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13.10 Theorizing about politicisation
Theorizing about the necessity for the politicisation of the
group is brought out in articles on visitors from political parties
and the importance of informed votingɪ.
The Mob theorize too about the protocol of political interaction.
It was noted in the newsletter that:
The Policy of aggressive confrontation that has
been followed by the Court Government is regarded
as rude and primitive by Aboriginal people. Those
at Noonkanbah wish to settle this dispute by peaceful
negotiation (Mikurrunya, 21.8.80:5).
13.11 History of the group as a form of theorizing
The presence of people in the Mob who were participants in the
hardships of the fifties leads to a powerful form of theorizing in
the accounts of the history of the group.
The long history of police harassment is kept alive. Sambo
Bina (Mikurrunya, 29.5.81:6) recounts the Braeside Story wherein
innocent Aborigines were killed in a reprisal raid, and others taken
in chains to Perth. The same man recounts the Moolyella Story of
the 1950s:
A policeman ... took two other Aborigines and put
a chain on their necks and took them to Moolyella.
Those two never returned to our camp again.
From this area the policeman grabbed another group
of Aborigines. They were taken in chains to the
Marble Bar gaol. He took off the chains for them.
He asked them who they wanted to speak for them:
1The one belonging to us is Don McLeod and he will
speak for us” (Mikurrunya, 26.6.81:6).
Ginger Ngukura (Mikurrunya 18.8.81:6; 7.12.81:4) gives an account
of police harassment after the strikes:
Examples of this have been quoted above, p. 185.