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The colonial curse

25/1/2023

30 Comments

 
PictureCartoon: Natasha Williams-Novak
​By Christine Grayden
 
ALMOST 60 years after the first fleet sailed in Port Jackson, in 1844 my English great-great-grandfather Samuel Pickersgill was transported to what has been ‘lutruwita’ for thousands of generations, but which the British colonial office called the penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land.
 
Samuel had stolen two brass taps from a chapel and then attempted to sell them to buy a coat for the winter. It was not his first stealing offence, but presumably his young age of 17 saw him transported rather than hanged. From his record it is clear that while in Van Diemen’s Land he was flogged and subjected to long periods of hard labour and inhumanely cramped solitary confinement.

Eventually he escaped and somehow eluded capture long enough to find his way to the colony of Melbourne. In those years he needed to change his name three times and was married under one of those names to my great-great-grandmother Winifred Nealis. She had been orphaned in the Great Famine in Ireland, taken to an orphanage where she was forbidden to speak Gaelic and eventually made to sail “into service” in Australia.
 
Of necessity, Samuel and Winifred kept a low profile. Samuel transported goods to the goldfields while Winifred ran a boarding house tent at the Gold Rush tent town which sprang up near the site of what is now the Victorian arts precinct.
 
Perhaps even then things may have been too dangerous for them, because when they boarded ship for England, it was under one of Samuel’s false names. They eventually returned under Samuel’s real name, on condition that he become an indentured farm labourer on French Island in Western Port. By that time the colonial office and administrators had given him up for dead and nobody cared enough to pursue him.
 
Samuel and Winifred managed to claw their way out of abject poverty, keep their children alive into adulthood and eventually even own some land. Winifred died knowing that because of her efforts growing and selling vegetables, she had been able to pay a ticket-of-leave man to educate their children. They would not struggle against the stigma and disadvantage of illiteracy as she had done.
 
However, there can be no doubt that both Samuel and Winifred suffered immensely in their young lives, and fought for much of the rest of their lives against social stigma and also, in Winifred’s case, illiteracy and racism against the Irish. The Pickersgill children themselves also had very tough lives of struggle in the vagaries of late 19th and early 20th century economic crises and contagious disease rampant at the time which took several of their children. But to my knowledge they were not treated like criminals, or shunned by society, and neither were their offspring.
 
But how different would this situation be for me, as a descendent of the Pickersgills, if the stigma and prejudice that dogged Samuel and Winifred had become intergenerational? If Australian society still forced the descendants of transported convicts and illiterate Irish orphans to relinquish their identities, frequently uproot and move away from their geographic and emotional ancestries, and struggle for every little human right for themselves and their children?
 
If that was my lived experience, and that of my offspring, would we celebrate the day Samuel arrived as a convict on the transportation vessel, or Winifred arrived on board the ship as an illiterate Irish forced immigrant? Definitely not! Those dates would absolutely be a constant source of trauma for me.
 
At 16 years of age I became an environmental activist. The older I have become, the more acutely I feel the ongoing destruction of this continent for the sake of some mythical human construct known as GDP. It made me angry as a teenager and makes me even angrier now.
 
But this is not even my Country. I live on Bunurong Country. I cannot begin to imagine how painful it is for so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to see the destruction wrought by colonialism, imperialism and globalisation on their precious Country, sacred sites, their languages, their bio-cultural knowledge, cultural practices, families, health, well-being, and ability to make their own decisions about their lives and their communities. All of that horror and more started on January 26, 1788, when the actual permanent colony commenced. Much of that horror is ongoing.
 
If it is possible to cast off the colonial prism through which so many see the world, it may also be possible to finally see the current “Australia Day” for what it is. That date may seem to many to mark the start of the great nation we now call Australia. But, to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, it is the date when invaders commenced a concerted attempt to destroy over 500 great First Nations groups many millennia older, which stood (and still stand) in the way of the colonial juggernaut. For them, that date will always be Invasion Day –  but also, definitely, Survival Day.
 
We all need to ask ourselves: Why do we see ourselves as a great nation? There must be commonalities on the many answers to that question which will enable us to celebrate being “Australian”; to finally establish a true identity, and a date to celebrate that identity that does not scream colonialism and dispossession.
 
