 I'm really honoured to have you here and I think that it's a really important point to say you're my second guest on this incredible yinya mara and how do you actually feel now that you've just landed in Canberra and you've come from Sydney but you actually live in Darwin? I'm tired but I'm really excited because I haven't been in Canberra for many years but I have a lot of childhood memories here so I feel really lucky to be here especially during all the COVID times as well so being able to travel here is very special. Yeah it's exciting so really Darwin is home for a lot of reasons isn't it? Yes. It's your country? Yes so I'm a Larakia woman a Dungalaba woman which Dungalaba is salt water crocodile and so I'm from the Ghulambringan tribe and the whole area of Darwin and the greater region of Darwin is my country as well as the Tiwi Islands and out to Wadaire which is west of the Northern Territory and even east in the Northern Territory in Nuka so yeah a lot of family and a lot of cultural connections to a lot of places but Darwin is my main home at the moment it's my grandmother's country. Your grandmother's country but you've got a really important role model in your life with your dad? Yes so that's my dad's mother is my grandmother and yeah my dad is a very important person in my life and has I was just FaceTiming him before this interview and we actually watched the Lydia Thorpe interview together back at our family home in Larakia country so that's all very full circle but yeah my dad is very important to me. That's great and what's that feeling of when you're actually on your own country how do you think that really makes especially young people feel empowered for example? Yeah I have often thought about how to explain the importance of country especially to non-indigenous people because I don't think we actually have words in English dictionary that explain how it feels to be on our country so but it is the feeling of being hugged by a loved one or complete peace or when you had a really good sleep or when you experience pure joy all of those things are what I feel when I'm on my country even on the worst days even when things are really heavy and when life in the colony is really hard me being on my country there's this little flame of I guess like strength that keeps going that keeps me going and I remember my parents telling me that as a baby when I when we moved from Darwin to Newcastle the weeks leading up to before we flew out when I was three years old they noticed that I got really depressed as a three-year-old because I knew that we were leaving my country and that even when we landed I was sad for a period of time it was the first time they'd ever seen me sad as a child and it was because I was taken from my country and I was with my parents and in a loving home and everything just to move to another place but that just shows you the devastation that comes from being off your country exactly and and really when you think a lot of young people now they're told that they should get an education they should move to the big cities so it's really urbanized environment but you've just said that when you're off country this is how I feel so how does that really and what does that mean for a lot of young people that want to get in that fast lane I mean the cool thing is like you can do whatever you want to do like if you want to become a fashion designer or an actor or a dancer and you don't have those opportunities on your own country then absolutely follow your dreams and go and do that but don't feel forced to do that because that's actually just the white man's indoctrination and that's actually the colony speaking being like to be successful you have to have a corporate job and never ever sleep and never ever see your family but you can drive a flash car and live in a flash house and you can like go play golf or like go and play sport on the weekends or whatever like there's this really formulaic lifestyle that's sort of well that is advertised all the time by the colony but really when Aboriginal people come back into ourselves and when we go back to our own country and go back into the simpler things in life like being on country being with family healing ourselves going out camping going out hunting that's where we get our strength and that's where we actually find our version of success so having been someone who did go away to boarding school or did go away to university off country that served amazing purposes and served amazing connections and networks but it's not everything and at the end of the day that ended up damaging my spirit and making me really depressed and unwell so I ended up having to move back to my country and fortunately for me I have a university on my country and I have job opportunities on my country so in some ways that is a privilege that I can do that and still participate in the things that the white man deemed to be successful but I know that for my version of happiness and joy that I just have to be on my country so I think that's the most important thing that young Aboriginal people need to know and so how do you then end up at law school what sort of compels someone to go I'm really comfortable on country but now I'm going to take on one of the toughest degrees and as I know myself really not very comfortable when you're actually going into that space how and why well my mom's a teacher and has grown me up reading and being really curious and into literature and speaking my mind and I guess my natural predisposition is to be quite educated as well and so being surrounded by education and learning and being a high achieving student throughout