Our organisation is based on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Bunurong peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation. First Nations sovereignty has never been ceded in ‘Australia’. Because we’re on stolen lands, our political work must work towards decolonisation and Land Back.
Settler colonialism is a system still ongoing in ‘Australia’. It requires dispossession and extraction of First Nations peoples and their lands, their cultures and languages. Settler colonialism is ongoing in the overpolicing of First Nations, resulting in high rates of deaths in custody, criminalisation and imprisonment, racial segregation and surveillance through curfews, alcohol bans and spending restrictions, babies being taken from families. Settler colonialism is also present in capitalist resource extraction on Indigenous lands that has consequences for everyday life, where water becomes undrinkable, native plants and animals become extinct, and First Nations become further displaced due to gentrification and poverty.
To understand Indigenous people’s oppression more broadly, we use the framework of ‘racial capitalism’, which explains the modern system of capitalism as already infused with racism when emerging from Western feudal society. Racial capitalism is grounded in the stealing and exploitation of land and human labour, particularly of Black Indigenous peoples from the African continent. Racial capitalism in so-called Australia is not only founded on an ongoing project of settler colonialism and Indigenous genocide, but also, the settler government’s imperialist and neocolonial projects target other Indigenous peoples across the seas, causing immense social, economic and environmental disaster.
In our org, we place importance on situating ourselves in Place. We consider and navigate in our strategies and tactics: the historical and ongoing oppression of the Kulin Nation, and its historical and present resistance against said oppression; how oppression has been done across the whole continent, and how it varies according to region and consequences for First Peoples from different nations; and how Indigenous people are marginalised and essentialised today.
SOVEREIGNTY:
We understand First Nations sovereignty on this continent as the inalienable right to self-governance and self-determination, as well as Indigenous belonging to and interdependence with their Country and Culture.
This continent is home to hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nations that existed for tens of thousands of years before colonial power invaded. Each of these Nations have different cultures and laws, languages, stories, social and internal power dynamics, with different networks of relationships and agreements between them.
Being against the State, we believe that Anarchism is a political tool that aligns with the goal of sovereignty, on this continent and beyond. There are many First Nations in ‘Australia’ who consider the State a poor tool for their liberation, and do not believe true sovereignty can come through centralised, top down power under Capitalism or any other system. We agree that State centralisation of power would come at the expense of the self-determination and the autonomy of distinct Indigenous nations around the continent. A democratic revolution is the only way, and it requires poor and working class First Nations, migrants and settlers united around an understanding that Indigenous Sovereignty is a crucial part of our collective freedom and survival on this planet.
We do not assume that Indigenous ways of thinking and living are conflatable with Anarchism. Neither do we assume that Indigenous nationhood is the same as Westphalian nation states. As Anarchists we are supportive of national liberation struggles of oppressed nations/peoples. We oppose nationalism insofar as it’s a religion of the state (along with militarism), and differentiate between working class and conservative elements of national liberation movements.
LAND BACK:
We understand the call for Land Back as part of the Indigenous Sovereignty movement on this continent since 1788, for the return of their lands. Land Back is also about the restoration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture: languages, ceremonies, practices of land and water care that re-establish the well-being of ecosystems and relationships with each other. For a Land Back movement that seeks longevity, the invasive, destructive, capitalist settler structures need to be entirely uprooted, and new structures built in a way that respects First Nations responsibilities to Country.
Class power is indispensable to the project of Land Back, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander unionists being key to pushing for solidarity within the union movement. In the 60’s, Gurindji workers launched a strike at Wave Hill cattle station in the Northern Territory, receiving the support of workers from neighbouring language groups, other First Nations from across the continent, as well as rank and file union networks. In the 70’s, the Black Moratorium marches also involved a national half-day strike by thousands of workers who were builders’ labourers, ship painters, dockers, municipal staff and teachers. In the 80s, unions placed bans on the transport and operation of the oil drilling rig that was to be used at Noonkanbah in the Kimberley region. Since workers carry out colonial expansion, workers must be organised in solidarity with decolonial efforts, not the profits of colonial capitalists.