1936-1997
rugby player, writer and Aboriginal activist
born on 10 January 1936 at Wallaga Lake on the south coast of New South Wales.
My name is Burnum Burnum and I represent ‘Australians All’ because I helped
organise the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972, and on Australia day 1988 I
raised the Aboriginal flag on the coast of Dover, England to symbolically take possession
of England on behalf of Australian Aborigines.
IDEA
FOR SCENE: It is 26 January 1988, 200 years after Captain Cook landed, raised the British
flag and began the colonisation of Australia. Show Burnum Burnum at Dover, on the English
coast, raising the Aboriginal flag in a ceremony that makes people ask questions. Could
this happen today? If some people tried to become the owners of some land by raising a
flag and saying ‘I own this’ could they?
