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Back to their roots

By Edwina Flershannon

IF there is one message from the 2nd World Indigenous Youth Conference its that tribal customs and culture are the way to go. Promoting unity, young Aborigines from 29 countries held confer ence in Darwin, Australia for 7 days and nights. 1500 delegates turned out. Australia’s ‘Kakadu Man’ Bill Neidjie proved a highlight of the conference. But it was indigenous women whose impact totalled greatest affect.

Dynamic speakers from the adult world stage took a back seat when Hinemoa Awatere delivered her paper on the role of young indigenous women. Awatere not only spoke but sang. Her message “For many Polynesian women, the arguments againsts you are you’re dumb, your people deserved to be colonised. To believe this, or to buy into this is absolute rubbish. But we deal with the legacy of this ideology daily in Aetearoa massive drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy for which we rank second

highest in the world, and, teenage suicide for which Aetearoa has the highest rate in the world.

“We have a Maori term for such a condition.” she told the forum. “It means “spiritual low” an inability to partici pate in society We have now entered a new phase. We have a great honour to uphold. Maori women are dedicated to the deprogramming, decolonising and nurturing of our youth. “This is our spiritual growth our sovereignty.”

Delegates from the Cree Nation initiators of the first World Indigenous Youth Conference held last year in Quebec kept the energy high. Their speakers and dancers a powerful presence in and out of the auditorium.

The world’s youth were unanimous in

support of Greg Phillips, Aboriginal

exchange student and one of the most moving speakers in an action packed week.

Urging his peers to get a ‘two-way education’ the young Queensland student deferred praise for his wisdom and paid homage to the role of women.

“I learnt from my mother” he said. “She is strong in the community. Today she opened the first diversionary centre of our region for Aborigines taken drunk

into custody.”

“Indigenous women” he continued “are the culture keepers. And the issues we now face are not human rights but human responsibilities. ...The reality of who we are and where we’re going is we have to educate. We have to go to our elders. And we have to go there ‘clean’.

Not bombed, not high but clean. If we’re really, really interested, we can change

everything, ourselves.”

Reviving language and promoting unity as an alternative to conflict, the children of two worlds sang and danced long into the night on the conference ground’s outdoor stage.

Tribal dance and traditional costume held pride of place. While young Aborigine from Darwin, launched Koloured Kollection, a fashion industry based on traditional designs, tribal elders launched two new flags; one for the seafaring people of Torres Strait and one for mainlanders, based on the land rights symbol with the addition of celestial

configurations.

The enormous energy, required to keep such a conference a happening thing for youth, was recharged by the dancers of Melanesia, Polynesia, East Timor, Lapland, Philippines, Torres Strait, Arn hem Land, Australia’s Gulf Region, and Tanami Desert who depicted legend in the language of song.

For dynamic Solomon Islands delegate, dancer and theatre director, Patrick Francis Kekea, the issues boiled down to awareness of the world stage, values for traditional ways and land. “We’re in a stuggle” he said. “It is the selling of The Solomons. We have an indigenous gov ernment, but foreign industry. It is important now to see youth access at all levels of decision making. It is we who must devise ways of creating industry for ourselves. This is the future of the Solomon Islands.”

Melanesian delegates also put forward a solution for the Bougainville conflict “We ask for the tribal chiefs to be instated as a third party to any and all

negotiations on Bougainville” delegates

told the conference’s final session.

Saturday July 11 ended the week long conference, in which the high energy of youth was matched by a continuous ‘flame of freedom’ a sacred fire, lit in the dawn opening ceremony between Aborigine Australia’s Larrakia and the Cree Nation.

Wayne L Miles The Nundirrbala clan: from Australia’s Gulf Region

Wayne L Miles

Papua New Guinean dancers: beating the drum for youth