Of course we cannot expect all Aboriginal and Torres Strait people to celebrate any “Australia Day” with us. They are first and foremost members of their own millennia-old nations, and “Australia” is by definition only a colonial overlay.  
 
But surely we can agree to be less blatantly insensitive? To reach a point where we are actually, not just tokenistically, respectful of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on whose unceded Country we are so fortunate to live. Time to shed the colonial paradigm. Time to change the date.
30 Comments
Brian Carr link
27/1/2023 11:27:00 am

Great article, and so true, time to repair what damage we can.

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michael whelan
27/1/2023 12:39:34 pm

Nicely woven Christine. There is no doubt in my mind that it is time for Makarrata. The Statement from the Heart is a mature, wise and generous offer. It frustrates me that we still have mainstream interests undermining the process that reason and good grace should lead us to.
I too am an Irish descendant and recall my sadness at coming across a famine ship, a famine pot used by the Quakers to feed starving people and my anger at reading about the famine and its imposed and the role of the English Government while I was in Ireland.

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Christine
30/1/2023 02:24:04 pm

Hello Michael. Have you been to the monument on foreshore at Williamstown to the Irish famine orphan forced immigrants and the dispossessed Aboriginal people of the area? I've been reading about it after coming across it on YouTube while researching Winifred Nealis/Pickersgill. She was sent out on the first ship, the Lady Kennaway, 1848. If you're interested in that horror part of British/Australian history, the link to the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPvjmUP9qOA Hopefully one day I'll be strong enough to make the trip to Williamstown and lay some flowers at the monument.

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Felicia Di Stefano
27/1/2023 01:08:39 pm

Thank you for a beautiful essay, Christine, and an argument that may even sway the opposing side.

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john cobbledick
27/1/2023 05:46:46 pm

It amazes me ,how the past is more important than the future to some, and they just want to change it.! Just think if it wasnt for the British colonizing Australia ,it would have been the French,Dutch, or some other European power .Where are the Countrys that were colonized by the Europeans today? Think about it . 54 countrys Colonized by Britain ,still remain part of the British Family .It is called THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH ,So my question is "if the British colonization was so bad Why do these countrys remain in the Commonwealth?" .Australia is a wonderful Country and had a wonderful future . That has been put into jeopady by the negativity of those that believe the past is more important than the future .The past is important Learn from the past dont try to change it, and we will have a better future, The 26 th of January is a day of celebration because Australia was on its way from a stoneage, tribal, territorial , land to becoming a major industrial multi cultural country . I love Australia I hate what it is becoming because of the people that can only find fault, even when they have never had it so good

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Christine
28/1/2023 07:49:13 pm

Thanks for your comments John Cobbledick. You have perfectly expressed the persistent colonial mindset. Please note that the British Commonwealth has been the Commonwealth of Nations since 1949.

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Pamela Jacka
29/1/2023 04:33:09 pm

I wasn't going to comment but I came back if only to give John a bit of support! Nowadays, unfortunately, we put todays standards and hyperbole up against history knowing it's not going to come up to today's exacting standards. Things that happened in the past and still do in some places around the world, are hard for us to understand but I'm pleased that we seem to have learned. But we need to stop pushing because we are getting close to the end of a lot of people's tether.
I am very proud of my heritage (Cornish/Irish) and the contribution my ancestors have made to this country, since their arrival in the 1850s. I think it's time we all started realising we live in a fabulous country and work to ensure we keep it that way. Stop comparing today to how it used to be and lets work together, as one, to ensure the future continues to provide that safe haven, prosperity and democracy that we've worked so hard for over the years.

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Pamela Jacka
29/1/2023 04:59:37 pm

... and I'm a very proud Australian and I'm a bit tired of people putting in the boot!

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Christine
29/1/2023 05:55:19 pm

Thank you for coming back to join the conversation Pamela. I am glad you are a proud Australian. I'm not sure that you would qualify as someone who is sick of people putting in the boot compared with how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people feel, with that happening every day of their lives.Right now. Unfortunately I am not comparing today to how it used to be. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to have the worst health markers of any group in the Commonwealth. Successful governments have failed to 'close the gap' on this. Recommendations of the deaths in custody Royal Commission have gone nowhere, and now we have even more punitive measures against children in several states in Australia. As an Australian I am certainly not proud of that.

