BCC puts out sacred fire
Channel: Workers BushTelegraph
Date: 2012-12-16

The sovereignty movement has a cogent political argument for self-determination. I support the struggle for land rights. I have done so for over 40 years - since the 1971 protests against the racist Springbok tour that saw the Bjelke-Petersen government supporting South African Apartheid. 

A senior man from Yarrabah community, Judulu Neale, was present. I had heard him speak about sovereignty at first sovereign rights conference at the State Library of Qld only one week previous to BCC closing down the sovereign tent embassy and putting out the sacred fire. Judulu supported what I did and he told me that. The sacred fire unites all the tribes, blackfella and whitefella.  What I did was consistent with what I have done for the past 40 years and I have expressed my reasons for this in the article above.

So what was Mayor Quirk's answer? His officers issued me with a $200 fine for 'lighting a fire in the open air/incinerator' something people have been doing since human beings learnt the use of fire. I lit the fire safely and the council officers present did not suggest I had done otherwise. When the Council officers put out the fire I was upset and called the officers 'scabs'. I have attended many union meetings in Musgrave Park over the years and remember fondly when May Day was celebrated in Musgrave Park. After the fire had been extinguished someone else took up the struggle and re-lit the fire. I understand that on that day alone this process has been repeated 6 times. People do not wish the council to extinguish the sacred fire.

The civil authorities have no conception of what Sovereignty means. They have no respect for the political struggle for democratic rights that many thousands have been part of in this state. The Brisbane City Council and their officers have lost their way in this political struggle.

Ian Curr