Page 18 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 27 November 2012
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She played a key role in setting up many of the Aboriginal organisations in Redfern, including the Redfern Aboriginal Children’s Service. Her compassion and desire to help others was also evident in the time she devoted to those experiencing mental illness. But she is perhaps best known for her unrelenting advocacy of Aboriginal sovereignty. Much of her life’s focus was with the Aboriginal tent embassy here in Canberra. Her goal was to highlight the injustices suffered by her people.
She was instrumental in the establishment of the embassy and was present when the idea was born to take the protest to Canberra. She was also instrumental in ensuring that the embassy remained in the face of rumours that it would be shut down in the 1990s. In fact, Isabell Coe once described it as her “special obligation” to keep the Aboriginal tent embassy going and said that she would continue to do so until she died. Even as her health declined and she found herself confined to a wheelchair, she could be seen at the tent embassy and at other events advocating for Aboriginal rights.
Isabell Coe was instrumental in shaping the Aboriginal tent embassy and has left a lasting legacy here in the nation’s capital. She was a passionate woman who loved her heritage and her people and wanted them to be recognised. Her sometimes controversial ways brought her international prominence. She made headlines around the world when she called for a boycott of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Earlier this year at the 40th anniversary celebrations of the tent embassy, confined to her wheelchair, she was staunchly defending the rights of Aboriginal protestors who had burnt the Australian flag.
Her passion or dedication to her cause is undeniable. Over several decades she became a recognisable face in the struggle for Aboriginal rights, highlighting what she saw as a major injustice—the lack of recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty. Isabell epitomised the words spoken by the great civil rights campaigner, Martin Luther King: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” And to Isabell, Aboriginal sovereignty was what mattered. She took her fight to the courts, and was the lead litigant in Isabell Coe v the Commonwealth, an unsuccessful but important legal challenge which sought to assert the sovereignty of the Wiradjuri nation.
Isabell Coe considered Canberra a part of her traditional country and she will be missed by many in our community. Those who knew her have described her as a dignified, beautiful person who loved helping and giving. She was a caring, sincere and genuine lady. Even as her illness progressed and she was hospitalised, I am told that she was always thinking of others, regularly visiting other patients on her ward to brighten their day and offer friendship and company.
Her kindness and compassion drew people to her. People all over the world called her a friend—both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. On Monday last week, Isabell Coe was remembered fondly by family and friends and others who knew her well. She was described as “one of the best voices for Aboriginal sovereignty in Australia”. She was not only an elder but a spokeswoman for the Aboriginal community, and a person described as “the mother of the tent embassy”.
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