Eddie Mabo

The Man who refused the lie

Some truths live so deep in a person that denying them feels like dying. For Eddie Koiki Mabo, that truth was simple: The land of Mer belonged to his people.

Born on Murray Island in the Torres Strait in 1936, Eddie Mabo grew up immersed in the culture, laws, and spiritual connection to country of the Meriam people. When he later discovered that, under Australian law, his ancestral land was considered Crown property… that his people were seen as tenants of their own country, something in him refused to bend.

What followed was not just a legal fight, but a moral one. Mabo carried the weight of an entire nation’s denial. His was a battle fought not with weapons, but with story, evidence, dignity, and love for home. The ten years of the Mabo Case (culminating in the 1992 High Court decision) rewrote the map of justice in Australia. It recognised for the first time that Indigenous Australians had rights to their land prior to colonisation.

But what I find most moving is not the court victory. It’s that Mabo stood firm in his insight long before the law caught up to the truth of it.

Eddie Mabo reminds us that justice begins as an act of faith. Faith that Truth matters. That identity is not negotiable. That one person’s courage can awaken a nation’s conscience.

When I think of insight and leadership, I think of Mabo… not as a symbol, but as a man who refused the lie.