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THIS
SITE was developed to promote Queers for Reconciliation's float
in Mardi Gras but will still continue to be online as a contribution towards
Reconciliation. If you would like to become involved in this website's
development then contact the site
maintainer.
There is plenty of information
on this site that you can use to advance Reconciliation.
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teach yourself then your friends how
to say "welcome"
in an indigenous language
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learn about the stolen
generations
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learn about Aboriginal & Torres
Strait Islander culture
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contribute your thoughts
on black/white and gay/straight relations.
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sign an online apology
to the 'Stolen generations' from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender
and queer identified communities.
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explore ...
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contribute ..
YOUR energy is STILL needed
in the year of the 'race based' election!
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ONLINE
APOLOGY to the 'Stolen generations'
from the lesbian, bi, trany, gay and
queer identified communities
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Reconciliation
statements |
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by
Sydney
Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras |
"We support and maintain respect for difference and equality
for all groups who are faced with discrimination." |
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by
the bisexual
& transgender communities |
"We believe that racism and the reconciliation processes
are the business of every Australian." |
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by
Sydney
Gay & Lesbian Community Organisations |
"We believe that non-indigenous Australians have a great
deal to gain from Reconciliation by coming to terms with our collective
past and valuing Aboriginal culture and history." |
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by Gay
& Lesbian Welfare Association (Brisbane) |
"We realise that everything we have, or have accomplished
here, has been at your expense and through your dispossession." |
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by the Australian
Council of Social Service (covers many HIV/AIDS agencies) |
"We know that the impact of the past continues to resound
today." |
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Mick
Dodson's remarks at the launch of Black + White + Pink indigenous
anti-homophobia campaign |
"Reconciliation is about inclusion, acceptance, accommodation
of all our differences." |
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Lesbians
& Gays for Reconciliation (Melbourne) |
"As Australians, we are all diminished by our Federal government's
willingness to put aside the fundamental
rights of Indigenous Australians in favour of a small group of powerful
vested interests."
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Image
from the Lesbian & Gay Anti-Violence Project's
'Which one of this mob is gay?' campaign.
The project was developed by the AVP
with ATSIC.
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In January this year the Sydney gay and lesbian community newspaper
The Sydney Star Observer published an eight
page wrap around abour Reconciliation. |
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Pat O'Shane, David Curtis, Gatjil Djerrkura OAM,
George Mye, Neville Bonner,
Lois O'Donoghue CBE, AM
How Can We Move Together
Towards Tomorrow?
by Mary Yarmirr
Take some time out, make
yourself a drink, sit back and READ
something like ...
Leaping
lizards: the giant goanna of peace
Bridging gaps ... the seven metre goanna
created for Moree's reconciliation
festival by Sydney lesbians and local youth
Anwernekenhe:
the Black Survivors
"Hundreds of years ago diseases like small pox and scrurvy claimed
thousands of Aboriginal lives. We can't let HIV do the same thing and decimate
the community."
Invasion
Day 1998: Aboriginal Statements
"When an ideology that elevates to national
hero status the architect of indigenous genocide, it infests the fabric
of society. School children, from the time that they can reason, are inculcated
with the notion that theft equals righteousness, colonialism equals liberation,
that indigenous peoples were and are savages, and that Euro-American superiority
has been vindicated through the colonialism of the western hemisphere"
Aborigines'
Progress Association manifesto (1938)
"We have in our arteries the blood
of the Original Australians, who have lived in this land for many thousands
of years. You came here only recently, and you took our land away from
us by force. You have almost exterminated our people, but there are enough
of us remaining to expose the humbug of your claim, as White Australians,
to be a civilized, progressive, kindly and humane nation. By your cruelty
and callousness towards the Aborigines you stand condemned in the eyes
of the civilized world"
Indigenous
people's Law-Ways:
Survival against the colonialist state
by Irene Watson
the true story of Hindmarsh
"To those who say as they did when they
planted the theory of terra nullius upon our lands that we were peoples
without law, and to those who say women's law-business is a fabrication,
I say: you are ignorant, and have much to learn."
