Your Jesus said your supposed to give the oppressed a better deal

Gough Whitlam pouring sands through the hand of Traditional Owner Vincent Lingiari taken by Mervyn Bishop in 1975

Today my friend Arika and I were exploring the suburb we live in. It’s a beautiful place, just outside of Canberra and is surrounded by gorgeous hills. Arika has a four wheel drive. We decided to go up the hills and take a look at the whole suburb. We were surprised to find a hidden lake in the middle of houses. So we decided to go and have a look :)

I was all excited. A secret river? In the middle of houses? I was having visions of Arika and I going down there to fish or swim or think and dream. Not so. As we got down there we discovered the lake had been selfishly closed off by a “gated community”. A gated community is a group of houses completely locked off to everyone else. I wouldn’t have minded that these people choose to lock their neighbourhood off to prying eyes but how dare they deprive the rest of the suburb of a lake? The only place you can access the lake is through a narrow walking path (which Arika’s Suzuki vitara was able to fit into :) ) and we saw that a hidden Venice was being kept from us.

I couldn’t help but think…what right do these people have to such a beautiful place? What gives them the right to own a whole lake? Just because they own more money than the rest of us? And I couldn’t help but think that this isn’t there land. It will never be their land.

I didn’t think of it much until I went home and listened to possibly the best protesting song I have ever heard... “Thou Shalt Not Steal” by Indigenous singer Kev Carmody.

The song talks of the hypocrisy of white Australians who talk of Blackfellas keeping all the benefits and basically not assimilating into the majority culture, when white Australia was built on the stolen lands of Aboriginal people.

I couldn’t find the lyrics on the internet so I listened to the song ten times over and tried to write the lyrics as faithfully as possible…some of the sentences I couldn’t get:

Thou Shalt not Steal by Kev Carmody

1788 down Sydney cove
The first boat people land
And they say
Sorry boys our gains your loss
We’re gonna steal your land

And if you break out in British law
For sure your gonna hang
Or work your lives
Like our convicts
With a chain on your neck and hand

And they told us

CHORUS
Woah black woman thou shalt not steal
Hey black man thou shalt not steal
We’re gonna civilize your black barbaric lives
And we’ll teach you how to kneel

But your history couldn’t hide the genocide
The hypocrisy that was real
For your Jesus said you’re supposed to give
The oppressed a better deal

We say to you
yes our land thou shalt not steal
Woah yeah our land you better heal

Well your science and your technology
Can make a nuclear bomb
Development has increased its size
Three million mega tonnes
And if you think that’s progress
I suggest your reasoning is unsound
For you should have found out long ago
You better keep it in the ground

CHORUS


The land’s our heritage and spirit here
The rightful country is black
And we’re sitting here just wondering when we gonna get that land back

They taught us
CHORUS

Well you talk of conservation
Keep the forest pristine green
But in 200 years your materialism has stripped the forest clean
And race is a contradiction that is understood by none
but mostly their left hand holds the bible, the right hand holds the gun

CHORUS


You can't white wash history any longer. I remember i went to a Christian high school. Don't get me wrong, i loved it. I met so many amazing people. But one of the things they taught us was "This land was built on Christianity." This land was not built on christianity. In fact, the values that drive christianity are directly in contrast to what the Europeans did to Aboriginal people. This land was built on the stolen lands, lives and wages of Aboriginal people.

And the forces that drive the country continue to work against Aboriginal people. Australia continues it's racist history but this time it's a lot more deceptive, with the help of spin doctors and a misinformed media.

Luv Amy