[Reader-list] Declaration of state of emergency

[s0metim3s]

Some initial remarks, and some links to news articles and blogs below.

On June 22nd 2007, the Australian Prime Minister declared a de facto 
state of emergency over remote indigenous communities in the Northern 
Territory. The overt reason given for this extraordinary move was the 
protection of children from abuse – or, more specifically, its occasion 
was the release of the report by the Board of Inquiry into the 
Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse in the Northern 
Territory.

There have been countless other reports on the conditions, often 
described as "Fourth World", that many indigenous peoples endure, 
particularly in remote areas – abuse, deaths in police custody, terrible 
rates of life expectancy and infant mortality and, not least, destitution.

Neverthless, the measures so far announced under this state of emergency 
proffer a rather dubious theory of the causes of child abuse, suggesting 
that the principal question being posed (and answered) here is not, in 
fact, that of how to stop children being abused.

Those measures include the banning of alcohol and x-rated pornography, 
the attachment of normative conditions to welfare payments, and the 
suspension of (what is currently in some cases) communal titles over 
indigenous land and local controls over the movement through them.

Angela Mitropoulos

http://archive.blogsome.com/2007/06/24/national-emergency/
http://www.influxus.org/2007/06/22/norm-emergency/
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/06/21/tampa-2007-edition/
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2007/06/21/australias-day-of-shame/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/21/1958547.htm