Tag: Chris Raja

Chris Raja There is nothing I like more than shovelling pooh. I remember the first time I did it. I was with my friend Ben and we went to Marcus’s place on Ilparpa Road to get some manure for my raised vegetable garden. Ben took his ute and together we drove out to see Marcus. Marcus’s place is past through the Gap and fifteen minutes out of Alice Springs. We arrive unannounced and knock on the camel man’s door. Marcus is in his forties and he is a little gruff. His face is unshaven and stubbly and he isn’t one…

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Chris Raja On a recent visit to Melbourne my three year old daughter and I visited Ann Mancini whom I have always loved for, among other things, her ability to combine affection with frankness. Over tea and biscuits we talked about family, art and then football. I told her about living in Alice Springs and playing a game of Aussie Rules for The Yuendumu Magpies, Liam Jurrah’s old team. I said I enjoyed watching Australian Rules Football and writing about it as much as I enjoyed going to art exhibitions and writing about art. For me both were the same.…

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Chris Raja We are nestled in a valley deep in spinifex country underneath breakaway rock looking for the nest of an extinct rat. Roger, Ben and I are on a rocky track not far from Ewaninga some forty minutes South of Alice Springs off the old South Road that runs to Maryvale and then all the way to Adelaide. This road once connected the centre of Australia with the rest of the country. Along here the telegraph line was built. Even though I’ve been living in Alice for some time it is not normal for me or many other people…

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Chris Raja In the 1920s, almost forty years before Amnesty International first raised the awareness of human rights, Olive Pink was deeply distressed by what she read and heard about the massacres and brutal treatment of the Warlpiri and Aranda people who live in Central Australia. She sought to carry into reality her own idea of true equality for the tribal Aborigines of central Australia, a fairness firmly underpinned by full human rights and by cultural and economic independence. From the 1920s until her death in 1975 she scrutinised the actions of governments, civil servants, missionaries, academics, pastoralists, the courts…

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