I recently made this new updated version of the “Self-determination roadmap for Colonised, Indigenous Peoples”. This is the first version of it that I feel really comfortable with. There were a few things that didn’t sit well with me for the older versions, but I posted the older versions anyway because even if it’s not perfect – it can still add something to the debate.

The map it is not totally self-explanatory, in this post I am going to take it apart step by step.

Inspiration for this map

I was inspired to make this map from listening to some videos made in 2017 June at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. Elders including Jenny Munro and the late Les Coe spoke about the Referendum Council process and how it was predetermined from the start.

“The stuff with the Referendum Council was done months if not years in advance to the point it was all printed up before we even get up there. Politicians, conservative media discussing it beforehand. No good gesture from Mr Pearson. it is one of the most inglorious moments and the lowest point our people have reached so far in the struggle.”

Jenny Munro

So let’s go where our strength is, let these young people lead this discussion. We need young lawyers, we need old minds, old lawyers to sit together and pull this document apart and expose it for what it is, expose the referendum council and the Australian government for what they are. They still through the process of assimilation. Pearson and Mundine are the successfully assimilated blacks. They wanna be white. I never had that wish in my life, I wanna go to the grave as black as the day as I was born.

Jenny Munro

The so-called sovereign state gave the term of reference to the Referendum Council, and they stuck by that agenda. What happened at Yulara was predetermined. There was only one map with only one road on that map. I’d like to see a map with a lot of roads that cover the whole country, not just north Queensland and into parts of the northern Territory – where the road actually after that just sort of dissapears, and then it appears again from the Canberra airport to Parliament house here. I wanna fill in the rest of the road of that map, for all of our people to be a part of this – not just a very select through of well paid …traitors.

Les Coe

There are a lot of blanks in the referendum council roadmap – and I made it my mission to try and ‘fill in’ the rest of the road. The end result is this map, which I will break down step by step in this post.

The Noel Pearson Roadmap

Below is the predetermined Yulara roadmap. There is only one path on it. It leads to the promise of the pearly gates of the “self-determination” of “Indigenous Australians” under the banner of UNDRIP – the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. When that point is reached where Australia implements UNDRIP, everything will be ok – trust us – we are experts – they say. Meanwhile, many questions go unanswered.

It is like a colouring-in book where the settler-state draws the outline, hands it to us with some coloured pencils and patronisingly pats us on the back as we fill the spaces with colour – as if we made the path ourselves.

“Self-determination” Roadmap for colonised, indigenous peoples

The title of the map

“Self-determination” is not a straightforward concept, it is nuanced. Colloquially – in everyday talk – it means for people to have control over their own destiny – to be able to make decisions for themselves. But when lawyers and politicians talk about it – that isn’t necessarily what it means. This map represents how it’s effectively implemented in international law.

The international law concept of self-determination has been around for a long time, but it was formalised after World War 2. At the time, superpowers had enough nuclear weapons pointed at each other to kill everything on earth several times over. The world faced an existential threat. The concept of non-interference into other nations’ affairs took on a new importance.

Aboriginal peoples also live by a principle of non-interference. On the face of it, it looks similar to that of nation states. But there is a big difference – the Aboriginal notion of non-interference is born out of empathy and respect. This is evident because non-interference extends to all and everything – neighboring clans, the opposite gender’s business, the land, animals, plants and the environment.

In contrast, the principle of non-interference in international law is born out of war. It is born out of an expectation that if you agree to not interfere with others – they won’t interfere with you. The root of this is not empathy, but fear and an expectation of reciprocity. There is only tokenistic gesturing of goodwill to those who can’t retaliate. This is why things like genocide still happen, and military industrial complexes continue to grow.

The international principle of non-interference lies at the core of the right to self-determination for nation States. Every right has a corresponding obligation – they are two sides of a single coin. There can be no rights, if there is no one who is responsible for upholding that right. On the other side of the coin from right of self-determination, is the obligation to respect other nations’ boundaries to do their own thing. This is a fundamental principle on which both the UN charter and international law rests on today.

