More than a hundred men and boys wearing bright yellow T-shirts that said “Stop the violence” brought cross-town traffic in Alice Springs to a standstill today in a public rally against domestic violence.

Most of the participants were Aboriginal, but the Alice Springs men’s health service that organised the march had invited all males in Alice Springs to take part in the march, which was followed by a series of spirited speeches on the Alice Springs Town Council Lawns.

Senior traditional owners of Alice Springs also created a picture in sand to represent a tradititional structure that would emphasise the importance of non-violence to other men.

“We need to get across to the world, our community, black and white, that we are against violence,” Mr Liddle told the crowd.

“What these T-shirts are saying is we don’t want to condone it, we don’t to put up with it , we want to stop the bloody violence.

“We’ve got very strong cultural men here today. they are our leaders. They are right behind this programme we’ve got going now.”

Mr Liddle described the origins of the march, which developed  from a 2008 meeting of men at the Ross River homestead near Alice Springs, held after the Federal Government intervention.

“A lot of our men thought they were wrongly accused of being pedophiles and other things. That actually created anger among men in the community. We felt ashamed to walk down the street because of those great big signs that all of us have got around our communities. We don’t want to see that anymore. We want someone to say, shit, there are some good men out there. Let’s support them.”

Calling for Government support, Mr Liddle said the program would go out to Central Australian communities with a violence intervention program that included two psychologists.

“We’re going to show people how to control their anger, so that we don’t react in the wrong way. We all get angry sometimes, and we have to find a way to deal with it and make it easy for our families to cope with us.”

But he also emphasised the importance of men intervening in violent situations with a personal anecdote about how he had stopped a man from attacking his wife at a football match by telling him to “Stop.”

“We’ve got to be seen doing something,” Mr Liddle said.

“We can’t be scared.  We might get punched in the head because we confront people. We’ve got to be not scared to confront the things that all of us see in this town.”

Ingkataja cultural officer Baden Powell delivered a message in language to non-Arrernte people to keep “payback” between families out of Alice Springs.

“Make everyone sad when you bring your payback into town,” he said.

“If you want to finish up your payback you do it in your community. Everyone lives in Alice Springs. Black and white are born in Alice Springs. This is our home. You don’t separate white people from black people. We’re born here.  We live here in Alice Springs. They’re part of us Arrernte people in Alice Springs.”

Alice Online will present some filmed highlights from the rally in the coming days.

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