5/x
The camps, he insists, have been speaking for years – about overcrowding, prisoner release, alcohol regulation, youth safety and broken services. The real problem is selective listening.

Mr Granites points to organisations responsible for camp management that “should be looking after the people … the people they should be working for”. He says there are services in place but there are issues with implementation. Responsibility falls between different groups.
Mr Granites makes clear his own obligations to kin and Country.
“It’s got to be us … the people who understand the language, the culture … We belong to the culture, one big mob.”
Throughout the interview, Mr Granites maintained a focus on the humanity of his people. He locates himself within an enduring system of authority and accountability that predates the contemporary crisis in Alice Springs. He rejects the idea that culture is the cause of violence, insisting instead that it provides the framework for responsibility and care. His concern is not that Warlpiri culture is failing, but that it is being undermined by conditions that make it harder to sustain.
At the same time, he acknowledges the cumulative burden of loss. Recent weeks have involved multiple funerals, overlapping obligations, and constant movement between camps. “We had four or five … family … all a family of ours … We’ve been too busy … sorry business,” he says. This continual grief makes it difficult to articulate the problems clearly. “You’re really lost to what you are trying to say … It’s very, very hard.”
Mr Granites’ analysis of his granddaughter’s death is set within a broader context of exhaustion and persistence. He describes a situation shaped by long-term processes – the legacy of displacement, the continuing effects of segregation and the precarious position of communities navigating between different systems of life.
His response is not to withdraw but to continue speaking, teaching and insisting on recognition. “Someone has to start listening … Anything that we want to do is start listening to each other,” he says.
Mr Granites’ account does not offer simple solutions. Still, it identifies the conditions that must be addressed – support for families, the restoration of language, respect for cultural authority and meaningful engagement with Elders and community knowledge. Above all, it situates the tragedy not in a single act but in a long and ongoing history in which the survival of the Warlpiri people, and the many nations of Central Australia, remains precarious but enduring.

fin
#Indigenous #Auspol
——

4/x
rest of the town
Within this environment, alcohol becomes another factor intensifying instability. Public commentary frequently reduces camp disorder to individual behaviour. Mr Granites does not deny alcohol’s impact, but he does not present it as a simple cause. It is a force that amplifies existing pressures.

“Alcohol … plays a big role,” he says. It disrupts caregiving, fuels conflict and erodes informal mechanisms of control. Alcohol operates inside structural conditions outsiders rarely see, but the arrival of people from outside groups interrupts this. “People from other communities … They come in and they wreck everything for us.” 
Mr Granites suggests that restrictions alone cannot resolve the problem. The issue is authority – who can enforce rules, who can protect children, who can maintain order.
At the centre of this teaching is Jukurrpa, the Warlpiri system of law and meaning. Mr Granites describes it simply: “That is all about Jukurrpa … We want to be who we want to be, not someone else later on.”
Jukurrpa establishes relationships, obligations and ways of living; it defines how people should act towards one another and how children are to be raised. For Mr Granites, the crisis in Alice Springs is partly a crisis of distance from this system. He sees it as a result of people living away from the country and contexts in which Jukurrpa is most effectively enacted.
Compounding this distance is a breakdown in language. Mr Granites is particularly concerned that younger people are losing fluency in Warlpiri while also lacking strong English skills. “We have young people who don’t know the language… they’re mixing it up,” he observes. This affects not only cultural transmission but also everyday interactions, including with police and other authorities. “Some of those younger people don’t know how to speak back to the police … They haven’t been taught,” he says.
Interpreting, he argues, is often inadequate: “It’s not good enough … The people … are not really good speaking people.” Mr Granites says he also experiences difficulty moving between languages. The result is a broader communication failure that affects relationships within communities and between communities and the state. “The ... two languages got me tied up … Which one do I take, Warlpiri or English?”
This failure, in his view, is reinforced by a failure of authorities – police, politicians, bureaucrats – to listen. “We … tell you that we are not hiding anything … but people don’t listen … They don’t know what it’s all about,” he says.
Mr Granites describes a recurring pattern in which explanations from community members are reinterpreted or simplified by outsiders. “When I’m explaining one thing … they explain it to other people something else.”
National commentary often frames Aboriginal communities as secretive or resistant to scrutiny. Mr Granites rejects this outright: “We are not hiding anything.”

-/5

#Indigenous #Auspol

She also misgendered me and then continued to double down about patriarchy.

I really encourage people to understand the history of Turtle Island.

Our problems today are tied to our problems then. Our @roots deep dive on being two spirit (native & trans) offers an entryway to start leaning.

https://www.rootschangemedia.com/two-spirit-transcestors/

#twospirit #indigenous #native #ushistory