When the Uluru Statement from the Heart was gifted to the Australian people in May 2017 it was an epiphany of the blindingly obvious to me. When Malcolm Turnbull summarily dismissed it 5 months later it spurred me into action in a way that no other issue has. In the months since I’ve been frequently asked why this matters to me so much, and to be honest I’m still figuring that out, but this is my story so far as I currently understand it.
I grew up in a clannish extended family descended largely from Irish settlers. My cousins and I still hold close the identity of being Irish-Australian, with clannish family values and a sense of irreverence and joy forming central tenants of who we are. From early childhood, we were raised on the stories of how our ancestors had been disposed of our land, our language and our culture by the British, and how a few intrepid individuals set out to a rugged colony on the other side of the world to build a better life for themselves and their family. I am only one generation removed from the overt racism directed at Irish Catholics in Australia. My parents’ generation has to contest with Job Ads and Rental Listings with “RC need not apply” at the end. The indignation at this otherness, at this sense of being wronged by the dominant forces in society was also part of how we understood our place in this country.
Like so many Australians, I was raised to strongly value the “fair go”. Perhaps because of the discrimination that they had experienced, my parents were particularly passionate about ensuring that new waves of migrant Australians, particularly the Italian community that was establishing itself in Melbourne’s suburbs in the 1970s. I remember one time as a child I once used the word “wog” in a derivative way (and the word still held strong venom having not yet been re-appropriated at that time) – well that got me one of the sternest talkings-too of my childhood. From my earliest days, a “fair go” was inseparable from racial inclusion, and both concepts remain central to my value system.
The thing that most drew me initially into the Uluru Statement was its call for Makarrata – coming together after a struggle. As someone who had walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 2000 in support reconciliation, the obviousness of truth telling, that there can be no reconciliation without truth, struck home. But I think here in lies the rub. For many descendants of the settlers listening to these truths is going to throw us hard up against everything that we believe ourselves to be. It will require us to see ourselves not as people who have defiantly flourished despite the wrongs of the dominant class, but rather as tools of the colonisers who’ve participated in the dispossession and dislocation of this land’s first people. It strikes me that the resulting cognitive dissonance is one reason that so many white Australians do not have ears to hear what first nations people have to tell us.
As much as there lies discomfort in hearing these truths, there is also great healing. Without ever having words for it, there is a sensation of closeness in the back of the throat when considering the enduring impact of historical wrongs, and the systemic disadvantage built upon them. Leaning in to hear these truths, knowing that we are not personally responsible whilst acknowledging that they sit firmly in our heritage liberates us from the unvoiced aversion that accompanies these truths. It is in this liberation that healing can begin for we descendants of the settlers, a healing that enables us to reconcile with first nations people from a place of mutual dignity and respect, unlocking for us the true spiritual promise of this land.
If you’d like to learn more about the Uluru Statement from the Heart www.1voiceuluru.org is a good place to start.
Lisa blogs here 