Catherine Watson
30/1/2023 09:02:25 am

Pamela, I agree that Australia has generously welcomed most of us migrants.
Christine's point was that it has not provided a "safe haven, prosperity and democracy" for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Rather it has dispossessed them and subjected them to particularly cruel restrictions based on race. The consequences are still felt today.

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Pamela Jacka
31/1/2023 07:51:54 pm

Sorry, Catherine, I missed your post. I acknowledge that there have been shortcomings regarding the treatment and welfare of our aboriginal brothers & sisters. I have recently read a self-published book called No Turning Back: Life Story of Pearl and Bruce Smoker, missionaries in the Kimberley, WA based in the 1950s onwards. It certainly opened my eyes about, in particular, the WA government of the time and their lack of accountability for the welfare of aborigines who had been evicted from their home lands. (The work by the missionaries, under extremely trying conditions, was amazing.) I'm aware of what has happened in the past, however I just think it's time to move forward and start working towards improving the lives of all aborigines. There are many in the cities who, through education, have broken through the barriers. How was this done? Through education.
And, that's where I focus my energies. Education is a wonderful tool, empowering, confidence building. I have been a financial supporter of the Indigenous Literary Foundation for quite some time. Noel Pearson, Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, is a long time supporter of education being the way out for the problems we see in aboriginal communities.
That is why I get frustrated with negative comments .. move on. Let's get behind those ideas that can only improve conditions and outcomes. And banning alcohol is not racist. It happens to white people as well. It is a drug that needs to be controlled before there can be any forward progress. Allowing alcohol is akin to abuse in my opinion. Let's help those affected find a way out of the mire instead of harping on about the probable cause. We've identified the problem, let's now work on the solution.

Pamela Jacka
29/1/2023 06:24:15 pm

You'd be wrong there Christine .. I have copped the boot many times during my life! I wonder why you would think that I don't qualify? Anyhow, I just prefer to focus on the positives .. and they include many aboriginal politicians, of both persuasions. And conditions have improved. Not everywhere but that applies to many. And successive governments changing aboriginal welfare policies each time there is a change of government doesn't help the situation. I would prefer that there is one government department, probably located in Canberra to oversee all aspects of aboriginal welfare. Preferably apolitical as well. For each four steps forward we seem to be going back a couple each time there is a change of government but that's two forward. We supposedly have a "progressive" government in control now, so let's see how that goes. Alice Springs indicates that it's not great so far?

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Christine
29/1/2023 09:00:05 pm

Pamela I'm afraid you are indicating a classic colonial perspective in your comments here. Perhaps you need to educate yourself a bit more about the realities of the situation rather than just going by the popular media. Best wishes on your journey of discovery for a different insight on this situation. Meanwhile there is no point in me engaging with you further since you have blinkers well and truly on.

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john cobbledick
30/1/2023 09:06:30 am

Christine , Why" when you are not being agreed with" Do you try to put down people with opposing veiws ? A typical tactic

Pamela Jacka
30/1/2023 07:19:28 am

I see the Australian aboriginals, the longest surviving civilisation, as survivors, not victims which people insist on calling them. Perhaps you could have a look at what Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and even Marion Scrymgour have to say on the current situation. It's time to move forward.
The media I mostly refer to is definitely not popular according to the ABC! I actually refer to multiple sources. This chat has been enlightening in many ways. Thank you for your input.

