‘For the indignity and degradation … inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry … this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again’
– Kevin Rudd, February 2008
‘It is not the job of the taxpayer to subsidise lifestyle choices’
– Tony Abbott, March 2015
It’s hard to believe it was only seven years ago the federal parliament united before a watching nation to apologise, to acknowledge that Australia’s history is one profoundly marked by racial oppression, and to commit never to repeat the injustices of the past.
Today Kevin Rudd’s words seem hollow. Not only has inequality between white and Indigenous Australia barely changed in the last seven years, but the narrative around that inequality continues to reflect wilful blindness to the history acknowledged in Rudd’s apology.
Tony Abbott’s recent statement that Indigenous communities living on country are making a ‘lifestyle choice’ is only the most recent and offensive example of this narrative. It is shocking that an Australian Prime Minister can make a statement that ignores the thousand of years of history binding Aboriginal communities to the land, Australia’s history of forced displacement of Indigenous people and the epic struggle it took for communities to return to country. But Abbott’s comments mirror our national discourse – one that pays lip service to reconciliation while refusing to acknowledge our nation’s historical oppression of Indigenous people.
In Canberra, the National War Museum refuses to recognise the many Indigenous fighters who died protecting their land during the colonial frontier wars. In the Northern Territory, politicians dismiss concerns about creating another stolen generation through foster care and adoption. In Western Australia, the authorities of the popular tourist destination Rottnest Island fail to inform the public that 370 Indigenous people are buried on the island in unmarked graves – a legacy of the hundred years during which Rottnest operated as a brutal Aboriginal prison.
These questions of history and acknowledgment can seem trivial when compared to the overwhelming practical problems facing Indigenous Australia. But history matters. How we talk about racial inequality matters. Narrative matters.
Perhaps the most obvious reason we should acknowledge the past truthfully is that it matters to many Australians. When Abbott calls living in remote communities a ‘lifestyle choice’ it not only angers – it also hurts and offends many in remote communities …
Read the full article, Overland, here
*Sienna Merope is a human rights law masters student at New York University. She works on issues of truth, reconciliation and justice in post-conflict societies.
