Were Communists Behind Aboriginal Land Rights Movement?

The main contention of my long running series of posts on the “National Question” is that in almost every case, Marxist-Leninist agitators create, drive and control “indigenous peoples” movements.

While many of the grievances “exposed” are perfectly legitimate, the Marxists care little for the people they manipulate. They are simply pawns in a much wider game.

The pattern plays out within the NZ “maori radical” movement, the US black radical movement, the indigenous Indian movements of Latin America, the Saamic “movement” of Norway, the Cordillera people of the Philippines, the ANC/SACP led “black struggle” of South Africa and the Aboriginal land rights movement.

This article from the latest issue of Australian Marxist paper, Green Left Weekly, I believe, supports my contention.


Mick “Hoppy” Rangiari, one of the last surviving members of the historic 1966 strike by Aboriginal pastoral workers at Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory, died on November 12.

What started out as a strike for equal wages became a land rights’ struggle as the striking workers and their families launched an ultimately successful campaign to regain ownership of their traditional lands. At the time, the strike was described by an ASIO agent as a “dismal failure”. It is now credited with giving birth to the modern land rights movement.

Rangiari was beside the most well-known leader of the strike, Vincent Lingiari, when one evening in March 1967, the Gurindji decided to leave the strike camp and move back to their ancestral lands at Wattie Creek (now Dagaragu). Author Frank Hardy was present at the time, and he heard a “finely chiseled” and “impressively proud” Rangiari declare with the “eloquence” of a “practiced orator” that Wattie Creek was Gurindji’s “own country”.

It was not the last time Rangiari would be called in to give a speech. Brian Manning, one of the main non-Aboriginal supporters of the strike, told Green Left Weekly that Lingiari “recognised Mick’s talents of speaking out. Mick became the MC, the man on the microphone”.

Manning was a Communist Party member and waterside worker at the time of the walk-off and one of only two non-Aboriginal people on the Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights. This body and the Communist Party and the North Australian Workers Union were the main groups providing support for the strike. Manning also organised the regular trucking of supplies to the strike camp in his Bedford truck (which is still sitting in his backyard because of its “unofficial” heritage value).

The novelist Frank hardy was also part of the plot.

According to Wikipedia

Frank Hardy (21 March 1917–28 January 1994) was a left-wing novelist and writer from Australia. He was also a political activist bringing the plight of Aboriginal Australians to international attention with the publication of his book The Unlucky Australians in 1968.

Hardy joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1939. In 1942 he enlisted in the Army and was posted to Darwin. Initially editing and writing a unit newspaper for the Australian army, he was employed as an artist for the army journal Salt. He continued to work in journalism for most of his life. He played an active role in assisting the Gurindji people in the Gurindji strike in the mid to late ’60s.

I rest my case.

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11 thoughts on “Were Communists Behind Aboriginal Land Rights Movement?

  1. I think one of the key political differences between us Cameron is that as an anarchist, you want to bypass or overthrow the state.

    As a libertarian, I want to slash to state to the absolute minimum and bind it to the max under constitutional restraints. But I do want to maintain the state.

    Am I fair in my analysis cameron?

  2. I just see it is a fact of life that politicians will always meet with heads of regimes, whether they be nice or nasty. Bush meets with plenty of nasty people, such as Central Asian dictators who all used to be the bosses of their respective Stans during the late Soviet era. Clark meets with plenty of nasty people and I’m sure even a Hide ACT government would still meet with plenty of nasty regimes.

    That is why ordinary people need to form connections with one another across borders. That way we can have friendships and solidarity actions with each other without relying on stupid governments. Have you noticed how pretty much every government is quick to denounce terrorist groups but avoid denouncing state terrorism at all costs? That’s why us ordinary people got to take on the role of foreign affairs and not let it to our terrorist states.

  3. There you go Cameron.

    Why is your hero Chavez so matey with Mugabe?

    Why do you rightly dislike Mugabe, but love his soulmate Chavez?

  4. I don’t like Mugabe. He is a murderous nationalist who, once elected, quickly sent troops to murder 20,000 or so people in villages that supported Joe Nkomo (a rival political leader). Mugabe happily sold his country out to the World Bank and IMF in the 80s. I supported the movement last year to oppose the NZ cricket tour to Zimbabwe as Mugabe is patron of Zimbabwean cricket.

  5. I also wonder why it should also be good for someone like Charles Barron, a New York City Council member to also support the regime of Mugabe and Chavez along with promoting racial tensions between whites and African-Americans. Hey, how about looking up the links with the cumminess between the White Power movement led by the late neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell who was quite fond of the black radical leader Malcolm X?

  6. So cameron, so what’s your say on Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe? He was elected and then turned into a murderous tyrant who tortures and murders innocent whites and blacks?

    Yea sure Commies are good for these people. Not.

  7. Yeah blacks and brown people only are smart enough to stand up for their rights when they have white communists to think for them.

  8. I have also done profiling on the Black Power movement in the United States. Most of those fellows were recruited and trained by Cuba and many African states to which their “independence” movements were supported by Communist intelligence agencies. Many of them also played both sides using the “Sino-Soviet Split” to acquire better weapons from the U.S. vs. weapons from Communist China.

  9. They’re just like Ward Churchill, you know that faux Native American who stated that 9/11 victims were “little Eichmann”? I think having Communists taking control of old native populations of the former colonial world is a common tactic. Many of them even visit pro-Communist leaders such as Evo Morales or even have been seen with the leadership of the dictatorship of Libya.

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