In reflecting on the original Warumungu land claim from a 20 year perspective i find there are still things worth putting into words, especially as questions about the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in the Northern Territory are still current.

There is a fascinating note to end on, regarding a breaking story in respect to the Devils Marbles.

A full analysis would take us into an examination of the voices of First Peoples vis-a-vis the certainties of modern nation states generated by monocultural Reason as embodied by Northern Territory legislation and the reports of Aboriginal Land Commissioners.

The official "Warumungu land claim" report by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner (1988) says:

"The application with respect to the Devil's Marbles Conservation Reserve was formally withdrawn in July 1984, after the High Court ruling in the Queen v. Kearney: Ex parte Japanangka (1984) 158 CLR 395 ... to the effect that its prior alienation to the Conservation Land Corporation put it beyond the reach of the Act."

Certainty abounds, but then, with the collapse of the pretences of the doctrine of terra nullius, and the recognition of native title:

"Loophole opens parks to land claims By Paul Toohey Weekend Australian October 26, 2002

THE Northern Territory Government is in crisis after making the stunning discovery that every one of its 50 parks and reserves has been invalidly declared and has no legal status.

Territory bylaws and management plans over an estimated 4 million hectares of land are now considered worthless. This means all territory parks including Litchfield, Gregory and Kings Canyon - but not the federally managed Kakadu and Uluru - are now available for claim under the Land Rights Act or the Native Title Act. The situation arises out the High Court's decision in the Ward case in August when it held that the 1981 declaration of the Keep River National Park, on the West Australian border, was invalid. The Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act only allowed for the declaration of parks and reserves if there were no "interests" - which the court held included native title interests - in the land. All parks created between the time of self-government in 1978 and the bill's amendment in 1998 are invalid. ....

It means that 11 dormant land claims in the central Australia area, including the iconic Devils Marbles, have been instantly activated. Traditional owners have long sought ownership of the Devils Marbles in two unsuccessful High Court cases in 1984 and 2000. They will now succeed in their claim. Government advisers said yesterday that if Aborigines wanted to test native title in any of the parks, they would almost certainly win. "

It is not a surprise to anyone that there are strong indigenous ties to this highly significant area. In addition to the Dreaming dimensions at the Devils Marbles, First Peoples from several hundred kilometres away had camping places there, the old men told me.

Their claim was ruled out of order since the Country-Liberal Party Northern Territory government had purportedly alienated the land.

This sort of negative response from government added to the heavy burden which greatly shortens the old mens' lives. Most of them have now passed on - to our great loss.

Much of the actions of the CLP government at that time were extremely hostile to the recognition of the rights of its own citizens - when those citizens were Aboriginal people. This was (and is) racism at its worst.

When i got the Warumungu land claim experience out of my system during the remainder of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, i wrote a two part work which i entitled "Wrong Way Land Claim."

"Wrong way land claim" was an apt expression because that was how some people characterised the original 1982 Warumungu land claim. Both the senior male claimants and the original research team paid a very real personal price for this.

The expression also seemed apt for the subsequent 1985 Warumungu land claim - which, in my opinion, was a 'fabrication'.

But the main reason i chose that expression for my work was that it provides, in four simple words, a complete description of the clumsy British attempt to impose their imperial will on the lands and lives of this country's First Peoples. We will see much more unravelling of what passed as modern certainties in the decades to come.

Their Anglo-Australian heirs have inherited the back-to-front land of Oz. And, as fractals of a larger European false consciousness, "Aboriginal land claims" under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act are non-Aboriginal land claims in reverse.

Another example of the relevance of reflecting on the Warumungu land claim comes from ABC News Online Thursday, October 17, 2002

"End the pressure over Land Rights Act, MP tells Ruddock The Member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon, has told the federal Indigenous Affairs Minister to stop pressuring the Northern Territory's indigenous people over reforms to the territory's Land Rights Act. Mr Snowdon claims the Minister, Philip Ruddock, is putting undue pressure on indigenous people over his claim the Act in its current form is creating barriers for development."

Warren, it should be noted, played a small part as a Central Land Council researcher in the production of the 'substitute' for the original 1982 Warumungu land claim book. His subsequent career, like those of other key CLC players, has taken him to occupy key positions within the Anglo-Australian social formation.

My position, contra that of Ruddock and Snowdon, is that the Aboriginal Land Rights Act is as obsolete as the modern nation-state which passed it.

We need to be able to acknowledge that there is no neat match between "Aboriginal land claims" and those of First Peoples seeking to obtain the conditions of life which they require to regain full well-being and live full lives. This requires us to end modern pretences and to work towards negotiating new types of realities.

Lyotard's post-modern notion of 'differend' is one such tool which helps us conceptual craftspeople (with state school educations) to met this challenge.

In addition to the need to end treating the lives of First Peoples as sacrifices to alien 'secular' gods - those of a Flat Cosmos - there are newly emerging and compelling reasons why non-indigenous Australian peoples need to move towards forming a covenant with First Peoples as cultural partners, and finding new ways of relating to each other and our surroundings.

Events shaping up to the north in the 21st century are already raising new questions about the basis of Anglo-Australian sovereignty on this side of the planet