primary school and high school it was sort of a natural thing to be like well I'm going to get a really good ATAR and I'm going to go to university I'm going to study law and especially because we get these messaging of like be this Aboriginal woman who studies law like you've already done the private school thing you've already excelled in all these things so you may as well get a law degree too because that's sort of what the dream Aboriginal woman in the colony does in some ways like buying a new suit yeah and so that was sort of the thing to do and the school that I was at the private school I was at they're like yeah go into law school and seemed sort of the only option for me and I knew that I was a good advocate and I was really passionate about fighting for my people I've always had that and have always looked up to people like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X I knew this understanding of justice and understanding the white man's law so on the one hand it was pressures of expectations as a high achieving student to be like you should probably study law but on the other hand I knew that I'd learn really really useful skills that would then allow me to demolish white supremacy so hence the t-shirt yes so could you explain that to us well first of all I love Barker and she's a staunch black woman and a rapper and I just got it delivered up to Darwin last week and Barker is holding her fist in the air and just recently my cousin and I and two of our friends were arrested for doing this in Parliament House in Darwin so what happened we were so my cousin Shana Ali and I are the co-founders of Uprising of the People which is an organization that leads protests in Darwin and we led a protest against the Northern Territories Youth Justice Amendment Bill which wanted to see more Aboriginal kids locked up basically so the bill wanted more monitoring ankle monitoring bracelets for young kids breath testing for young kids harsher bail laws which means that it's harder for repeat offenders to get bail which means more kids locked up in Dondale and also when we're talking about kids we're talking about 10 year olds to 17 year olds which is just disgusting so we were protesting against that so we went to sit in on Parliament while they were passing this bill and giving their speeches and we stood up with our fence our fists clenched silently like this and were asked to leave and then we didn't and then we got charged with disorderly behavior and non-compliant with security orders and that's on your own country that's on our own country in a public like also in our own country so so as sovereign people we should be allowed in certain spaces but then as an Australian citizen that's the house of the people that's the House of Democracy and we were silenced in that house but also as Laracare women on Laracare country and now we have a trespass notice as well on our own country so that means you're going to court and having to say why you actually wanted to be on your country quietly protesting for justice issues and what messages that send to young people especially yeah indigenous youth Aboriginal youth it says don't even try because you'll end up locked up anyway it we were fighting against young people being incarcerated only for ourselves to end up in custody it just teaches young people to be fearful of the system that we're already terrified of and to not even bother because even if you're silent and gentle and a young like Martin Luther King I mean he was a gentle man yeah you still be arrested or killed so there's no right way to do justice in the colony because even if you do as they say and be quiet they still will arrest you or incarcerate you or humiliate you so what is the whole meaning for protest you know why is it so important in human rights for example can you explain a bit more about that just on a personal level like if you and I if I said something to you and it was mean or if it upset you you should be able to hold me to account and say hey Maluma like that wasn't cool that made me feel this type of way can you please not do that again or can we work out something that will be better so we both feel safe that's the plain and simple thing of human rights and of protest it's you being able to express that this wasn't okay it didn't make you feel safe can we negotiate and work out something better that will be beneficial for both of us and that's what protesting is but on a bigger scale protests with more people are just showing all the people that have this same idea of humanity and this same idea of genuine peace and justice for people all coming together protesting is so important how we've gotten every single rights already in history to date by people standing up and saying you know what that's not cool you shouldn't be doing this this is not okay here's the reasons why and here's some suggestions even though we shouldn't even have to suggest the other ways but that's what we end up doing protesting needs to happen there needs to be freedom of political communication there can't just be one way of doing things we have to constantly be learning from each other and constantly be holding each other accountable I always want to be held accountable if I do something that offend someone or that I could potentially do better I want to know because we can always be improving on ourselves and always be working to look after one another and protesting the physical movement of marching down the street is so empowering to people when you see little kids little black kids walking with their flag shirts and they're smiling up and they're looking at all the flags and banners and