October 5. Day 279. They're back

 Earlier this week the Sovereign Tent Embassy at Musgrave Park was reduced to a charred mess.
At the time I thought that might be it. I was wrong.
"They can burn us down. They can blow us up but we'll be back," 51-year-old Julie Hopkins from Inala told me this morning.
Julie was boiling the billy for her second cup of tea when I walked through the park just after 6am.
She'd been up for more than an hour and had finished the washing up the 13 people who camped on site had generated the night before.
Her sister Zoe Fisher told me I should go and talk to Julie.
"She's the one doing all the work," Zoe said.
Julie hadn't been to the tent embassy before the fire.
"When I heard, I just had to come down and pay my respects," she said.
She was not alone.
"As soon as people heard about the fire they came from everywhere to donate stuff," she said.
The tent embassy is indeed back up and running and there is no sign of the fire. The park is pretty much as it has always been.
Julie said she regarded Musgrave Park as a spiritual home having grown up and gone to school in the area. She was part of the Commonwealth Games Protests in 1982 and will be back this weekend for the 30th anniversary commemorations.
She went and grabbed me a flyer and suggested I come back.
I might just do that. With luck, Julie might even make me a cup of billy tea.

October 2. Day 276. Fire

 What a tragic end to what has been a controversial little chapter in Brisbane's history.
As someone who lives near Musgrave Park and walks through there regularly, I have watched the Aboriginal tent embassy from the beginning.
In the early days, I went up and had a chat and the residents explained that they would be there for the long haul and planned to stay until they had achieved full equality.
At that stage the embassy was small but it mushroomed and then the police moved in under council direction. The scenes of the residents being forcefully removed in the lead-up to the Paniryri Greek Festival were frankly shameful.
But true to their word, the residents stayed moving their camp further up the hill. It was a much smaller camp, well established and vibrant especially on the weekend.
Until this morning. Now all that is left it a smouldering mess. It is possible that fire may have achieved what the authorities couldn't and killed the camp.
It is equally possible that like last time the incident will only make the residents more determined.
Time will tell.