RECONCILIATION It's time! The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, May 17th, 2000. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au> Subscription rates on request. ****************************** In the face of the hard-line, narrow-minded and mean attitude of Prime Minister Howard and his equally hard-line Cabinet supporter, Phillip Ruddock, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation has maintained its principled position in the document drawn up for adoption by the Government and the Australian people during the "Corroboree 2000'' demonstrations. At a function to launch a program of films produced by SBS TV, Pat Dodson, the former Chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, called on the Australian people "to attend, to go to, to demonstrate their commitment and support for the reconciliation process". In praising and thanking SBS TV, Pat Dodson said that it was "in the understanding of the stories that learning and respect can grow. "And ultimately, when we as a nation come to understand the fundamental story of how this land was in the possession of the Aboriginal people and became transferred to the British, then we can understand what `Unfinished Business' is really about. "It is about coming to terms with the rights and interests of the Aboriginal people, their lands and their seas, their right to be the people that they were before the British came and to sustain their cultural and social values in the face of an ever changing, rapidly diversifying society. "It's time for Australia to actually make that shift, to make the shift to enable the Indigenous people of this nation the freedom to be who they are, to be the Indigenous people of this country, and to move beyond simple symbolic matters to matters of recognising our presence through our art and various other contributions that we make, and to begin to seriously look at what needs to be done politically in order to enhance and support the aspirations of Aboriginal people for the recognition of their rights and responsibilities to their culture and their own heritage. "That's a matter that has been a cause of division between us since the first ships sailed [in] ... and took over the lands here from the people without their consent and sought then to subjugate people to a different way of life based on a different philosophy, different values, without a real basis of re-learning or adapting to this environment, to the people or to the values of this country." Pat Dodson said that "reconciling a nation is a very hard and long process, particularly if one side of the nation decides it wants to remain entrenched in its perception of what the truth of this country is about." In describing that "other side" he referred to the "alternative point of view in a society that has become caught up with its own myopic view about itself". He went on: "Hopefully ... many other Australians [will] participate in the people's movement towards reconciliation, will help to look more critically at the off-handed way that Indigenous people's rights and interests are discarded and will start to appreciate the importance ... of the number of sites in this part of the world, the richness of the cultural heritage, [the] heritage of the people from this part of that world.... "When we can do that with a sense of pride and a sense of respect then we would have laid not only the foundations of a reconciled Australia but would have moved beyond [to] where there is an equality that the Indigenous people have sought for so long, equality and respect of our traditions, of our culture, when our rights are on a par with those of others who are citizens of this country." Pat Dodson said that when "we are able to get to a stage when we can reconcile the manner in which the rights and interests of Indigenous people are to be appreciated and expressed, hopefully within the constitutional framework, through a treaty or agreement, then we will have arrived at a day to appropriately celebrate and to lift our heads with some pride -- we [will] have achieved a reconciled Australia." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