However, there was another special category of peoples who had the right to self-determination – what the UN called ‘peoples of non-self-governing territories’. The category of ‘peoples of non self governing territories’ includes peoples under alien colonial subjugation. Or – as I have called it in this on the map – colonised peoples. Colonised peoples have very specific, narrow, but powerful rights to self determination – a different form from the right to self-determination of UN member states. The obligation side of the rights/obligation coin of the colonised peoples right to self-determination lies with all UN members (erga omnes), is underpinned by the UN Charter, is part of customary international law, and there is some argument that it is a peremptory norm.

The right to self-determination for colonised peoples is not the same as the right to self-determination for indigenous peoples. It’s easy to get ‘colonised’ and ‘indigenous’ mixed up, especially when settler-colonial assimilationists deliberately conflate the concepts. But they are two completely different categories of peoples. The roadmap I made deliberately separates these two concepts (blue colonised section/orange indigenous section) to show how they relate in the context of self-determination.

I deliberately do not capitalise the word “indigenous”, because I don’t believe it should be. It is not a proper noun until it is clearly defined.

‘Indigenous’ is more of an anthropological concept than a political concept. For a given territory with multiple waves of human migration, the indigenous peoples are those with the oldest continuous culture on that land. It has nothing to do with the state of being under colonialism.

The idea of indigenous peoples having the right to self determination started emerging from the international human rights field in the late 70’s early 80’s. Today, self-determination for indigenous peoples manifests as a bundle of “rights” in UNDRIP. These “rights” are structurally very different to the right of self-determination for colonised peoples or for nation States.

So all up – for the purposes of this map – the right to self-determination is for 3 categories of peoples. 1. nation States (white middle section) 2. Peoples under colonialism (blue left) and 3. Indigenous peoples (orange right).

The decolonisation era and resolution 1514

when people think of decolonisation… they think of Africa

I live in Germany. People here talk about the present time as being in a post-colonial era. As far as Germans are concerned – it’s true – Germany lost all of it’s colonies when the Nazis lost World War 2.

There is a wide perception that decolonisation was done and dusted between the 50’s and 70’s. This classic decolonisation era was helped along by resolution 1514. But by the time this resolution passed at the end of 1960, African colonies were already falling like dominoes. The UN likes to take credit for decolonising Africa – but in reality it was the people struggling on the ground who made it happen. Nevertheless, resolution 1514 helped shape the way things played out.

This pathway that classic colonies went down (independence) is shown here;

In some ways, Africa swapped one form of domination with another. They are still dealing with the legacy left behind, power struggles between each other because they lost their sense of order, and dealing with new forms of domination (eg. IMF debts). I mention this here because if we somehow find a way to go down this path – we should make sure we are adequately compensated by the Crown so that we don’t end up in perpetual debt slavery.

Settler-colonial states – how did they decolonise?

We have to ask – what happened to those peoples living under settler-colonialism? It seems they were forgotten.

I don’t think that decolonising settler-colonial states was outright forgotten – I think the process was domesticated.

After resolution 1514, the UN created the special committee, the C24 committee to do the yard work to decolonise those territories in the C24 mandate. They developed a set of criteria to determine if a territory has decolonised. The criteria are these 3 pathways on the map below;

Once the independence line is crossed, out of the blue area of the map – the territory is technically decolonised.

But the problem is – with the way that the committee was set up. Settler-colonies and other peoples fell out of the C24 committee’s mandate. This was the result of political interference, and was inconsistent with the purposes and principles of 1514 and of the UN Charter. This exclusion made peoples under settler-colonial subjugation invisible.

However – the process through these 3 pathways is still being facilitated domestically by settler-colonial states. Settler colonial states are working on decolonising under these rules, but doing so in-house.

