The Sydney Morning Herald Dodson urges young not to 'sell out' Date: 28/08/99 By TONY STEPHENS Patrick Dodson, named by Senator Aden Ridgeway this week as the father of reconciliation, called last night for a formal agreement guaranteeing the rights of indigenous Australians in the Constitution and warned against Aborigines "selling out" their principles. The warning, attacking compromises in the new preamble to the Constitution and in Federal Parliament's historic declaration of "deep and sincere regret" for past injustices to Aborigines, appeared to be directed at Senator Ridgeway and his supporters. Mr Dodson, former chair of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, was delivering the fourth annual Vincent Lingiari Lecture in Darwin. He said that Mr Lingiari, who led the Gurindji stockmen's strike in 1966 against Vesteys, the British meat company that claimed ownership of Wave Hill station in the Northern Territory, started his people on the road to reconciliation. "When Vesteys boss, Tim Fisher, tried to win Vincent and the Gurindji back to Wave Hill and his regime of serfdom with fresh beef, Vincent and his mob, even though they were hungry, told Fisher to take his beef back to the station," he said. "Vincent was not to be bought off. Neither should the young Aboriginal leaders, being feted as a new breed of pragmatist in tune with the global necessities of the modern world, be lured into vanities of illusionary power and influence." The Governor-General, Sir William Deane, sent a message to Darwin repeating his belief that Australia would be a diminished nation until true reconciliation was achieved and welcoming Mr Dodson's guidance. Mr Gough Whitlam, the former prime minister who handed control of Wave Hill to the Gurindjis, also sent a message of support. Mr Dodson said prime ministers could not understand the destruction colonisation had brought to the first Australians. "Their own hearts do not echo in anguish at the coming of the night; their children have always been their own to bring up." Successive governments had tried to advance the status of Aborigines on the basis indigenous interests would be subservient to the perceived national good. "That was until 1992, when the High Court had the temerity to acknowledge something that indigenous Australians had known all along - that we were and continued to be owners and custodians of the land ... not kinship but custodianship." Parliament had not said sorry to the stolen generations but had suggested they try their luck in the courts, "where the same sincerely regretful government will continue to oppose them". This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/
