DEAR News Of The Area,
I WRITE this during National Reconciliation Week.
This is the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum which finally recognised the First Peoples who have lived here for millennia and meant that they were included in the National Census as people and permitted to vote.
It is also the reminder of Mabo.
Twenty-five years ago some of us joined the thousands of people who walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge in solidarity with our original inhabitants of this great land, the first Sorry Day.
There’s been quite a conversation (again) recently about Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country.
It appears that some people don’t recognise the difference or the significance of either.
As someone whose forebears emigrated from the U.K. only within the last 200 years, I feel a deep bond to this country of my birth.
At the same time I consider myself very fortunate indeed to be privileged to have been born in, and be a citizen of, a country with the oldest continuous culture in the world, stretching back some 65,000 years.
Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country for me are a sign of respect and a reminder.
When we travel overseas we know that we’re likely to go across borders, through different countries, each with their own language, subtle and not so subtle differences in culture and physical appearance.
Why should we not consider that the same exists here in Australia with our First Peoples?
We rather like seeing the signs welcoming us to a different country.
Signs welcoming us to different towns, even some shops.
When Matthew Flinders circumnavigated Australia and took with him the Eora man Bungaree, he thought Bungaree would be able to act as interpreter.
Didn’t happen.
All over this country of ours are borders between ‘countries’.
Different languages, different cultures, subtle physical differences.
They traded with each other and met on occasions for social (and not so social) occasions.
There are close family and friends where we can just drop in, walk in, and be made welcome, particularly if they know we’re coming, and we have family and friends who can just drop in on us, particularly if we know they’re visiting.
We wouldn’t just walk in uninvited to the home of an acquaintance, or a stranger.
Throughout the ages different Indigenous Peoples would, out of courtesy, announce their arrival and wait to be welcomed.
Herein lies the difference: A Welcome to Country can only be given by an Elder of the traditional land.
Acknowledgement of Country is a reminder, an acknowledgement that there were, for thousands of years, traditional custodians of the place in which we find ourselves.
We’re starting to acknowledge their custodianship, their deep connection to the land and fidelity to it, and our part of their history, the dispossession, disease and massacres.
And the gap which still exists in legal, health and education.
The theme of National Reconciliation week 2025 is “From Now to Next”.
Let us take this opportunity to listen and learn.
Regards,
Barbara LYLE,
Tea Gardens.