I have marked with yellow stars where settler-colonies are on this map. Canada and NZ have historical treaties – but more importantly – the Crown diplomatically recognises native nations in those territories. Historically they are heading down the same path as the USA – association/treaty plus independence. USA has declared independence so it is out of the blue zone – however I have included it because it has not decolonised according to the principles and purposes of the UN Charter.

Australia was, up until about 2014, heading towards the integration pathway. This was possible because there are no treaties – but more importantly – because up until that time, the Crown never diplomatically recognised native nations in Australia. Because there is no diplomatic recognition – native peoples can be treated as flora and fauna* until they are diplomatically recognised as being part of Australia proper.

*Yes I know there was no flora and fauna act or legislation – but if we are not recognised diplomatically as peoples in our own right, and we are not part of the Australian polity or British subjects, then we must be flora and fauna for the Crown to be able to pass laws on us. Why is there still an Aboriginal man on the $2 coin when the rest of the coins have animals? Why are there Aboriginal faces in the Australian War Memorial among wildlife?

Indigenous Rights

Put yourself in settler colony’s shoes, you don’t want your colonised minority upsetting your apple-cart by pursuing the road of independence under their own terms.

General Assembly Resolution 2625 clarified that decolonisation must happen by the free choice of the colonised peoples – not by the settler state. I can explain why this is – but it’s complicated so I leave this claim as-is for now. Within the blue box on the diagram – the pathway chosen is fully the prerogative of the colonised peoples.

So as a settler-state you want to steer the colonised peoples to the decolonisation pathway that suits yourself. They invented an entire new scope of “self-determination” for indigenous peoples to distract from the full range of choices of “self-determination” for colonised peoples.

Modern Treaty

In 2013 some native nations in Australia began declaring independence, this forced the Crown to diplomatically recognise those nations. This in turn changed the direction of decolonisation in Australia. 100% integration (as in attempts of 1967, 1999, Recognise) was no longer possible. A treaty under the association pathway is now needed.

* Edited 6/08/2021: see comment section

The UDI’s from the Sovereign Union killed “Recognise” and put treaty on the table. Protests and Aboriginal community dissent did not. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence to back this claim up (save it for a future blog post).

Modern Treaty is structurally similar to Instruments of Accession in India. They only work in a colonial federation situation where the settler-state has not yet declared independence. So – in Canada and Australia. It won’t work in New Zealand or in the United States.

The larger red spot in the blue zone is the enshrinement of the Voice in the constitution. Then comes the Declaration of Independence/Recognition. The red dots are agreement-making – although it doesn’t matter when agreement-making happens as long as it happened after 2017 when the Uluru Statement offer was made. Agreement-making is essentially – treaties of integration.

In the long-run there is no difference between this and vanilla assimilation policies of the past – because the negotiated terms of the agreement-making are only enforceable under domestic law. The agreements will be either broken, or the scope of negotiations will be so narrow that they will never achieve anything meaningful. Jammu and Kashmir’s accession instruments were broken even though they were enshrined in the Indian constitution. This is the same path. India is the precedent for Modern Treaty – not Canada/British Columbia and it’s Modern Treaty process still in infancy.

The dark side of UNDRIP

If we continue down the path of modern treaty or of integration, we approach the pearly gates of UNDRIP.

There are some problems here. UNDIP sounds nice – the content resonates. But it’s not the content that’s the problem, it’s what it is structurally.

UNDRIP is a non-binding, aspirational agreement between nation states who are already members of the UN club. It’s more of a new-years-resolution than a promise. It’s not a binding commitment.

It is a aspirational agreement that each signing nation should treat their own indigenous minorities to a standard. As we have not decolonised or have a treaty, we are not part of the nation state; this doesn’t apply to us yet. We are not “their Indigenous peoples”. This is why I placed this at the end of the roadmap and not at the start. Decolonisation must logically happen first.

