On the right track

Protecting First Nations arts and culture

Featured in

  • Published 20230502
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-83-2
  • Extent: 264pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

GROWING UP, I never imagined I would become a lawyer with my own law practice.

I didn’t know any lawyers. I didn’t understand what a lawyer did. But I watched television shows like LA Law, where lawyers argued their cases in front of a judge. They always won, and they wore nice clothes, drove fancy fast cars and fell in love with other lawyers.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

About the author

Terri Janke

Terri Janke is a Meriam, Wuthathi and Yadhaigana woman, and founder of Terri Janke and Company, an award-­winning Indigenous law firm. She is an...

More from this edition

On the forging of identity 

Non-fictionThe night Sartre spoke in Paris can be seen as a hinge in time, the moment when modernity and its focus on individual identity came to the fore after the destruction of the old order. We are still living on the far side of the door Sartre pointed us through. Of course, modernity had a thousand authors. It was the product of billions of lives lived in close proximity. But Sartre, to me, best articulated a modern creed of what it means to be human.

Everybody loves beginnings

Non-fictionBeginnings are a breaking of silence that give some indication as to why the silence ought to have been broken, and the prospects of such a breaking. Why should I have broken my silence and begun this discourse? And why should the difficulties of breaking this silence, difficulties that for some reason I must enact in order to ameliorate, appear so manifestly predictable to me?

Sad stories you are old enough to hear 

Non-fictionThis year, a ‘news anchor’ raised a question about why Muslims participate in the garba when they don’t believe in idol worship. It’s a bit like saying people should not be allowed to put up a Christmas tree if they haven’t been baptised or taken the sacrament. Thousands of non-­Catholics attend the feast of Mount Mary in Bandra. People of all faiths attend the Urs of the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer and the Sufi saint Waris Ali Shah at Dewa Sharif. Hindu devotees going to the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala also visit the Vavar mosque en route. That news anchor’s question poisons the breath of our country.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.