Imagine if a secretive (especially Christian) religious cult asserted that they are above the law of the land, and that police should be restrained from investigating alleged widespread crimes in their community. The reaction from the media-political elite would be immediate and furious. But, as always, when religious supremacy comes dressed in a possum-skin cloak rather than a cassock, the elite’s attitude is respectful obeisance.
Police in the Northern Territory have been accused of repeatedly breaking Aboriginal law by mishandling sacred objects, barging into ceremonies and threatening to interrupt a funeral that was drowning out the sound of an off-duty officer’s TV.
A series of complaint letters obtained by The Australian also describes a man with a mental disability being restrained “like a rag doll” and police interfering with rituals and entering sacred sites without permission.
These complaints seem to be a mixture of misunderstandings and the occasional bout of copper bastardry that we’re all sometimes familiar with. Underlying it, though, is a much more sinister agenda.
Yingiya Guyula, a traditional Yolngu leader […]told The Australian on Monday that when police operations broke Yolngu law, they undercut community safety by provoking unrest and exposing traditional custodians to the risks of potentially brutal tribal punishment. “A sacred site is a site where Yolngu law, Yolngu parliament, is kept,” he said. “The sacred objects are the law of the land.”
Mr Guyula will launch a motion to establish an opposition and independents-controlled parliamentary committee to scrutinise policing on Aboriginal land […]
Mr Guyula said police officers should avoid trying to execute arrest warrants and instead wait for elders to bring wanted people to them […]In the hypothetical case of a suspicious death, Mr Guyula said police should work with elders to handle the body in keeping with ceremonial tradition, with a preference given to ceremonial rites over evidence gathering.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/aboriginal-call-for-police-to-follow-lore-of-the-land/
In other words, tribal bosses want to be above the law of the land. This is a plea for racial separatism in law: different laws for black and for white. Apartheid would be the word for that.
Some Aboriginal women are arking up, seeing this as just another case of “big men” wanting to shore up their own power and cover up the misdeeds of other men in their community.
If you want to know more about customary law then read Ngarra Law written by the Yolngu. In it it explains how violence against women is justified as well as traditional arranged marriage including child brides. Also look up ‘The Jackie Pascoe Case’ where his defence argued that his underage promised wife was aware of her obligations as a promised wife and should have known that Pascoe had every right under their customary law to repeatedly anally rape her.
The Pascoe case involved a girl who was “promised” to a much older man by her parents at birth. When she was 15, and her “husband” 50, her parents duly handed her over. After being raped by Pascoe, the girl begged her family to take her back, but Pascoe chased them off with a 12 gauge shotgun.
In the end, Pascoe’s rape charge was reduced to “unlawful intercourse with a minor”, for which he only served 24 hours imprisonment (he spent 14 days for firearm offences).
Sorry but this argument is outdated and doesn’t work in a society that is based on upholding the human rights of women and children. If the call is for police to be unarmed then the locals should not be able to have spears either […]
Let’s not forget the highest instances of family and domestic violence in our nation exists in remote communities. Beware of the big men in communities who will try to use this latest tragedy to take more control in communities and it is the last thing victims of abuse and sexual abuse need.
Today I sat in court in support of a young woman who was allegedly violently raped by her own father in a remote community. These are the voices that need to be supported not big men attempting to enforce a law that would support perpetrators.
facebook.com/JacintaNPrice/posts/
The elite are obsessed with an imaginary “white male patriarchy”, but when confronted with a very real and brutal black male patriarchy, they don’t just fall silent, they loudly support it.