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john cobbledick
30/1/2023 08:56:51 am

Pamela , An interesting debate , A pitty it was shutdown by Christine because she was losing , but thats the way of the WOKE!. Congratulations on presenting a true perspective of history totaly ignored,or changed to suit the agenda of the brain washed , and power hungry Marxists . I was going to reply to Christine's reply to my post but I knew that her opinion was the only one allowed . thanks for your Support

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Christine
30/1/2023 02:10:59 pm

John I have not shut down the debate. I welcome all new input to everything I write. But life is short. I am disabled and my energies are limited. I physically cannot keep responding to people who are just constantly pushing the same argument. Any of you are welcome to write your own essays putting your point of view and submitting it to this or any other forum you think appropriate for consideration by the editor for publication. Meanwhile I would point out that name-calling and stereotyping is a strategy commonly employed by people who are themselves 'losing', if that is the way you want to frame discussions - as a win or lose. That is not how I think. By the way, as an historian I have studied many forms of politics and society, and can assure you that I am not and never have been a Marxist. That is - like all of the others - yet another political form of support for 'unending growth economy' which is clearly destructive of life and non-life on Planet Earth. As for WOKE, the Miriam-Webster dictionary defines this in modern language as: “Aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” I would say that is important to all of us regardless of our race or social status. The key words are 'actively attentive to', meaning not just going on assumptions but exploring deeper. My response to you is the same as for Pam regarding statements about this essay. I can't see any point in wasting my precious and limited energy and time on this earth beating my head up against brick walls. So unless you have some different insight to contribute I won't be responding further to you either. Thanks for taking the time and effort to comment anyway.

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Christine
30/1/2023 09:56:06 am

Pamela obviously you, John Cobbledick and I have very different experiences with Aboriginal and Torres Strait people and therefore different views. However, I believe you were in the army at some stage of your life. I wonder, if you are a Bass Coast resident, if you would be willing to write an 800 or so word essay about your army experiences. Maybe some photos to go with it? I have several associates in the forces, but few people do, just as few people actually know any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. You are clearly articulate and not frightened of writing, so why don't you give it a go? I for one would be most interested to read about your experiences. As editor of course Catherine Watson has the final say, and right to edit as appropriate. Understood if you don't want to do this. Thanks, Christine.

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JOAN WOODS
30/1/2023 11:30:31 am

Dear Christine and all those who responded - Hurrah, hurrah and more hurrahs. It has been a most entertaining debate and came from many hearts. The historical perspective is necessary to get a greater depth of view, so don't knock it ever. Just build on it with with compassion and humility as knocks are not always confined to the few who voice their experiences..

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Christine
30/1/2023 02:15:42 pm

Hello Joan! Thanks for reading and commenting. Good to have some useful debate. I've been looking at our old Ibis anthologies - they were great! When are you going to write something else for the Post?

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Pamela Jacka
1/2/2023 08:26:32 am

Hello Joan, you are quite right. Both "arguments" in this discussion are correct. For me it's just a matter of where the priorities lie now for a better outcome for all.

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Meryl Tobin link
3/2/2023 12:08:31 pm

Brilliantly expressed, Christine. Thank you.

I do have a respectful message for those who can’t appreciate what you are saying though.

Dear Fellow Australians,

Please try walking in someone else’s shoes.

Have you ever wondered where Australia would be today if the Allies had lost WW2? Would you be in the comfortable position you are in today glorifying the colonial era? Would you be speaking Japanese, would you be part-Japanese, would you be the child of rape, would your land have been taken/stolen would you have been taken/stolen from your mother, would your children have been taken/stolen from you, would you have equal opportunity for education, housing, jobs, would you be living the sort of lifestyle you and your people wish, would you have to wait 179 years for a Referendum to include you and your people in the Constitution and count you as part of the Australian population, would you...?

Would you be writing Learn from the past dont try to change it, and we will have a better future?

If someone treats you as their social and genetic inferior in your own land, or even as though you don’t exist, would that make life difficult for you?

Would you be wanting acknowledgment of the wrongs done to you and your people, respect as a fellow human being, a treaty and a say in your own affairs?

May I respectfully suggest you watch the four-part 1981 Australian TV drama series 'Women of the Sun', which depicts history from an Aboriginal perspective in the 1820s, 1890s, 1930s and 1980s? If you are prepared to walk in the Aborigines’ shoes, you might come to appreciate the history you think so admirable is not so admirable from the point of view of those on the receiving end of a colonial power.

May I also respectfully suggest that we cannot, in conscience, move on until we acknowledge and address the past and its wrongs which are still being perpetrated now? If not, and unless we take steps to ensure they are not, they will be perpetrated into the future.

