On Monday, in Canberra, Australia, King Charles addressed the Australian Parliament. Senator Lidia Thorpe protested him immediately following his speech – he barely sat down before she began yelling, “You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us: our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people….This is not your land. This is not your land. You are not my King, you are not our King. F— the colony.” Thorpe’s protest quickly became international news, and there were so many videos with different angles of Thorpe’s attempt to storm up to Charles, only for her to be pushed out of the chamber by security. I remain really moved by Thorpe’s bravery and how she handled herself in her challenge to the king. Apparently, there is at least one First Nations grandmother who believes Thorpe should have been a lot nicer to Charles.
A Ngunnawal elder has rebuked Lidia Thorpe over her confrontation with King Charles, saying the Victorian senator doesn’t speak for her people and that her comments of “fuck the colony” were “disrespectful”.
Aunty Violet Sheridan, 69, met the royals as part of an official greeting party on Monday and was sitting near the king in Parliament House when Thorpe “jumped out”, marched forward and started shouting at the royals. Thorpe yelled at the king to “give us our land back”, and shouted “f–k the colony” and “you are not my king”.
Sheridan said when she greeted Charles and Camilla “it was all from the heart and I said, ‘I warmly welcome the majesties to Ngunnawal land and also to Canberra’ and it had just ended, and then she’s (Thorpe) jumped out. Lidia Thorpe does not speak for me and my people, and I’m sure she doesn’t speak for a lot of First Nations people. It was disrespectful to come there and go on like that, there’s a time and place.”
Charles and Camilla are touring Australia and Samoa this week and are expected to face opposition from some First Nations people who oppose the monarchy. Wayne Coco Wharton was in the Australian capital on Monday holding what he called a day of resistance against the visit, and calling for the acknowledgement of massacres and violent dispossession in Canberra. Wharton said he wanted to give the king an International Criminal Court notice for genocidal crimes, but said he was barred from getting close to the king.
“This is resistance,” he said, calling himself “an adversary of behalf of sovereign nations…I tried to explain to the authorities, I was trying to serve a document on the king of England, accusing him of genocide and war crimes,” the Kooma man told Guardian Australia.He said Great Britain failed to acknowledge the country’s history and its legacy.
“They don’t own the genocide and the war crimes the king and his predecessors did on their behalf.All the advantage, all the wealth, all the land they required, is through the direct results of massacres, wars and genocide of First Nations people.”
Thorpe – a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman – said in a statement she met and was supported by traditional owners and that she had backing from First Nations people around the country. “This morning before the event in Parliament, I met with and was supported by Ngambri Ngunnawal Traditional Custodians from that Country, and I have the support from Blak Sovereign Movement Elders from around the whole country. I take the lead from the Blak Sovereign Movement.”
“The King is not our Sovereign, he’s not our King. Over the past few weeks I have been requesting meetings with him, but was ignored. Today I felt it was right to speak up on behalf and the Blak Sovereign Movement to call out Genocide and the invasion and theft of our Lands, Waters and Skies by the Crown.”
Re: “Over the past few weeks I have been requesting meetings with him, but was ignored.” I’ve seen a couple of royal reporters note that Charles and Camilla’s entrance into Parliament was stage-managed specifically to avoid interacting with critical politicians or republicans within the chamber. It sounds accurate that Thorpe and other advocates requested private meetings and were refused. Likely refused in favor of the palace doing the most to platform people like Aunty Violet Sheridan, who clearly believes that “being polite” is more important than reparative justice. I’d also like to point out that Thorpe’s protest was actually pretty polite – she waited until Charles’s speech was over, she requested a meeting (but was turned down) and she didn’t wish death on Charles or attack him personally. This was the kind of “good trouble” protest John Lewis used to speak about.
King Charles protester Lidia Thorpe, a Victoria Senator interrupts the great hall after speech pic.twitter.com/d02hoKW1rh
— Kate Mansey (@KateMansey) October 21, 2024
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.