GARMA ‘06
Note: Garma is a Yolngu Matha word for “two ways of learning.” The name refers to the fact that this is a festival where Aboriginal people meet and welcome members of the dominant culture in an exchange of ideas, traditions and culture.
Here’s an interesting read about this year’s Garma from Melbourne, Australia’s The Age:
”OPPOSITION LEADER Kim Beazley opened it, the Yothu Yindi band played at the final hurrah, and three Australians of the Year were there too. Regarded as Australia’s leading indigenous cultural event and, for the second year, recipient of the Northern Territory Government’s Brolga Award for best major event, the tents have just been packed up for Garma Festival, held in early August.
“For four days and five nights in the first week of August, about 2000 people – half indigenous Australians and the rest mainly non-indigenous visitors from around Australia and overseas, slept side by side in tents under the one clear sky amid stringy-bark forests near Gove in remote north-east Arnhem Land, where drugs and alcohol are banned and cultural exchange embraced….”
“…But Garma has an underbelly; it’s not nirvana, nor does it pretend to be. Garma’s vision, since its inception eight years ago and defined by YYF deputy chairman and Garma founder Mandawuy Yunupingu, “is for Yolngu and other indigenous Australians to have the same level of well-being and life opportunity and choices as non-indigenous Australians”. And so, along with the many celebrations of Yolngu life, Garma visitors can attend daily forums that attract movers and shakers from around the country who, together with the locals, thrash out matters surrounding the evolving culture of indigenous Australians grappling to balance traditional life with ever-increasing Western influences.”