Consider the two-sided coin of rights and obligations. UNDRIP is non-binding. So who has the obligation to protect indigenous rights? No one. If it does not create obligations, it doesn’t create any rights. It is not like the right to self-determination for colonised peoples (blue part of the map) – which is an erga omnes (to all) obligation. In other words – there is nowhere to go if “indigenous rights” are broken.

I acknowledge that some international conventions start out as non-binding aspirations, and gradually catch on to become part of customary international law. And perhaps UNDRIP will one day become a norm. But there is no guarantee this will happen. It’s a huge gamble for us to put all of our hope in this basket when there are no guarantees.

But the biggest problem of it – is the stop sign that stands in front of it. Once we arrive at the pearly gates of UNDRIP, we will have already integrated into the State as minority peoples and consented to parliamentary sovereignty. UNDRIP is made for indigenous peoples – not for freshly decolonised peoples. UNDRIP will be for “Indigenous Australians”, not for “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”.

So who defines “Indigenous Australians”?

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples” is defined with its 3 part criteria – one of these criteria is community acceptance. This puts the community fully in control.

‘Indigenous peoples’ has no hard definition, but a cultural continuity criteria is attached. As the colonial state is the signatory to UNDRIP, they will eventually implement it in their own way, and will need to ultimately define and judge which of their minorities are and which are not indigenous. How will they determine this cultural yardstick? It’s trivially easy for them to simply set the bar high enough that only a very small minority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples make the grade.

We will be wiped out by dictionary.

We have no control over who will be entitled to so-called indigenous “rights” and who will not be, it will be the prerogative of the state. We will divided into the ‘has cultural continuity’ and ‘has no culture, but has some heritage’. Divide and conquer – the real “on the ground” blacks vs. the city and suburban fakers.

This is already happening. Josephine Cashman is stirring up demand to carve this line. She tries to leverage Australian nationalism – which is comical to watch because Australian identity is so shallow and superficial. So she appropriates US nationalism by channeling Trump and MAGA, which defeats the purpose of nationalism itself. It’s bizarre, but if you can see the end goal it makes sense. Don’t forget – Cashman was one of the Kirribilli leaders who initiated the referendum council, and was on the Indigenous advisory group. She was sacked from the advisory group in dramatic fashion in what I suspect was a manufactured PR stunt. The end goal is to remove community control to determine who belongs and who does not. Most of us will be tossed under the bus either because we have been historically displaced from our ancestral lands or we can’t meet the state’s high burden of proof. Most of us will not be allowed through the gates.

Be careful what you wish for. UNDRIP is designed by settler states for their own agendas.

What’s the answer then?

Here is the full map.

Overall – what is happening is that we are being led to decolonise in a technical sense – but in a way that benefits the colonial status quo. As the peoples of the land – we hold the full prerogative to choose the pathway for decolonisation (blue). The settler-state is assembling a maze of smoke and mirrors, steering us through the decolonisation process, while dangling a carrot of ‘indigenous rights’ which will likely not eventuate.

We will travel to the end of one of these paths whether we do so knowingly or blindly. We should take the lead here so we know exactly where we are going. All of the basic options in international law are on this map, and the ball is in our court. We should learn about each of them, consolidate them with our own law/lore (I believe this is possible), decide on the best way forward, and go for it.

I realise that many may be skeptical of using international law and the UN charter to attempt to free ourselves. The UN has failed us, mostly because they have allowed some dominant members put selfish interest ahead of the UN Charter principles. We are in a position to call this out, and calling it out won’t just help ourselves – but will help others in their struggle against State domination.

The fact is that we are a part of a wider world, and that world has come in. We have to deal with this international framework. We do not have to deal with the Australian colonial framework, as the international framework allows us to bypass the colony completely. Australia derives it’s legitimacy from this body of international law – but that legitimacy is premised on a false assumption that we are also Australian. To challenge this false assumption will be take back our power, and our power of choice. We are not Australian. That’s a powerful statement.