Geronimo Was a Prisoner in a Detention Center Too

I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures.

I cannot think that we are useless or God would not have created us. There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God. The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say. Geronimo.

George and Amy Sheppard, key members of best-selling band Shepaprd and writers of the hit single ‘Geronimo’ must have a keen sense of irony. The pair, whose manager and financial backer is a director of the company that runs the Manus Island Detention Center, named their number one single after one of history’s most prominent detainees, a man who was a refugee in his own land and locked away for 27 years in a detention center.

We’re talking Geronimo here, the last leader of the Apache nation. Are Sheppard taking the piss, or are they simply ignorant of history?

Geronimo, the Native American warrior chief, is famous for defending his homeland from the marauding invaders that later enslaved kidnapped Africans and voted Ronald Reagan and George Bush as their President. He was only in his early twenties his beloved wife Alope and his three children were murdered by Mexican soldiers, and he vowed to avenge their deaths by protecting their Apache homeland.

He won many battles, but lost the war, and became a refugee in his own land when his tribe were exiled to a reservation far, far from home. He escaped, and continued to fight for his people’s freedom, but was recaptured and spent the last 20 years of his life in a detention center not dis-similar to Manus Island.

And now we say Geronimo, as we dive into the waterfall.

You would have to be kidding.