#native australians

Billionaire Demands Portrait's Removal from Australia National Gallery

Gina Rinehart, the richest person in Australia, has reportedly called on Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia to take down a painting of her by Aboriginal artist Vincent Namatjira.

It wasn’t immediately clear what had moved Rinehart, a donor to the National Gallery of Australia, to make the request, but it was clear, at least, that Namatjira’s portrait was viewed as being not the kindest representation of her. Both the Guardian and the Sydney Morning Herald used the word “unflattering” to describe the picture, which renders her skin a pinkish color, exaggerates the folds on her chin, and turns her lips downward into a frown.

The painting is one of nearly two dozen portraits that appears in Namatjira’s current retrospective at the museum, which traveled the show from the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide.

In Australia, Namatjira is well-known and much-loved. He became the first Indigenous artist to win the Archibald Prize, a prestigious Australian award for portraiture, in 2020.

Rinehart earned her fortune in the mining business and is currently chairwoman of Hancock Prospecting. She has periodically made national headlines in Australia for a string of controversies, most notably her decision in 2022 to stop funding a netball team after an Indigenous player asked not to have the Hancock Prospecting logo featured on her uniform.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, in April, Rinehart personally asked NGA director Nick Mitzevich and NGA chair Ryan Stokes to deinstall the Namatjira portrait. The museum declined to do so. “The National Gallery welcomes the public having a dialogue on our collection and displays,” the museum said in a statement to the publication.  ...

Charles Duguid was born on 6th April 1884 at Saltcoats, Ayrshire.

I only learned of this man 4 years ago, and have to say, if ever there was an apt name for a man “Dr Do Good” as he became known has that honour.

Duguid was the son of Charles Duguid, a teacher, and Jane Snodgrass Kinnier, daughter of Robert S. Kinnier, a surgeon, he attended Ardrossan Academy, where his father was Headmaster between 1882 and 1889, and the High School in Glasgow, before studying medicine at Glasgow University he gained a Master of arts in 1905 before going on to gain degrees in Medicine and surgery. Whilst teaching at Glasgow University, Duguid worked as a doctor in the slums of Glasgow, but in 1911 he signed on as ship’s surgeon for a voyage to and from Australia. This experience led him to emigrate to Australia in 1912. His early medical work in the Glasgow slums developed in him a compassion for the underdog which continued throughout his 102-year life.

After settling in Victoria and marrying an Australian lass, who tragically died in 1927, he remarried in 1930, both Duguid and his wife were idealists and humanitarians, the murder of a white man by Aboriginals at Landers Creek, Northern Territory, sparked Duguid’s interest in their rights. 

The police shot 17 Aboriginals during the course of the hunt for the murderer, but official records at the time state that at least 31 people were killed. In 1934 he headed to Darwin, but missed his connection from Alice Springs after responding to a request to perform some emergency surgery there and stayed on for three weeks. He was appalled at the way Aboriginal people were treated there and by their poor living conditions.

Duguid’s wife Phyllis, founded the Aboriginal Advancement League in 1935 and Duguid served as President. In 1937, Duguid helped to found Ernabella Mission in the Musgrave Ranges of South Australia. He lectured and spoke in the UK as well as Australia and New Zealand about the conditions of the Australian Aborigines.

Duguid was active in other organizations concerned with the advancement of Aboriginal rights such as the Council for Aboriginal Rights and the Association for the Protection of Native Races. He also led the 1947 campaign against the establishment of a British-Australian rocket testing program at Woomera in the Central Australian Desert. He worked closely with Donald Thompson to inform the public of the harmful effect that this program would have on those people still living traditionally, nearby.

In addition to his work with Australian Aborigines, Duguid helped to found the Australian branch of the English-Speaking Union, of which he was Chairman in 1932.  In 1935, he was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of South Australia. Duguid died in Adelaide on December 5th, 1986 at the age of 102.

I don’t know enough about Australia or the indigenous population and culture to call out any appropriation. I’d appreciate hearing from native Australian to know how it checks out.

But they do lightly separate their world from our current one so I think that plays to their advantage.

I mostly see them as animals but occasionally I see them as ppl. I always imagine the majority of them PoC and indigenous folx.

We asked the Government to promise that they wouldn’t act to extinguish our native title until the Federal Court heard our case. And they just refused.

That means they could move to extinguish our native title rights at any time.

And with Minister Anthony Lynham back in his seat, we expect him and Adani to act before our hearing, and slam native title extinguishment through!

Our native title rights are hanging in the balance. This is a race against time.

PLEASE TAKE URGENT ACTION WITH US.

Write to or call Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, Deputy Premier Jackie Trad, and Minister for Mines Anthony Lynham, and demand they respect the judicial process and refuse to act to extinguish any Wangan and Jagalingou native title before the injunction is dealt with this week and the court hears our case against the ILUA in March:

Premier Palaszczuk – (07) 3719 7000 – [email protected]

Deputy Premier Trad – (07) 3719 7100 – [email protected]

Minister Lynham – (07) 3719 7360 – [email protected]

Ask that they -

~ do not act to extinguish Wangan and Jagalingou native title under any circumstances, before the court hears our case against the Adani ‘ILUA’ in March 2018 - and that they

February 13th 2008: Australian apology to indigenous people

On this day in 2008, the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to indigenous Australians, particularly the Stolen Generations, for years of mistreatment and oppression. The apology was passed unanimously by both houses of the Australian Parliament and was one of the first acts of the new Parliament. The apology was for the policies of the Australian federal and state governments who had forcibly taken children of indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders away from their families - the Stolen Generations - in what was essentially an attempted cultural genocide. Rudd pledged to bridge the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Australia also commemorates an annual ‘Sorry Day’ on May 26th in an attempt to come to terms with the legacy of indigenous persecution.

The children’s graves at residential schools in Canada evoke the massacres of Indigenous Australians | William Pengarte Tilmouth | The Guardian

First Nations people across Australia are mourning with Canadian First Nations families as evidence mounts of hundreds of deaths of children at residential schools.

We are standing with our Canadian First Nations brothers and sisters on these recent horrific discoveries.

The massacres, forced assimilation and cultural genocide in Australia is something this country has yet to face up to. My own experience of being removed from my family and taken thousands of kilometres away to a mission home is part of that history.

The massacres, removal of children, poisonings and atrocities inflicted on Australia’s First Nations peoples were designed to exterminate us, to erase the entire race of my people on this planet.

I think about the day I was taken every day. The process was a continuing act of colonisation and assimilation and the aims of it was akin to being buried alive. That is how I feel every day. ...

... Open your eyes, your heart, and your chance to change how we treat each other, and how we treat our First Nations people, and honour our history, our truth.

As an Arrernte Elder, I and my family and community have a strong obligation to stand together in times of discoveries like these. To stand in solidarity, in truth telling, in solemnity, and mark the time this situation occurred.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-68634074