Image
from the Lesbian & Gay Anti-Violence Project's
'Which
one of this mob is gay?' campaign.
The project
was developed by the AVP with ATSIC.
Primal
fear: Race, politics and respectable Australia
By David Marr
"Did you (like me) jump out of your
skin at the sight of the old black man standing in the rain in Peter Weir's
The Last Wave? It was a fright straight out of childhood. Who taught me
about black bogeymen who take little children away? Probably my grandmother.
I'm still carrying that baggage and know I'm not alone in that."
Try
the INFO
page or the LINKS
pages for more GOOD reading
" 'At no stage did Aboriginal civilisation
develop substantial buildings, roadways or even a wheeled cart.' Dispossession
was bound to happen, he said. 'Those in the guilt industry have to consider
that developing cultures and peoples will always overtake relatively stationary
cultures'."
Australia's Deputy Prime
Minister, Tim Fisher
(The Australian 22.6.93,
page 8)
Fisher was defended against
accusations of bigotry and racism by none other than Australian Prime Minister
John Howard
(The Courier-Mail;
9.7.93, page 2)
Now you can see why they
find it impossible to say 'sorry'?
To find out how to contact
our beloved leaders check out the SUPPORT
page
Read 'A
Black view of Howard's way'
"I don't think there's ever been such
ill-will about the administration and policy development in Aboriginal
affairs ever in the 20th century, having due regard to previous historic
periods and different ways of thinking. I mean, these blokes are reinventing
the 19th century."
Read about who
will gain from the government's racist Ten Point Plan
".. if Aboriginal
people get to share the riches that are still left in this country, what
is wrong with that? because it's only been 125 years since they took all
the riches .."
The Sydney
Morning Herald covers the first organised Aboriginal float in the Bicentennial
year of 1988.
Mardi
Gras '98
Festival events |
Blak
Babe and Kweer Kat
Local artists Brook Andrew and Rea
draw upon their own histories to make an exhibition which takes as its
starting point identities in conflict.
February 12 - March 7
Gitte Weise Gallery
Level 2, 94 Oxford St, Darlinghurst
Tues-Sat 11am-6pm
CitySearch
coverage of Blak Babe and Kweer Kat
Sydney
Sidewalk coverage of Black Babe and Kweer Kat
Festival launch
The Festival Launch featured welcome
by Wendy Brady, Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Board member and a
member of the Wiradjuri Aboriginal nation, and didgeridoo played by Greg
Fleck. The Netcast has been taken down but we hope to include footage of
Wendy from the Launch soon.
The Mardi Gras Netcast featured coverage of Queers for reconciliation's
float and some great commentary including the story of the Goanna. The
Netcast has been taken down but we hope to include footage featuring our
float soon.
Pool
Party
Produced by Raymond Blanco, Artistic
Director, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Dance Theatre. Victoria
Park was once a Koori corroboree site - we're reclaiming it as a space
for all of our tribes.
February 14
Victoria Park Pool
Victoria Park, Parramatta Rd, Darlington
Black
Roots
Sydney's leading indigenous art gallery
gathers four indigenous gay and lesbian artists, ranging across a variety
of styles, for this group show.
February 3-28
Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative
27 Abercrombie St, Chippendale
Tues-Fri 9am-5pm
Sat 12pm-4pm
CitySearch
coverage of Black Roots
Sydney
Sidewalk coverage of Black Roots
PARADE
PHOTOS!
Photos
by
Amanda
James
LOGOS,
BANNERS, FLAGS, ANIMATION'S
Add a graphic to your pages to
show your support.
If you would like to help with designing
banners, providing
graphics and photos or IN ANY OTHER
WAY with the
website that would be appreciated!
Contact the Site
Maintainer.
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