Mabo: Life Of An Island Man

Mabo: Life Of An Island Man is a documentary about Eddie Mabo and is a revelation for anyone who is interested in the Mabo decision, and that would be just about any Australian these days!

It is also an affecting portrait of an Australian family, and one that must help break down one of two of the barriers that exist in our community. I'd say that even if you are appalled by the Mabo decision, you will take your hat off the Eddie Mabo and his family after seeing this important film.

For the benefit of those who might have been off the planet somewhere in the last decade, the Australian High Court "Mabo" decision recognised that, surprise, surprise, the Aboriginals were in fact here when Captain Cook raised the flag, and that they have claims to land ownership.

The Mabo decision was made as a result of Eddie Mabo disputing with the Crown about who owned his family's land on Murray Island. The Crown recommended that Australia owned his ancestral land. Eddie disagreed! A telling moment in the film is when Eddie Mabo was told that he in fact didn't own his Murray Island land! "It was as if I punched him in the face," said he brave fellow who told him.

That was all that the tenacious Eddie Mabo needed to set him off on his crusade.

By proving to the High Court that he did in fact own his plot before the white man came, Eddie Mabo also laid the ground for the current land ownership disputes on the Australian mainland. Eddie Mabo sure did stir up a hornet's nest!

That a feisty, obsessive, very smart, little Islander who's home was in a working class suburb of Townsville, (I suppose it could have easily been Portsmith in Cairns), could have achieved so much is a huge fillip for democracy in Australia, even if the decision has also caused so much angst.

Mabo: Life Of An Island Man is by no means all politics though and is as funny as any family is when you get into the kitchen and the back yard. Eddie Mabo kept diaries from a young age and they range from the utterly romantic to the coarsely profane, but they are always interesting.

Eddie Mabo's tale is also a sad one. He died quickly from cancer before the decision was brought down and there was also a woeful desecration of his headstone in the Townsville cemetery. His family reluctantly then had the body taken to Murray Island where Eddie Mabo was again buried with honour.

We become involved with the family as the film progresses and the documentary is a personal one, filmed by a man who has become a family friend. So in particular we relive the shame of the desecration vividly. But sorrow is an important part of the fabric of our community, as could be Mabo: Life Of An Island Man, if it is seen by enough fair minded people.