Kokoda Sacred Site

The grand narrative of Australia's colonial culture is one of war and violence. Significant places where the battles of ANZAC legends were fought are enshrined and idealised in the popular imagination. These legends take on semi-mythical proportions.

The Kokoda trail is such a site, and the government is currently fighting to save it from a mining company that has decided to dig there. The foreign minister has described the trail as "sacred to the memory" of fallen Australian soldiers and native Papuans. Well, at least he didn't call them what the soldiers of the era did - which was "Fuzzy Wuzzies".

It is incredible to see the government use the word "sacred" to describe a site that is of significance to the dominant culture. Similar claims made by Indigenous peoples are described as "dangerous precedents". The government has not lifted a finger to protect Papuan sacred sites from mining by Australian companies. Whole mountains have been hacked apart in the last few decades in New Guinea.

In Australia's Northern Territory, marshal law has been declared in response to allegations of Aboriginal paedophilia, with Aboriginal land being acquired by the government as part of their "intervention". Across the nation, countless sacred sites have been destroyed and mining continues to make its mark on Aboriginal land.

It's a shame they can't see this push to save Kokoda as the double standard it is.