Faith Bandler

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Bandler with Prime Minister Harold Holt (right)

Faith Bandler (born September 27, 1918 in Tumbulgum , New South Wales ; † February 13, 2015 ), née Ida Lessing Mussing , was an Australian politician and author who campaigned for the rights of the Aborigines and the Torres Strait Islanders . Bandler became known in Australia through the campaign she led for the Australian referendum in 1967 and received numerous honors for her services.

biography

Bandler's father, Peter Mussing, was kidnapped at the age of 13 from the island of Ambrym in the New Hebrides , 2000 km from Australia (see Blackbirding ) and had to work unpaid on sugar cane fields in Queensland . He later married a New South Wales woman of Scottish Indian descent. Bandler was heavily influenced in her actions and thinking by her father's work as a slave. Born in Tumbulgum in the Tweed Shire , she and her family grew up on a farm near Murwillumbah in New South Wales. Her father died when she was five years old. In 1934 she left school and went to Sydney to work as a tailor.

During World War II, she and her sister worked on fruit farms in the Australian Women Land Army. They and other indigenous workers received less wages than the white workers. When she left the army in 1945, she started a campaign for equal pay and went to the Kings Cross neighborhood of Sydney. In 1952 she married Hans Bandler (1914–2009), a Jew from Vienna , and lived in Frenchs Forest . After the annexation of Austria , Hans Bandler was imprisoned in a concentration camp , but he was able to emigrate in January 1939. The couple had a daughter, Lilon Gretl Bandler, who was born in 1954, and they raised an adopted son, an Aboriginal.

politician

In 1956, Bandler became a professional politician for the Aboriginal Australian Fellowship and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), which was formed in 1957. During this time she worked with Pearl Gibbs and Jessie Street . As General Secretary of FCAATSI, she led the campaign for the 1967 referendum against discrimination against Aboriginal people in the Australian Constitution . This campaign, which required numerous letters of protest and hundreds of public events, led the referendum in the reign of Prime Minister Harold Holt to a success with around 91 percent approval in all six states of Australia.

She began writing in 1974 and published four books, two essays on the 1967 referendum, an account of her brother's life in New South Wales, and a novella about her father's experience as an Aboriginal in Queensland. In early 1974 she started a campaign for the rights of the Torres Strait Islanders. According to biographer and historian Marilyn Lake, the Torres Strait Islanders campaign was more difficult than the FCAATSI referendum campaign, which Bandler led on two fronts. It also pushed back the influence of the black power ideology. In 1975, Bandler visited the island where her father was kidnapped 92 years earlier. During the 1970s, Bandler was a significant member of the Women's Electoral Lobby in New South Wales.

Bandler was named a member of the Order of Australia on June 11, 1984 for her service to Aboriginal welfare . She received an honorary doctorate from Macquarie University in 1994 . In 1997 she was awarded the Human Rights Medal and was named one of the first 100 living persons in the Australian Living Treasures by the National Trust of Australia . She was awarded the Order of Australia (AC) on January 29, 2009, which was presented to her on April 29, 2009. She died on February 13, 2015.

Works

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Faith Bandler ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , www.abc.net.au, accessed July 12, 2009.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.abc.net.au
  2. ^ Screen Australia: Faith Bandler - Activist , accessed July 12, 2009.
  3. ↑ Escapee from Nazis fought for Aborigines , obituary in Brisbane Times, September 14 of 2009.
  4. ^ A b c Marilyn Lake (2002): Faith Bandler, Gentle Activist. Allen & Unwin . ISBN 1-86508-841-2 .
  5. ↑ Beazley heads Australia Day honors list , ABC News ; Retrieved July 12, 2009.
  6. ↑ Political activist and writer Faith Bandler AC dies aged 96 , ABC News, February 14, 2015.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bandler, Faith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mussing, Ida Lessing (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian writer, Aboriginal political activist
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Tumbulgum , New South Wales
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 2015