FROM OUR INDIGENOUS CULTURE DESK

JUST WHEN THEY thought things were looking up, after over two hundred years of European colonial oppression and genocide, the cause of Aborigines in Tasmania has seen its flag, the very symbol of its re-emergence, pulled down from the Tasmanian Parliament in favor of that belonging to Denmark. And all because Mary Donaldson from Hobart has become Queen Mary of Denmark.

“Local white girl becomes queen in a country half way round the world, and we get wiped out again,” says Stan Iymahumantoo, an Aboriginal rights campaigner from Hobart. “They rip our flag down and put up the flag of Denmark. Another has-been European colonial power. As if wiping the Aborigine population of this island out was not bad enough, we now have to take second place to bloody Denmark. You could just about fit Denmark in Wine Glass Bay, I’d say. Is this going to happen every time a white chick from Hobart marries a prince, or a rock star, or a billionaire? Is our flag going to be replaced by merchandise or portraits or commercial logos? Is our flag just a convenience? Equality my arse, Albo.”