Solidarity would like to offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Oliver Butterfield who died in a car accident on December 29, 2011.Ollie was a brilliant musician and activist. Aged just 26, his death is both a tragedy and a serious loss to all struggles for justice. Whether shouting down racists on the streets of Alice Springs, sitting in at Centrelink against Income Management, or locking on to detention centre fences and mining equipment, Ollie taught us all that the forces of oppression must be confronted head on.
Ollie had a razor sharp mind, which sketched out some brilliant tracks to last for all time. Below is an extract of some lyrics from Call-out to the Nation.
Out in the desert
Deserted people eyes diverted
Look away from a world gone a bad way
The dreaming tells of a different fate
Than being surrounded by hate
White collar white man white lease papers and a white police van
Blind to contrition
Third world hidden politicians
With racist ambitions
From basic cards to prohibition
Stop the intervention
Rich from the land that they promised to protect
People got good reason to suspect
That the intervention is land grab assimilation
Macklin’s forcing little children into starvation
Canberra’s figures got no citation
We’re all watching country become plantation
And waste dumps for uranium
Stealing Muckaty station
The whole corrupt institution needs replacing
So this is a call out
To the nation
Do you want an island paradise or an abomination
It’s not what we think, it’s what we do
Look after country, from the Florentine to Kakadu
That’s the only way that this land can look after you
If you fall outside the guidelines
Then next it could be you
Forced underground from the life that you knew
