4. Desarrollo de la aplicación móvil
4.2. Sistema Operativo Android
Wadeye is characterized by endemic fighting, usually nocturnal, between groups of people numbering from about a dozen to a hundred or more. There are some periods of relative quiet, but as far as I can tell from newspaper archives and oral reports, fighting has been a fairly regular occurrence at least since the end of the Mission. The period around 2006–7 involved particularly intense fighting, giving Wadeye a prominent place in the national imagery of remote Aboriginal towns “in crisis” (Figure 3.3.1), provoking the Federal Government to enact its
Northern Territory National Emergency Response, more familiarly known as “the Intervention” (Altman & Hinkson, 2010; Toohey, 2008). On the one hand this generates a distorted, unidimensional image of kigay as villains quite possibly beyond redemption; but on the other hand it is true that kigay often take to the streets to fight. I attempt here to give an accurate portrayal of the undeniably disruptive side to kigay culture, but to integrate this into a more nuanced, “humanised” portrayal.
16 However, when mobs are in conflict they may occasionally take on some gang-‐like
characteristics in the use of organized intimidation to dissuade people from reporting them to the police or testifying against them (Notes, 2013-‐06; Ivory, 2009, p. 317; for discussion of intimidation relating to Warlpiri violence see Finnane, 2013).
Figure 3.3.1 Front page of The Age newspaper, 23 May 2006
Fights often start over personal matters between individuals: sexual jealousy, damage to a vehicle, an allegation of cheating at cards.17 But the intensity of
solidarity among kin tends to turn these into group conflicts, of which the most visible manifestation are the “heavy metal mobs”, kin-‐based groupings of kigay (§2.7) who engage as units in street fighting. Fights never seem to be resolved in a single session, but rather involve a series of night-‐time conflicts that can last for weeks or months at varying levels of intensity.
17 Some fights do concern wider tensions between groups, though I have the impression that these are less common. For example in late 2012 there was protracted fighting that was at least in part caused by conflict over rights to a tract of land (FN 2012-‐09, 2013-‐01).
Kigay subculture 62
Ivory gives a good description of how a nocturnal confrontation foments (2009: 317–8), with a gradual crescendo of shouts, wolf-‐whistles and banging on metal as one group calls upon the other to fight. A typical formation is a face-‐off
between two groups at either end of a street, or very often at either end of a narrow alleyway leading off the main street, known as da gef (< gap); but there are other more complex fights that involve swarming around houses or in open areas, and sometimes more than one group ganging up on another.
Fighting is dominated by projectiles thrown by the groups of kigay at a distance of around 20–40 meters. These include rocks, metal bars, hatchets, and anything else that comes to hand: tju bailen tju naip, tju eks, tju enithing-‐matha “they fight with knives, axes, any kind of weapon” (Notes, 2011-‐10). The vast majority of these projectiles do not hit a target, and indeed the number of serious injuries resulting from fighting seems very low compared to the spectacle and disruption caused. Kigay often describe hand-‐to-‐hand combat as part of their fight
narratives, but this has not occurred in any of the fights I have personally
witnessed. The regular Wadeye police are only on duty two at a time, so they can do little more that watch fights. For more serious or protracted fights or “riots”, further Tactical Response police are flown in from Darwin, usually resulting in various arrests.
The contemporary form of projectile fighting has quite a lot in common with fighting documented in the 1930s (Stanner, 1959, p. 69). Stanner recounts how two teams lined up at 40 metres’ distance and threw spears at each other, generally dodging the projectiles, with much shouting and display of anger, but only infrequent physical injury. In general this matches the contemporary fight, except that a wider range of projectiles are now used, and these usually don’t include spears. However I do not mean to say that fighting now is “the same” as pre-‐settlement fighting, or is part of some immutable tradition; even if the physical actions were identical, the change of social context would today give these actions a different significance.
Even among Wadeye locals, the blame for fighting is always placed squarely with the kigay, but this is somewhat unfair. In several nocturnal fights I have
witnessed, the kigay are indeed at the frontline of two groups, engaged in the actual exchange of projectiles. But right behind the kigay, large numbers of women, children and older people mill around, shouting taunts and obscenities at the enemy (Notes, 2013-‐01). Speaking rather piously in the clear light of day, some of these same older people will strongly disparage kigay for causing chaos; but kigay see themselves, and are seen by others, as fighters. Whether it is their own kin encouraging them to fight, or the chorus of other locals, whitefellas and mass media disparaging them for fighting, it is altogether clear to kigay that this is their entrenched social role.18 Though kigay sometimes express regret about
the fighting, they also celebrate it as a core part of their identity, and fights are one of the most popular themes for story telling. As one kigay tells of recent fighting between his own Evil mob and their enemies Lica, he notes how the police tried to make them stop, but kardu mutmuttje-‐matha, “we just wouldn’t listen” (DP, 2011-‐09-‐01a). In fight narratives the battling kigay are often portrayed dramatically as ku soldje (< soldiers) or even thri andret soldje “300 soldiers” in reference to a recent film about the Spartans’ battle at Thermopylae (JL, 2013-‐06-‐22).19