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john cobbledick
3/2/2023 05:35:53 pm

Hi Meryl,
Firstly let me say, an interesting post ..I do agree with some of your views .The treattment of Aboriginal people was appalling . BUT hypotheticals?? I am of convict English ,Irish decent ,I am proud of their contribution to this country .Through their hardships we now have a modern Country and all its people are living better lives than they were in 1788 . In answer to one of your hypotheticals I would say .Yes, all Australians black and white waited for171 years to be recognized as Australian. On January 26th 1949. before that we were British Citizens,We need to move on and celebrate Australia day together as one people without racial overtones

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Christine
3/2/2023 08:46:23 pm

Thank you Meryl. Such a thoughtful and challenging comment on my post. I'm not sure what the big deal is about sticking to Jan 26 as the date. I don't have a problem celebrating being 'Australian', but why does it have to be that date? John C's suggestion that it is valid because it is when some of us became Australian citizens rather than British citizens does not wash when we still have the British monarch as our head of state. We are still a colonial country, in both attitude and constitution. As for being such a paradise, perhaps those who claim that might think about how unpolluted this continent was when the Dutch, Portuguese, British stepped foot first, and how horribly polluted our land, waterways and seas are now. Or even better, do some research readily available on a myriad of scientific research sites rather than big business-funded 'information' sites. So-called 'stone age' societies did not mix elements and create synthetic 'forever polluting' chemicals. This was not because they didn't have the intelligence to do so. Aboriginal people's plant chemistry knowledge is extraordinary, for example. It is because they had taboos around doing so, and for very good reasons as we now know, and future generations will not thank us for. The uranium site at Kakadu is a classic example, which Aboriginal people avoided completely for tens of thousands of years and resisted mining there because they knew it was a place of sickness. Now that mine has seriously polluted a slab of those people's beautiful Country and waterways and neither the mining company nor the government have got a clue what to do to fix the problem. Same with many other abandoned mining sites, especially in Western Australia. We don't even have to go further than the La Trobe Valley to see a truly horrible example of how colonial attitudes have made a terrible mess that no one has an answer to that won't create worse problems. Take the blinkers off please. There are many reasons Jan 26th is an inappropriate choice of date if you want to truly be inclusive in any celebration of what being Australian means in 2023. Or maybe you actually don't want to be inclusive?

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john cobbledick
3/2/2023 09:21:41 pm

Thanks for the admisstion of your true REPUBLICAN agender Christine .I am not a Monarchist by the way, but. why hide behind a Colonial racist post ? I see no point in doing so.

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Christine
3/2/2023 09:25:51 pm

I'm not sure what you mean by 'Agenda' John. I'm just telling it like it is.

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john cobbledick
4/2/2023 10:39:12 am

You are telling it like it is in your opinion,Christine !
I also have my opinion ,and that is to blame the colonial past for all the problems of the Aboriginal people is wrong ! To hold white Australians of today responsable is wrong ! I do not accept any blame for what my white ancestors may, or may not have done,.

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Frank W Schooneveldt
4/2/2023 11:39:19 am

I agree with you that we should change the date of Australia Day from the 26th January to a more appropriate day in recognition of the hurt our indigenous brothers and sisters feel on this date. I like Wattle day, however we all enjoy a holiday in the summer months so maybe mid January or mid February. Maybe the second Monday of January each year.
I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart and I fully support the recommendation for “the voice” to we written into the Constitution. This is an acknowledgment of the past and a way forward.

The ABS tells us one-third (33.1%) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population was under 15 years of age. This is an enormous opportunity to provide a proper education and truth telling of their history to these young people and to provide them with a fantastic future.
Cheers



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Meryl Tobin link
4/2/2023 12:43:33 pm

Thanks, al,l for joining in an uncomfortable debate Australians shirk from but need to have. What is a step forward is that there is some consensus emerging, an apparent recognition of some middle ground among all correspondents to Christine’s post. All correspondents seem to agree that First Nations people were not treated well.

John, you personally state, “The treatment of Aboriginal people was appalling.” Good to know you are not one of the deniers of history––although many would describe dispossession, rape, imprisonment, ‘enslavement’ and massacres in far stronger terms.

