Cirrus@Austlit

Dr Gary Foley designed, created and operates this website. It contains history resources for students, a range archives of newspaper articles dating back to pre 1950s, and video and audio files.

'The 1972 Aboriginal Embassy was one of the most significant indigenous political demonstrations of the twentieth century. What began as a simple response to a Prime Ministerial statement on Australia Day 1972, evolved into a six-month political stand-off between radical Aboriginal activists and a conservative Australian government. The dramatic scenes in July 1972 when police forcibly removed the Embassy from the lawns of the Australian Houses of Parliament were transmitted around the world. The demonstration increased international awareness of the struggle for justice by Aboriginal people, brought an end to the national government policy of assimilation and put Aboriginal issues firmly onto the national political agenda. The Embassy remains today and on Australia Day 2012 was again the focal point for national and international attention, demonstrating the intensity that the Embassy can still provoke after forty years of just sitting there. If, as some suggest, the Embassy can only ever be removed by Aboriginal people achieving their goals of Land Rights, Self-Determination and economic independence then it is likely to remain for some time yet.'

‘This book explores the context of this moment that captured the world’s attention by using, predominantly, the voices of the people who were there. More than a simple oral history, some of the key players represented here bring with them the imprimatur of the education they were to gain in the era after the Tent Embassy. This is an act of radicalisation. The Aboriginal participants in subversive political action have now broken through the barriers of access to academia and write as both eye-witnesses and also as trained historians, lawyers, film-makers. It is another act of subversion, a continuing taunt to the entrenched institutions of the dominant culture, part of a continuum of political thought and action.’ (Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology Sydney) (Source: Publisher's website)

'Political agitator Gary Foley presents a swag of stories from a life lived in the spirit of resistance. From the frontlines of black activism to the halls of mainstream culture, he presents a colourful personal history and a dissident narrative of an Australian half-century. For more than forty years, Gary Foley has been deeply involved in the continuing struggle against foreign invasion. As activist, academic and actor, he's been one of the key figures in ensuring that the Aboriginal experience is not written out of this land's history.

Having spent decades spinning the yarns of black Australia, both past and present, he now uses his well-honed skills as troublemaker, teacher and teller of tales to bring his experiences to the stage, in an explosive event that weaves his extraordinary life around the major happenings that have shaped modern Australia. Entertaining and challenging, Foley is as much a personal narrative as it is an account of an untold Australian history. From land rights to native title, from treaty to reconciliation, from the referendum to the embassy, from black power to black pride, Foley, with characteristic dark humour, chronicles his life and times in what promises to be an engrossing tale of resistance and tenacity.' Source: http://ilbijerri.com.au/ (Sighted 11/10/2011).

'This history is as interesting and vibrant as history can be, yet it is largely unknown to the majority of Australian people...'

The first Aboriginal television show produced and broadcast by the ABC, Basically Black comprised a series of comic/tragic sketches based on the 1972 Nimrod Street Theatre revue. The television adaptation was heavily censored and politically 'watered-down' by the ABC, to make it less confronting and controversial

One of the characters written into the revue is Lionel Mouse who fights racism as 'Superboong,' a strange visitor from a northern tribe who comes to the city possessing powers far greater than mortal Kooris, faster than a killer boomerang. An incident of racism in a nearby hotel sees Superboong leap into action, but he unfortunately can't do anything, because Aboriginals are barred from entering hotels; he is forced to go off in search of incidents that he can fight (ctd. Casey p. 56). This ironic treatment of the superhero shows that even superheroes will be discriminated against, when he is not allowed in a hotel to change into his costume.

Other sketches include a satiric take on the boxing troupes that plied their trade as part of carnival side shows during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s; the 'Bennelong' sketch, in which Bennelong is presented at a London garden party in beautifully tailored clothes but also in a gilded cage; and a sketch played out between an aggressive white labourer and an Indigenous industrial designer, which ends with the latter being viciously beaten and then arrested for assault.

The concept for Basically Black evolved not long after Bob Maza arrived in Sydney to undertake an apprenticeship program for directors and actors with the Nimrod Theatre Company. The revue was a biting satire, continuing the response to the High Court ruling against a traditional claim to land ownership, in addition to highlighting white attitudes towards the Aborigines over the past 200 years.