NATION OF AZTLAN...is a movement in the USA of Chicano people.. Mexican/Indian heritage believe or assert that they are the rightful owners of South western United States, and the implications are:

http://www.immigrationwatchdog.com/?p=811

a/ No person of that heritage can be considered 'illegal' when they cross the border from Mexico into USA.

b/ The 'White' people are the true Illegals.

Now.. the points I hope to discuss in all this are the following:

1/ The issue of historic takeover of other peoples. (Indigenous vs colonialists/settlers) When the new society has emerged with overwhelming 'settler/colonialist' heritage, culture, language and laws, and indigenous people are subject to all that should indigenous movements for restoring lost sovereignty be encouraged or discouraged?

2/ How should the 'Settler/colonialist' group, respond to movements to change/reverse history and address the plight of the indigenous population? (such movements might be considering revolution of the violent kind or.. of the ballot box kind)

3/ If such movements exist, (and they do) is the mention of, discussion of, or the highlighting of such movements 'adding to the problem' or.. 'stirring up hatred' or.. 'tarring all indigenous people with the same brush'
OR
is it 'informing people of an impending danger and alerting them that the time to act is 'now' rather than when its too late.

Of course, many will recognize that this connects directly to the charges often laid at my own doorstep of 'Whack-a-Mossie' or.. 'Inciting hatred' etc.. but for the sake of this discussion, lets keep it general and leave the Muslims out of it, so we might be more impartial to the issue itself.

Background viewing: (Video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIW-BZ8oLrk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQxy-q2rDpI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTwO457C8bQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBONmdeRvpM&feature=related

You'll hang your fear-and-loathing hat on absolutely anything, won't you Boaz?

As far as I can discover, the most violent act that has so far been perpetrated by these people is the burning of an American flag in 1998.

Look, Boaz, there will always be people like this, with visions of undeserved and unearned grandeur, who will shoot their mouths off at every opportunity. I've met them at dinner parties, I've met them in the streets, I've met them in pubs.

They are essentially harmless. The problem they face is that very few people are fanatical enough to do more than mutter under their breath and hope the nutter involved would simply go away.

The YouTube stuff should have provided you with a clue. The pictures were from a single Mayday march in 2007, given voiceovers from what sounded like a sparsely-attended church hall rally. The pictures of the two guys surreptitiously treading on the American flag was almost pure comedy, at the level of a couple of schoolkids making faces behind teacher's back.

The questions you raise are, of course, totally valid. It does however beg the question why you chose such a pathetically impotent and risible movement with which to background the issues?

Pretending that Atzlan has any real credibility does a disservice to the points you wish to discuss.

Why not be honest, and use Australia as your starting point?

"...should indigenous movements for restoring lost sovereignty be encouraged or discouraged in Australia?"

"How should European settlers respond to movements to change/reverse history and address the plight of the indigenous Australian population?"

Forget the last question for a while, until we have sorted out the first two, eh?

Now this is slightly disturbing. We have a group of people exercising their right to free speech and expression, but it is seen as seditious by people like BOAZ who obviously disagree with them or find it threatening. Presumably BOAZ wants to see them silenced or imprisoned. This is why sedition laws are so obnoxious to the free citizen. Democracies are about change and if these people reach a majority of opinion, then there is nothing you can do about it unless you want a dictatorship. Let me put it this way. If our government started killing citizens at will, under current sedition laws you could not oppose or overthrow them with violent means, but would have to await your turn at being killed. That's absurd.

Pericles.. you could have actually been constructive if you'd left out the 'fear and loathing' bit.. which rather tarnished the rest of your reasonable post.

The issues raised are reasonable, the transparently 'propogandist' nature of some of the background is easily seen, as you noticed and as I expected views to notice.

Where you come undone is here:

"They are essentially harmless."

You generalize, and rigidly categorize ALL 'whacko movements' into that slot, and you have no right to do so, because it's plain wrong.

On one of my 'adventures' at the "Anti Howard hate rally" (The real name deserved by the 'IR Laws' rally a while back) one of the last speakers was firebrand indigenous activist Gary Foley. If you think Mosely was a stirrer, you should have heard Gary.. he was red hot.
I fail to see what connection an 'aboriginal activist' had with IR Laws but you can figure that one out. Given that there was a crowd of 25,000 I hardly think that unleasing such 'hate' speech to a public platform is not 'dangerous'.

The danger is when groups of people are manipulated by people with agenda's.

So, bringing this into the Australian context, my question stands..."Criticizing, examining, scrutinizing such incidents and the ideas behind such incidents" is....

'worsening the problem'?

or..

'Informing the public about dangerous trends'?

You seem to think its always the first, and never the 2nd

If, for example the Foleyites had an specific agenda "Retake Australia in the name of Aboriginals"...if.... then, to highlight this publically.. is 'hate speech' or... 'a timely warning' ?

"The danger is when groups of people are manipulated by people with agenda's."

You know what? If you want to do this you will have to arrest all church groups infiltrating government and manipulating people. That sounds very fair to me since they have the most influence of any group and are hence the most "dangerous".

The Catholic church are the most seditious, since they answer to the Vatican first and not their home country.

Boaz,
Your comments reveal a distastefull agenda of your own.
Seems your visit to the "anti Howard hate rally " has given you more fuel to pour into your forever fear inspired posts,this time about Native people .
"i'm just warning people - you will all be pushed back into the ocean "[My words].
It is unhelpfull if you are interested in promoting peace and harmony in Australia in the long term .

And Those dammed Tibetan Monks - they are a problem too !

One wonders if you haven't been writing to the Chinese Embassy for years and with some success ,with foreknowledge of their dangerous wish for a fair go for their people as made obvious by the Dali Lama's books .