On May Day we celebrate First Peoples’ revolutionary potential

Written by: Louisa L. on 28 April 2025

On May Day we celebrate not only workers, but also worldwide revolutionary struggles for national independence from imperialism and for socialism and communism. In Australia, the CPA(M-L) recognises none of these goals can be created without the full participation of First Peoples.  

We live on stolen lands. Stolen with violence, terror and deceit. This truth has already been told again and again. NO MORE. There must be action! Those everyday Australians who still support racism must open their eyes and unblock their ears. Racism supports only those who are ripping off this country and all its peoples. 

For 130 years, First Peoples sacrificed their lives in armed struggle to defend their communities, lands, waters and cultures. Despite the most terrible oppression, their struggle has not ceased since invasion. First Peoples are just 3.8 percent of these lands’ inhabitants. Yet theirs is the richest history of resistance. Land, water, people, culture remain the heart of their inspiring ongoing rebellion. Let’s tell this truth!

Generation by generation, mountainous waves of First Peoples’ rebellion grew. After 200 years, they threatened to drown capitalism’s ability to profit from their lands and waters. Through the Business Council of Australia, the ruling class deliberately set out to divide First Peoples and create collaborators to protect its power.

Elders of struggle like Gary Foley have said of the period until 1988, “We were united, because we were all poor.”  

While most First Peoples battle day to day just to survive, some ruling class collaborators have become multi-millionaires. Many land councils undermine custodians, claim land and water they have no right to, sell them, allow them to be mined or fracked or damned and sacred sites destroyed, all for private profit. Gary Foley and many others despise what he calls “the black bourgeoisie”.

Reconciliation Australia marked the birth of the collaborationist model. Zionist penetration came hand in hand with the BCA. Today some leading collaborators belittle and demonise those many First Peoples who stand for Palestine. Such traitors target their own people for removal from jobs, universities, media and more under the banner that falsely equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. 

In 1938 Yorta Yorta man William Cooper famously helped initiate a petition to the nazi German Embassy protesting the most internationally publicised anti-Jewish attacks during Kristallnacht, when over two days synagogues, businesses and homes were destroyed and 30,000 Jewish men sent to concentration camps. William Cooper is lauded by Zionists. Today events that drove him to support Jews would, almost certainly cause Willian Cooper to support Palestine.

Again and again, First Peoples have battled for release from crushing oppression. Again and again, they have been promised positive change. Again and again, they have been betrayed. 

Colonialism and imperialism have proved they will never allow First Peoples to be liberated. 

Action to undermine the standing of collaborators, to expose the ruling class, to shatter their anti-people alliance, to divide them all, strengthens the forces for liberation.

We support all the demands the mass of First Peoples raise for reform and their revolutionary call for the right to their own independent states.

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