Red Ant recognises that the struggle against ongoing colonial oppression of indigenous peoples is inseparable from the fight against capitalism and imperialism. We are therefore proud to host:

Talking Country – Liberation, Freedom and Restitution.
Thursday September 4th, 6PM – 8PM
Ballam Ballam Place, Room 401
15 Phoenix St, (Formerly 33 Saxon St), Brunswick

Register here for your ticket
https://events.humanitix.com/talkin-country-liberation-freedom-and-restitution

It will bring together a powerful and inspirational group of anti-colonial resistance fighters including:

King of Guresheba Sinewami

Kanak Great Chief Sinewami Htamumu Hippolyte Wakewi is a leading figure in the struggle for Kanak independence against French colonial rule. This long struggle escalated dramatically in 2024, when mass protests broke out against French attempts to solidify its occupation via changes to the electoral system to give more French settlers the vote.  French authorities viciously repressed the protests, killing and imprisoning many.

Great Chief Guresheba Sinewami presided over the 16-member traditional Senate of chiefs, but resigned in 2024 when he accused it of becoming too close to the colonial New Caledonia Government. He is now President of the ‘Inaat ne Kanaky’ – the National Council of Kanak High Chiefs which was set up in 2022. The Inatt ne Kanay unilaterally declared independence from France in September 2024. You can read Great Chief Sinewami’s statement on Kanaky independence and sovereignty.

Roscoe Lee Browne: 

Roscoe Lee Browne is a Jamaican-Australian journalist and activist who went undercover as a musician to document Kanaky protests in mid-2024. He is also founder of Radio RATA and Resisdance. Radio RATA is a decolonial media, culture and mutual aid network, operating across the Pacific. Roscoe has been pivotal in establishing networks and connections with the Indigenous people of Kanaky.

Robbie Thorpe

Gunai Mara elder Uncle Djuran Bunjileenee Robbie Thorpe has been at the frontline of the fight for indigenous rights and sovereignty since the 1970’s. For over thirty years Uncle Robbie has used the colonisers’ courts to prosecute cases of genocide against the First Nations peoples in so-called Australia, including against King Charles. Robbie initiated Camp Sovereignty in Melbourne first in 2006, and again in 2024. He is the longtime presenter on 3CR Bunjil’s Fire programme and is a stalwart figure of solidarity with communities and nations targeted for repression by imperialism, including Palestine and Kanaky struggles.

Ellie Gilbert

Eleanor Gilbert is a filmmaker with an extensive research and ecological activist background.

Her focus is to tell the stories, locate and document the pathways, which are leading out of the maze of oppression and the belly of the Australian genocide to the reinstated sovereignty for First Nations and Peoples. Her recent works include:

Star Stories of The Dreaming and Moving Truth: Australian Frontier Conflicts.

Ellie was the long time companion of Wiradjuri poet and Land Rights campaigner Kevin Gilbert and the mother of their two youngest children. Eleanor illustrated several of Kevin’s books, as well as co-producing the groundbreaking Timeless Gardens in 1977.

Ellie worked with the owners (the family from which Kevin and their family belong to) of Lake Cowal to defend the lake from a cyanide leaching gold mine.

Paul Towney

Paul Towney is a Wiradjuri man. Paul was arrested in February this year for “trespassing’ on land currently claimed by Charles Sturt University in Orange, NSW. Paul will be arguing in court that native title was never extinguished as the land was allocated illegally by the colonial authorities and therefore still belongs to the Wiradjuri nation.