-silly-nation. Beware the silence of the media, it is more damaging than an inaccurate or biased tool of an alleged democracy! It was, perhaps, the blind eye and lack of conscience that prompted Pastor Niemoller to state of the Second World War: "In Germany, they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then, they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist, then they came for the Protestants and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time, there was no one left to speak up." I don't know if Clarrie was ever a Communist or a Christian, but I do know that he was certainly a trade unionist, he was President of the Miscellaneous Workers Union, as if that has anything to do with his present homelessness and hurt. When will the media ignore your hurt and thus deny you a tool of our alleged democracy? It's time to worry in our newly, John Howard, comfortable Australia. ================================================= The Deaths In Custody Watch Committee (WA) Inc has commenced a support fund fund for Clarry. He has started the re-build of his house with the assistance of donated goods and services from friends. However, he does need cash. Any donations will be receipted by this Committee and transferred promptly to Clarry. Your help is needed. Please mark Cheques: "Clarry Isaacs Appeal - Deaths In Custody Watch Committee" Kindest regards to all, Deaths In Custody Watch Committee (WA) Inc) 119 Mathieson Road, REDCLIFFE, Western Australia, 6104 "The beginning of the cause of deaths in custody does not occur within the confines of police and prison cells or in the minds of the victims. Initially it starts in the minds of those who allow it to happen." Elder Dr. Jack Davis (OA, MBE) * [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.omen.net.au/~dicwc * Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html The Year 2000 Bug - An Urgent Sustainability Issue http://www.peg.apc.org/~psutton/grin-y2k.htm
LL:AA:Australia, comfortable or Wreck-Conned-Silly-Nation?
Deaths In Custody Watch Commitee (WA) Inc. Fri, 8 Jan 1999 20:04:54 -0500
