This year I made a couple of New Years resolutions which I am hoping will stick, one being to blog more than once every 3 months, the other is to get healthy. The healthy bit is due to a health scare over Christmas which kicked me into eathing healthy and generally being healthy.

So tonight, is the start of the eating healthy bit. I ordered Lite ‘n Easy and tonights dinner is a nice Apricot Chicken and Rice.(will post review later)

Apricot Chicken with Rice in package.

Apricot Chicken with Rice outside package

Verdict: yum!

Someone on my Facebook feed put a link to Kelton Pell singing Kev Carmody’s song “This land is mine” which was taken from the Rachel Perkins movie “One night the moon”

With Australia Day coming up and the nationalistic pride being overtaken by bogan/yobbo behaviours, where more people cringe at the southern cross tatoos and the Australian flags, and people like me just take it as an excuse to ignore whats going on, got me thinking of the two different ways people see Australia.

Most Australians see the land in which they own, they posess, they cultivate, grow and build. Their relationship with the land is different. In recent times we’ve seen demonstrations of ownership, of pride of being Australian, yet, they fail to tell us what it means.

As an Aboriginal person, I don’t own the land, I never did, the land was always and will always be mine as the land is me. I hear the land, I see the stories and I feel its presence. I know where I am, I know when I’m not suppose to be somewhere, the land talks to me.

Australia Day is coming up, this is the time when most proclaim their allegence to a country which was founded on convict labour and who they proclaim as theirs, but it doesn’t matter what they say or do, they will never truly own this land, as this land will always be mine.

Nicky Winmar stood up to a ferocious Collingwood supporters crowd and owned them! (yes, St. Kilda did win that game too!)

A friend of mine changed his FB pic to the pic of Nicky Winmar showing the Collingwood supporters that he was black and he was proud. To me, that pic marked the day that the AFL would forever change the way it viewed it Aboriginal players and embrace the change with courage in its convictions.

As most who have read this blog know, I am an AFL supporter, I have been a lifeline AFL supporter and I have a great respect for all those players who have paved the way for the young men of today to play a great game. However that being said, once upon a time, the game was not as open and accepting as it once was.

Back in the day of Graham “Polly” Farmer, Sid Jackson and Joe Johnson – Aboriginal people were still considered “protected” persons. They were not rightful citizens of a land in which they lived, they were living in second rate conditions and were openly discriminated due to their Aboriginality and the colour of their skin. Fair skinned Aboriginal people were being removed from darker skinned Aboriginal people, they were put in reserves, missions and were adopted out, to pretend that they were white and were never given information about their true heritage. The impact of this legislative genocide is still being felt, through many generations still missing and those who were taken some have never reconcilled themselves with their Aboriginal heritage.

How this relates to football is easy. Sport in Australia provides a mirror into the Australian psyche. Somehow what happens in the political arena is most often than not reflected in the sporting arena. The boycott of South Africa due to their ongoing policy of apartheid is one example, but in Australia, the acceptance of Aboriginal sports people being on equal par as non- Aboriginal sports people has always been a struggle.

In 2005 the AFL inducted into their Hall of Fame – a team of 26 Aboriginal players who were chosen to be their Indigenous Team of the Centuary. That team of players were chosen for their skill, their ability to be able to play football, but unwittingly they were also chosen as representatives of cultural and racial change in Australia. The growing acceptance of Aboriginal players being in representative football  has changed over the years, from the unspoken agreement between clubs by only fielding 4 Aboriginal players at one time, to the  cultural acknowledgement of Aboriginal heritage within the game has made the AFL a leader, not only in reconciliation but in sporting acceptance.

When we look at the picture of Nicky Winmar all talk about his stance against Collingwood and his “black power” stance, even those who don’t follow AFL, know this of this event. This event helped change the way that Australian sport and Australians in general viewed Aboriginal people, it also changed the way Aboriginal people viewed themselves, not as victims, but as survivors. Nicky Winmars name will always be associated with his challenge to Collingwood, but it will also be associated with his God given talent and ability to move a ball better than most. Nicky Winmar. Proud Noongyar man. Proud Footballer, forever legend.

Im sitting at my desk at work at the moment listening to Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms. A very moving song which paints a picture of someone who is displaced due to war and describes the place which he is in at the moment. I’ve looked up SongFacts which states that Mark Knoffler wrote this for the guys in the Faulklands War, which makes sense. However as I sit here there are a couple of tv shows which used this song in a pivotal moment in the shows, which depicts the characters going to “war” with their brothers in arms around them, backing them up, and providing the support that only they can.

The first show I recall is due South. A story about a Mountie who is banished from Canada to live in Chicago, the song was played when Fraser and his partner were outnumbered in a battle to protect a witness.

The second and most memorable moment in TV history was The West Wing. At the end of Season 2 when Bartlet was being asked to run for election again. He just buried his most trusted and valued member of staff/family and he was to run the gauntlet of disgruntled votes who believed that he mis-lead them in relation to his terminal disease. the scene where he spoke with Mrs. Landingham and went outside the Oval office into the rain, and then proceeded to walk through the West Wing to the waiting media with his staff behind him epitomized the message in the song, “through these fields of destruction, baptisim of fire, I’ve witnessed your suffering, as the battle raged higher, and though they did hurt me so bad, in the fear and alarm, you did not desert me, my brothers in arms.”

I don’t know what it is about this piece of music but every time its used in a TV show or movie, it seems to change the mood of the movie and cements in the viewers mind that wether its a battle, an election or a gathering, that those who support the main character can be seen as brothers in arms.

At the beginning of a new year, people resolve not to do the same things that they did the previous year, they make resolutions and they stick with them for at least the first 3 months of the new year. I’ve not made a new years resolution as such, what I have done is decided that negativity and negative influences are not going to be part of my life anymore and I am going to change my mindset and my views to a more positive outlook. So what does that really mean? That means that its time for change, to stop being the victim and to be pro-active in my life and to make the right choices for me. Last year was a year of self discovery, of challenge and of moving on. This year is the beginning of that walk.

This is my year in review in pictures. I’ve been to 6 countries this year so far, I battled my demons and went home to Perth for a school reunion, I got a new job and most recently told that I have to go back to my old job, my family have been through hell and back, and I learnt more about myself than I have in a while. 2012 will be a year of change, a year where I can challenge myself further and to stop going backwards…

Merry Christmas my friends, and Happy and safe new year.

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th Month:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Lest We Forget