(Scroll down for video) While Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard narrowly escaped an angry crowd in Canberra on Thursday, the shoe she left behind has become an unexpected rallying point for campaigners fighting for greater recognition of Aboriginal rights.
The dark blue wedge—a size 36 Midas—was picked up by Aboriginal political activist Pat Eatock, 75 years old, who found it after police with riot gear bundled Ms. Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott into a car after an angry mob of demonstrators for indigenous rights surrounded the politicians at a restaurant in Canberra. Ms. Gillard's right shoe came off in a rush to safety through a back door of the eatery, where she was attending a function for emergency workers.
"I see it sitting like Cinderella's shoe in a glass case in a museum 10 years from now as this is part of the history of race relations in Australia," said Ms. Eatock, who was the first aboriginal woman in 1972 to seek election for federal government in Australia. "But there is still a lot of thought being put into whether we can possibly make an arrangement with our prime minister to return the shoe in a manner that would benefit those of us in terms of reconciliation."
Personally, Ms. Eatock thinks the shoe should be sold on the Internet to generate funds for the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, a 40-year-old collection of tents and temporary shelters in the capital that is a focal point for indigenous protesters.
"The most popular thoughts seemed to be to put it on eBay and assist the embassy with the fact that it is now a historical artifact," said Ms. Eatock. "Others said chuck it in the lake."
The model retails on the designer's website at about $100. On Friday, an ad on eBay that claimed to be Ms. Gillard's lost shoe was taken down after receiving bids of up to $2,000.
Apart from marking a lapse in the prime minister's personal security, the demonstration and subsequent threat to Ms. Gillard has raised again the vexed but often ignored issue of Australia's indigenous people and their battle for rights.
Last year, Australia's treatment of Aboriginal communities drew criticism from the UN human rights watchdog and Thursday's demonstration outside the restaurant in Canberra coincided with Australia Day when the nation celebrates the 1788 landing in
Sydney Cove of the first fleet of 11 convict ships from the U.K., commanded by Captain Arthur Phillip. But for indigenous people in Australia, the holiday which they have labeled "Invasion Day," symbolizes the beginning of European colonialism. Mr. Abbott said Friday that remarks he had made on Aboriginal issues, which may have helped to stir the demonstration, were misinterpreted. Still, more angry indigenous-rights campaigners gathered Friday outside Parliament, where they burned an Australian flag in protest. "What I utterly condemn is when protests turn violent," Ms. Gillard told reporters. Her office declined to comment on the whereabouts of the lost shoe.
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