By Tim E. Stewart
DARWIN — To remind us how rugged the Northern Territory is, the NT News ran a front page story last month titled "Berserk buff bull killed by rifle fire". Reading this Murdoch tabloid you'd be forgiven for thinking Darwin is constantly under siege: daily attacks by dogs, crocs and cops trying to "keep law and order". The NT News proudly paints Darwin as the last frontier — where uranium mines are good, itinerants (read homeless aboriginal people) are bad, and anything from "down south" is simply un-Territorian.
Political activism of course is treated as if it were terrorism. Successful anti-nuclear pickets that blocked a shipment of uranium last year were attributed to Greenpeace, not the local group ENuFF, in the media. And if the locals get too much attention from overseas or "down south" (for flag burning outside the Indonesian consulate, for example), then it's time to send a couple of fire trucks to the demo and cool tempers down.
Responding to the upturn in anti-uranium and Free East Timor activities, the Country Liberal Party government recently closed the Old Workers Club, a key cultural institution in Darwin. A rainbow coloured warehouse, the club was home to Aboriginal and youth bands; percussion workshops; political fundraisers; book launches; banner, flag and face painting sessions, and was the gathering place for many locals. Chief Minister Shane Stone, also Minister for Arts and Cultural Affairs, closed the centre on the basis of undocumented "noise complaints".
The suburban markets during the dry season are the cultural pillars of the city. Each with it's own rhythm, some are more tourist oriented while others are more "thongs and sarongs". The Rapid Creek markets, for example, truly reflect the ethnic mix in Darwin: East Timorese, Filipino, Greek and extended Aboriginal families from Elcho Island, Maningrida or Yuendemu, among others.
During the dry season, the population of the Darwin becomes more transient. Young people back-packing around Australia or on their way to Asia get caught up in an anti-nuclear campaign or a Free East Timor meeting, vowing to return to the activism when they arrive back.
When members of the socialist youth organisation Resistance moved to Darwin in 1994, they found existing networks of activists around military aircraft noise and against uranium mining, a long-established Free East Timor campaign, and well attended International Women's Day and Reclaim the Night marches. Selling 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly at the markets was the easiest way to meet older activists and to draw youth into campaigns.
The most important step for Resistance was to bring these campaigns onto campus. However the NT University administration keenly opposed the idea of a political culture developing at NTU. Last year the student union was witch-hunted for activists putting up posters advertising a student rally. When Resistance booked space outside the main cafe for street theatre on East Timor, they were told that they couldn't present anything that could be construed as political. And before last year's graduation ceremony the poster poles were wrapped in black plastic to remind visitors that campus was not the place to explore political alternatives.
The year that Resistance began a club on campus, activists from Territory Union of Queer Students held office in the Student Union, radically changing the student newspaper and linking the campus to national campaigns. As well as the Resistance Club, campus activism now includes Student Supporters of East Timor (SSET) and SNuFF (Students for a Nuclear Free Future).
Anti-militarism has been a long term issue for activists, with B52 bombers over Darwin in the early '80s, the Kangaroo military exercises since the early '90s, and now the relocation of defence forces to the North. Darwin Residents Against War opened the Peace Centre as an activist space coordinating "top end" campaigns against the Gulf War and AIDEX in '91. Later that year the space became the Women's Embassy. The same office is now the Resistance Centre and bookshop.
Establishing the Resistance Centre has continued the activist tradition in Darwin. Adjacent to Raintree Park — a traditional gathering place for demonstrations — banners, megaphones, drums and someone's cap all end up occupying a corner of the office. One wall is a living history of political movements; photographs of public meetings, demonstrations and pickets.
In one campaign, Resistance organised a "Bus the Timor Gap treaty" — a bus tour of mining companies involved in the Timor Gap. The tour ended up with a police escort to the front and rear, blocking traffic and drawing a lot of attention to the banners draped over the bus.
Highlighting the memorandum of cooperation between NTU and Dili University, Resistance along with SSET pushed the student union to "adopt" two East Timorese students arrested after a 15 minute demonstration at the University of East Timor in Dili. The university administration wasn't impressed by this gesture of solidarity, saying it jeopardised all current and future memorandums with south-east Asian institutions.
But as much as the campus administration has attempted to curb students' awareness of political issues, and despite the NT News' trivialising of dissent in Darwin, activists in the tropics are quietly running "berko" building Resistance and radical politics in the Territory.