A Journey Away from Violence to a Place of Law-Fullness

Abstract

In responding to or speaking back to colonial violence and, in particular, recent eruptions in Australia where a strong public and media focus has been on violence in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, and in making sense of this eruption, I have reflected and drawn from my centre as a Tanganekald/Meintangk mimini woman. Instead of engaging with the Australian public and its media representations of the violence that lives in Aboriginal communities, I have stepped into the centre and considered how we as Aboriginal peoples have spent a lifetime thinking about, developing and initiating strategies to decrease violence; for example, by advocating for land rights, self-determination, acknowledgement of Aboriginal sovereignty, compensation for genocide, including the removal of children and the relocation of families and communities from traditional lands, and the provision of adequate education, housing and health facilities. We are all familiar with these lists. I do not need to elaborate further to make the point that our experiences of colonial violence and its manifestation in Aboriginal communities was/is not a new phenomenon; it is as old as the coming of Cook and is layered by generational layers impacting upon our communities and resulting in the contemporary violence we are now witnessing.

Keywords: Aboriginal peoples, violence