Re your statement, ‘all Australians black and white waited for171 years to be recognized as Australian’. On January 26th 1949. before that we were British Citizens.’ Respectfully, I suggest you check out what this meant to Aborigines and whether or not their ‘citizenship’ was equal to that of non-indigenous peoples.

For instance, in the 1950s Pastor Doug Nicholls, later Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls and first First Nations Governor of an Australian state, gave an address to school students. He said, “Give us a fair go!” At the time he said, if he wanted to travel by train, he had to travel in the Guard’s Van. Have you or your older relatives ever had to travel under the protection of the guard? Forget about having a vote or being counted in the Census.

I think all of us correspondents would agree with you that, “We need to move on and celebrate Australia day together as one people without racial overtones.”

But that is pie in the sky if we still have people living on the receiving end of racism––and other forms of disrespect and discrimination, for that matter.

Respectfully, let’s go step-by-step and see what we can agree on to achieve the desired aim. It might also help any ego-centric persons born with what they consider the ‘right’ race, ‘gender’, colour, and whatever, to empathize with those who are not.

Some suggested steps that need to be taken so we can ‘move on’:
1. An apology from the Government to survivors. To his credit, former PM Kevin Rudd has already done this. However, as we are talking about a date to unite all Australians, how about an apology for the past insensitivity in choosing Invasion Day, the day which commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Port Jackson in 1788? It marks the dispossession of our First Peoples who continue to suffer the effects of colonisation and racism.

2. An acknowledgment there is still unfinished business that we need to do something about. Remember, this island was taken by force from its peoples and there has been no treaty.

3. Take responsibility to redress wrongs of the past and act on it now. Even if you didn’t personally take land from the indigenous owners and commit other acts of violence, can you appreciate that you have benefitted greatly from the history that you consider so ‘appalling’ in regard to Aborigines? If not, can you appreciate that all of the other correspondents and numerous other Australians do have a sense of fair play and are ashamed of blots on our history and that we want to do something about it?

This is where we have discriminated but need to better discriminate in favour of those who have been discriminated against for so long. People who have an understanding of how social justice works look to strategies to achieve it peacefully, for instance, through Land Rights, a treaty and The Voice. Sadly, one of my biggest concerns is the ongoing appalling incarceration and treatment of young First Nations children as young as 10 in detention centres. I don’t know about you, but I shall be haunted for the rest of my life by the image of five big brutal guards charging into a cell and throwing themselves at a defenceless kid who hadn’t yet gone through puberty and hurling him face down on a bed.

4. Vote for The Voice. Once we show non-indigenous Australians that we respect, acknowledge and accept them as the traditional owners, which many Government, corporate and individual Australians are already doing and vote for The Voice, it would be a fitting gesture to ask The Voice to suggest a date.

5. Undoing the harm of the Stolen Generations: As a person born at a time when I could have been ‘legally’ taken away from my parents if I had been born ‘half-caste’ and as a mother of children who could all have been ‘legally’ seized from me if they were ‘half-caste’, I can hardly begin to think how to right the wrongs to the survivors of these inhuman practices, though reuniting any still un-reunited and providing free counselling services would be a start. Any other suggestions about how you’d feel and what redress could be made to make you ‘whole’ again if you had been in these situations, J

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Christine
4/2/2023 01:18:23 pm

Thank you for this cogent summary of the actual situation Meryl. At about 800 words this is a Bass Coast post essay in itself - perhaps Catherine could publish it as a separate essay to reach a different audience.

I had a close family member who was stolen and adopted out, but his family did not know until after he passed, so he never reunited with his Aboriginal family or Country. He certainly lived his life with a 'hole in the soul', as many in that situation do. It is not the sort of hole that can be filled with a good education, or material goods, or 9 til 5 secure job, regardless of the intentions of 'Aboriginal welfare departments'.

I will take this opportunity to thank everyone who has read and thought about my essay and those who have commented here. It is so good for our wonderful Bass Coast Post to have an active exchange happen around any of the published essays. I hope you will continue to comment on other essays which Catherine posts, or maybe give them a 'like', so that us writers know that our efforts are at least being considered.

Of course feel free to continue this discussion via comments here, but I have to move on as I have a big commitment with a deadline looming. Keep on thinking outside the square everyone! CG

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