I first came here in 1967, after the referendum – a time when [as teenagers] we became aware of what was going on – the fact that we had been ignored by society before 1967.

[Redfern] That was the place where I met most of the young people who very soon after became — what we were referred to as the Young Black Radicals, the Black Power Groups. The Young Black No Good-ers were stirring up all this unnecessary trouble and that sort of stuff.

It was not that we were creating a new struggle, to me it was a continuation of the spirit of the resistance that existed long before we were born; no doubt it will exist long after the time that we’re gone.

So we started being effective. As a result of that, when groups are being effective sometimes the whole world can come down on you. On reflection there was a great deal of stress. There was a great deal of danger. Our families were also involved in this struggle; our mothers and fathers, our uncles and aunties.

The smell of resistance is not evident any more. The smell of conservatism is. Used up ideas are still being regurgitated by contemporary governments. The intervention is still there. Where’s the sense of any possible thought of anything enlightening in the future?

A sense of complete hopelessness. The regurgitation of failed ideas, the regurgitation of failures, that’s been now re-impositioned on us.

SCENT

It’s physical – dry wrteching, putrid and sickly

By

Lyall Munro Jnr