Lidia Thorpe and the Blak Sovereign Movement

I suppose it comes as no surprise to many of you that Australian independent Senator Lidia Thorpe is part of the so-called Blak Sovereign Movement. Just looking at the name alone and based on Senator Thorpe’s previous actions and comments, I presume the Movement is only open to certain people based on their ancestry. That immediately indicates to me that it’s very divisive. Sovereignty is defined as “supreme power or authority”. So I can only assume that the ultimate goal of the Blak Sovereign Movement is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have total control and authority over Australia. I don’t think this could ever be achieved peacefully.

For example, she confronted police last year during a protest outside Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation where a busload of handcuffed detainees were being transferred to Christmas Island, and she screamed at the officers, “You are the criminals, you are the only criminals on this land! How dare you do that to innocent people!” She also walked into parliament and called the Queen a coloniser while making her oath of allegiance in the Senate, “I sovereign, Lidia Thorpe, do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the colonising her majesty Queen Elizabeth II.” Throughout the entire performance, she gave a black power salute, no not that salute, although she didn’t have many nice things to say about Israel recently while wearing a Palestinian scarf into Parliament.

At various times, Senator Thorpe has called Australian occupation a war. For example, at an Australia Day (Invasion Day) protest this year, she brandished a war stick and screamed, “This is a war! They are still killing us! They are still killing our babies! What do we have to celebrate in our country?” Obviously, she has done so many other controversial things, far too many to mention here. Imagine if you did even half the stuff she’s done. Do you think you’d still have a job? It’s amazing the Parliament let her get away with all this. I doubt she’d have the same freedoms elsewhere.

Believe it or not though, there is something that Senator Thorpe and I agree on. We both did not want this recent referendum, “This referendum has done nothing but hurt people, divide communities, divide families, and we know literally Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people right now as a result of this referendum”.

Senator Thorpe has stated many times that sovereignty was never ceded. In an interview in December last year with Junkee, she made it clear that the end goal of the Blak Sovereign Movement is for Australia to cut ties with the Crown and Commonwealth and form a self-governing nation, a so-called Blak Republic. “We need to, to end that war first and then through a treaty, we could have a republic… We need Blak people, First Nations people in this country to be in the driver’s seat.”

In her own words, “This country has a strong grassroots black sovereign movement, full of staunch and committed warriors, and I want to represent that movement fully in this Parliament. First Nations sovereignty is crucial. My focus now is to grow and amplify the Blak Sovereign Movement in this country, something we have never had. There is a Blak Sovereign Movement out there that no one wants to listen to, so I will be their Voice, to defend our sovereignty, to save black lives. This is my goal. Keep infiltrating. Keep your integrity, and keep the fire burning. But, more importantly, keep our fight alive.”

To be clear, not one of you listening stole anybody’s land, and not one of you listening had any land stolen from you, because none of you are more than 200 years old. We’re talking about our ancestors. Yes, some of our ancestors committed crimes, and yes, some of ancestors had crimes committed against them, but those people aren’t us. We didn’t participate in whatever horrors happened in history. But as Senator Thorpe said right at the end of that clip, the most important thing for the Blak Sovereign Movement is to keep the fight alive. That is, they don’t want to forget what happened 200 odd years ago. They want their members to be perpetually angry so that this fight rages on. And they won’t stop. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. For them, this won’t be over until they have sovereignty over every last piece of Australia.

BLAK SOVEREIGN MOVEMENT
https://blaksovereignmovement.com/

WHAT IS 'BLACK SOVEREIGNTY'? THE INDIGENOUS MOVEMENT LIDIA THORPE WANTS TO PURSUE IN PARLIAMENT
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-07/lidia-thorpe-what-is-black-sovereignty/101937924

“MORE THAN A VOICE”: SENATOR LIDIA THORPE ON WHY IT’S TIME FOR A BLAK REPUBLIC
https://junkee.com/longform/lidia-thrope-interview-blak-republic

MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn