Call it truth-Telling Week
THIS time last year dear reader you and I were sent a message.
I’m not sure if you received it, or have even read it yet. I read it immediately, but wrongly thought it wasn’t sent to me.
I’m talking about the Uluru Statement from the Heart, released by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people of our nation on May 26, 2017.
The statement is shorter than this newspaper column and is well worth a read.
I was reminded this week that the statement was a message, primarily given to the people of Australia, not to our politicians.
When the leaders of our land dismissed it without dialogue last October I declared on this page that reconciliation was dead. I love the ideal but I am struggling to see the practise.
I have the haunting words of the cartoonist “First Dog On The Moon” sitting on my shoulder. “It’s National Reconciliation Week, so it’s time for white people to tell us how to think and feel about Aboriginal people.”
It is interesting to note that the “R” word doesn’t get used once in the text of the Statement from the Heart.
The Reconciliation Brand is struggling. So let’s move along the alphabet a little and call this week Truth-Telling Week.
I was delighted to attend a Sorry Day Commemoration at the University of Southern Queensland on Friday. It was a moving occasion when the truth of our past was honoured and shared.
There is still so much of this past that is hidden and yet sits in our own backyard.
Did you know that De Molay House, the building next door to the Park House Café on Margaret St, Toowoomba was once an Industrial School for Girls?
A number of Aboriginal girls from South Western Queensland were taken from their families and communities and kept here during the 19th century.
Under the Queensland 1865 Industrial Schools Act, if a child had an Aboriginal mother he or she could be deemed to be neglected and removed. The very state of being Aboriginal put these children at risk of being separated from their parents.
Did you know that there is an ancient stone arrangement in the Meringandan district that is at least as old as parts of Stone Henge in the United Kingdom and the Pyramids in Egypt?
Gummingurru is an ancient ceremonial ground used for millennia as Aboriginal people travelled to the Bunya Mountains.
It is believed to be at least 4000 years old and is looked after by a descendant of the local Traditional Owners. It is a place for education and learning.
Did you know that for thousands of years Mt Tabletop was known as Meewah? In the 1840s, explorer Ludwig Leichhardt produced a sketch of the landmark with the local name on it. It means, “a place from which to see”, or the “place of eyes”.
This was also the site of the Battle of One Tree Hill led by Multuggerah in September of 1843. Multuggerah along with thousands of other warriors across our nation sacrificed his life for his country and his people.
Every year on April 25 the nation rightly stops and says together, “Lest We Forget.”
But when it comes to the history of the Australian Frontier we struggle to even ask the question, “How Will We Remember?”
The Uluru Statement From the Heart offers all of us a way forward.
It concludes with these words. “In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start out trek across this vast country.
We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.”