- by Ron Hall
- The Guardian
- Issue #2154
Fifty years ago NAIDOC, the National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee, was commissioned to celebrate just one special day. Since 1975 it has become a week in which we can celebrate something unique to Australia, Aboriginal culture, and the achievements of great Aboriginal Australians such as Albert Namatjira, Cathy Freeman, Charlie Perkins, Harold Blair, Yothu Yindi, the Bangarra Dancers, and many more with international recognition.
Despite such magnificent endeavour, the long-term impact on the Australian Aboriginal community of the forces of colonialism has amounted to a protracted genocide resulting from massacres, poisoning of waterholes, starvation rations, forced removals, slave labour, and many other forms of inhumanity.
Archaeologists have exploded the myth of “terra nullius” by revealing a sophisticated pre-colonial society with trade routes as ancient as the Great Silk Road stretching over hundreds of kilometres, even reaching as far as Papua New Guinea. For thousands of years pearl shells from the Kimberley region were being traded with the Kaurna people of Tarndanya/Adelaide, South Australia. Across the continent, the moiety system ingeniously regulated First Nations genetics, and totemic practices helped safeguard the environment. For example, a person of the kangaroo totem was forbidden from hunting kangaroos and was required to monitor their well-being.
An overview of progress in the major Australian jurisdictions reveals only incremental improvements and even regression. This is particularly true of northern Australia where First Nations people represent one third of the population, but have little control over the unconscionable colonial style practices that dominate their lives.
However, the vision of the Uluru Statement does provide a way forward for the future based on the voice, truth telling and treaty. Significantly, the findings of the Yoorrook Commission in Victoria raise the challenging question of how might the loss of language and culture be adequately compensated. At the same time, how might the loss of revenue from the capitalist exploitation of water and mineral resources be remunerated. Sums in the billions will be involved.
Along with Victoria, vision has been shown in South Australia which has already legislated a Voice to Parliament and is now embarking on a truth telling program itself. Such issues, including restitution for economic loss, need to be confronted nationwide. In part, the answer lies in the education, indeed empowerment rather than incarceration of the next First Nations generation, so lending them crucial strength to counter systemic racism, that has become the ugly face of capitalism.
In the past, some First Nations leaders saw the Communist Party as the only party who were truly supportive of their cause. Members such as the late Dr Hannah Middleton who fought for justice for the Gurindji at Watti Creek, have demonstrated this commitment. The former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam also set a fine example which the nation can only hope that Labor will continue to follow resolutely.
It is so important for the standing of Australia as a nation that the legacy of this and future NAIDOC weeks is marked by Indigenous Australians attaining their rightful place on their country that was never ceded.