they're screaming out always was always will be and they're feeling proud that physical movement of people coming together and marching down the street like we know we're not supposed to walk on the road so that feels cool because like yeah I'm a rebel but then when you're with people that you love or people that support you and you're marching down the street and you're with hundreds or thousands of other people like oh cool I'm a part of something and we're doing something there's a movement here and that physical movement manifests itself into psychological movements and cultural shifts so so do you think a cultural shift is going to happen from reconciliation and having one day in one year we can't say no in that every tiny little bit helps I personally don't believe in reconciliation because to reconcile is two people coming together or two parties or more than that coming together to meet in the middle or that which I don't believe Aboriginal people have to come up or down to meet anywhere because we're not in the wrong which we're constantly told we are but we're actually not however the idea of healing and truth-telling is absolutely important obviously reconciliation week serves its purpose and its symbol symbolic and allows for conversations to happen and that's always important there's never a movement within the Aboriginal rights movement that isn't going to help every little bit will help but there will some things that I will align to more than others and reconciliation as a concept is something I'm not really aligned with but I love the idea of truth-telling and healing and mainly self-determination and allowing my people to have our own power and our own autonomy to have control over our lives I think that the main thing that I really want to find out on this amazing insight that you've given us is where does your joy come from yeah from the simple things from the sunshine to sitting on my country at the beach feeling the salt water around my toes and my legs because we don't go swimming in the territory because we don't want to be taken and being with my nieces and nephews being with my dad hearing the wind brushing through the trees my joy comes from all those little things which I can have without anything else just my people and my country and the laughter that I share with my sisters is so important that relationship between black women is just something that's unbreakable and is the ever-burning flame that keeps our community alive is the laughter and joy of black women and I'm really honored and grateful to have beautiful sisters in my life my big sisters and my little sisters who are always there for me we're always building each other up and they are my constant source of joy so there's a lot of hope for the next generation we have to have hope there's hope has to come in all the smallest forms or even the biggest forms but there is a lot of hope out there and it just sprinkles itself really gently through everywhere and the cool thing is is that not everyone's always going to be having a bad day someone will always be having a good day so it's really beautiful when you're having a bad day to look and see someone else that's smiling be like okay yep that's a little bit of hope I needed to keep going or the sun shining today good that's a little bit of hope I needed to keep going or maybe it's raining some people love the rain I do in the wet season so maybe that's the symbol of hope so it comes in all different ways and as Aboriginal people we know that our ancestors are with us all the time and sending us messages through different forms of nature so when we actually look around we know that there's hope everywhere but we just have to be open to it and you've been open to it a lot of things and especially when you finished law there's going to be a whole lot of things for you to do I guess yeah yes although I might just my dream is to just get a dual cab Land Cruiser and just go camping for a long time and just live out in the bush that will be my dream for when I finish my law degree and just go spend time on my country and learn my language and things like that and then I can come back and deal with the colony at a later time they'll still be there you know they'll still be there so that's why I need to conserve myself but yeah yeah that's amazing lots to look forward to and you'll also like a lot of us will have to change around tires and yes bring food yes and just really take photos I mean I really hope you do that and you can share those I'm excited maybe lots of filmmaking I think oh that would be amazing yeah and definitely photos how to sign an Instagram account probably I think that's probably the next point yeah but you've got a few years to go yet yeah I'll worry about that later but yeah for now just trying to chip away at the law degree it helps seeing women like you who've already been there and done that and can say just study just do the readings that's it and just do it till the end because it I really sort of had to clench my teeth and do that final year and I didn't finish year 12 which I'm very proud of you you've actually done that but yeah that joy is amazing and we'll take that on you know and in our hearts from you know that expression and I think everybody needs joy and we hope today you know having that chat and really seeing what's important in life is really going to make people also around listening to this a little bit lighter a little bit more hope and just to hold on to that joy and thanks so much for doing this amazing interview and it's just feels just so natural and it's just an honor to have you thank you for having me Teja, Pananguwo