Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

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Kathleen McCann In 1996 I was in Jabiru in the Northern Territory. A community campaign to stop further uranium mining in Mirrar country was on the rise. Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) already operated the Ranger mine surrounded by Kakadu National Park and were pushing the Mirrar people to agree to another mine on their traditional lands at Jabiluka. Others in the room from FoE, ACF , ECNT and Gundjehmi were weighing up the pros and cons of a non-violent blockade as many of the procedural avenues of resistance were nearly exhausted. There was a need to galvanise the various pockets of support to form a collective force, in solidarity with and led by, the Mirrar Traditional Owners. Throughout my involvement with FoE I have made banners, cartoons, stickers, posters and flyers to communicate our environment and social justice activities and aspirations. I had especially gravitated towards the anti-uranium cause, believing it necessary to begin at home to help stop the deadly spin-offs of the nuclear industry. It made sense to convince Australians that we should not be involved in any part of this process. This is where we dig up the uranium that ultimately generates nuclear waste, but by exercising our democratic rights it is also where we can hope to make a difference. Sitting in Jabiru considering the images used before in anti-nuclear campaigns I thought of the Smiling Sun that originated in Europe and was adopted worldwide as a positive promoter of solar technology and a rejection of nuclear energy. Created in the seventies it maintained its cute “retro” appeal but its real strength was its collective use by the communities who fought the anti-nuclear fight. They had brought it to life. No one group was seen ................................................................................................................................................................................................... to claim it once in circulation. The text encircling the graphic changed to suit the aspect of the campaign it promoted and appeared in many languages. The graphic for the Jabiluka campaign needed to be simple and unmistakably reject the nuclear threat. It needed to be easily reproduced – by printers, campaigners, banner painters and kids. It needed to relate to the Traditional Owners story and to the anti-nuclear tradition. The colours of the Aboriginal flag, created by Harold Thomas in 1971, seemed powerful and logical, resonating a call for solidarity with the first nations of Australia. This choice was bolstered by the happy coincidence that the Smiling Sun shared the yellow, red and black and connected it to our own history in the environment movement. Respecting Harold Thomas’s pivotal contribution to the symbolic heritage of Australia, Gundjehmi contacted him asking permission to build on this foundation. That the representation of a human hand has universal symbolic power is evident in the earliest mark-making. Aboriginal hand stencils on the rocks of Kakadu are a testament to this, their unbroken significance a fact of life for the Mirrar and other Aboriginal people. Contemporary images of hands maintain their wealth of meanings and ability to communicate directly and the outstretched hand showing a palm denotes STOP in many cultures. The idea of the inherent danger of the nuclear industry was easily gleaned from their own hieroglyphic for hazard, a divided yellow circle radiating out from a central core. I put together the first version of the black handprint impressed upon the radiation symbol in a Jabiru room adjoining the blockade discussion and the image was immediately welcomed by those next door. It worked specifically for the Mirrar’s struggle but its message was universal too - of community resistance and rejection of any nuclear threat: uranium mining, nuclear reactors, weapons and waste. Originally the FoE Anti-Uranium collective made simple paper stickers and later more substantial campaign materials using the hand image and it took off from there. Requests came from far and wide to use the image in Jabiluka campaign paraphernalia, web-sites, publications and fundraising initiatives as the blockade FoE 30 Years 68
gathered steam. One of my proudest moments remains seeing the hand symbol unfurled on a giant banner dwarfed by Kakadu’s overwhelming escarpment. The image was progressively applied more broadly from domestic campaigning against reactors, dumps and other uranium mines to appearing on the sails of a Pacific peace flotilla and at actions in places as far flung as Argentina, the UK and the Netherlands. The requests I made, as artist and copyright holder, were that: • the hand image be used freely by community and campaigners in their anti-nuclear work but not for commercial benefit. • the text encircling the design only contain campaign messages, not the names of specific groups in a branding exercise. The idea needs to be owned by the community, not for a single group to appropriate for their logo. ................................................................................................................................................................................................... The power of the symbol has grown from its acceptance by people wanting to signal their support for Mirrar and for other antinuclear causes. It has become a vehicle for an unequivocal anti-nuclear message. Marcel Duchamp said “the creative act is not performed by the artist alone” and as the artist who developed the image, I know that mine was a small contribution to a huge collective creative effort. The recent reclaiming of Mirrar control of their land at Jabiluka is a stunning result of a hard fought campaign. I designed an image but the anti-nuclear movement has taken the hand symbol and generated an icon – an enduring symbol of resistance and a simultaneous celebration of community. FoE 30 Years 69
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Up to a few decades ago, many peopl
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It seemed like a simple idea: to pr
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The optimism, courage and creativit
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Over thirty years, FoE has develope
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decades. In Australia, FoE is commi
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This group acted as an inspiration
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In the 1970s, a handful of key issu
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Apart from working on the direct im
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In the mid ‘70s I was studying en
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In 1976, there was a strong campaig
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Page 25 and 26: Keith Suter The future is never as
Page 28 and 29: I first became aware of FoE via Pet
Page 30 and 31: I remember the attempts of the nucl
Page 33 and 34: I grew up with the threat of global
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Page 37 and 38: In late 1980 a couple of people who
Page 39 and 40: In the 1980s, there was a shift to
Page 41 and 42: The Australian Mining Journal noted
Page 43 and 44: sense that these issues formed a pa
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Page 47 and 48: Ila Marks Dave Sweeney talking at t
Page 49 and 50: from a community radio background,
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Page 53 and 54: In the early 1990s, the nuclear ind
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Page 58 and 59: What makes these comments sadder in
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Page 62 and 63: Action outside the state government
Page 64 and 65: a month. Perhaps the seminal moment
Page 68 and 69: The first meeting of the Dharnya Al
Page 72 and 73: From 1985 until 1992, undercover of
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Page 78 and 79: Dave Sweeney From its earliest days
Page 80 and 81: March at the Jabiluka mine site, NT
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Page 92 and 93: When it was announced that Melbourn
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Page 98 and 99: Steph Long, Kim Stewart Friends of
Page 100 and 101: Australia has been largely obliviou
Page 102: Fossil fuels have not bought wealth
Page 105 and 106: Roman Orzanski Possibly the first F
Page 107 and 108: Everyone helped make the procession
Page 109 and 110: In 1996, Consolidated Rutile Ltd ga
Page 111 and 112: Melia Bugeja, FoE Melbourne Food Co
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Page 115 and 116: East Gippsland (CROEG) to launch th
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Page 119 and 120: 1994. VicRoads was planning to wide
Page 121 and 122: Lee Tan “Let’s chuck in some co
Page 123 and 124: Friends of the Earth in Sydney (FoE
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Herald Sun Columnist, Andrew Bolt P
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change. Mark Carter, co-founder of
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Australia given Indigenous manageme
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Their final edition, in the year th
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FoEA is a federation rather than an
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input to national decision making f
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are independent. A secretariat base
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lead to some form of wisdom: a know
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FoE 30 Years 141
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Anon (1987); Know your FoE; the Coe
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Page 5 • ‘U Mines’ - Through
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1990s Page 46 • Image from Chain
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• The march that followed the ‘
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Page 116 • FoE ran a food stall a
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Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

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