When We Awake
When Australia awakes on Sunday 15th, it will be to a different country. A country of hope and new possibilities, or one diminished by the rejection of a once-in-a-lifetime act of grace from our First Nations peoples. The prevailing view suggests the latter and our national diminishment.
If we so awake, I fear especially for those fine young Indigenous Australians in our local community whom I’ve watched enacting the dignity of Uluru. These are not the single and singular, high-profile, political lightning rods with which the mainstream media is so enmeshed. These are our youth and community workers, our teachers, health workers and young professionals, trades people, and others committed to this community. If we awake to an endorsement of the status quo, it will be to the perpetuation of the inequitable outcomes they combat every day. But far worse, it will be to awake to the loss of hope.
If we awake to new possibilities, it will be to have recognised and embraced the extensive dialogue that spread across the Indigenous communities of this country over multiple years; the consultative and communal preferenced over the single and singular; the simple elegance and beauty of the Statement understood for its true intent.
If we awake to hope, it will be to the recognition of history, and the lived experience of our Indigenous peoples. While that history may have been poorly documented and inadequately taught, to suggest one period can be isolated from all that has gone before is as lamentably farcical as it is wilfully ignorant. Surely, we are a better nation than that.
When we awake on October 15, it may signal our maturity as a nation to admit and confront the racially based assumptions on which this country was founded and so move forward. It may on the other hand, be the last such opportunity, certainly in my lifetime. If so, then sadly, Australia must wait for another day when we may finally awake.
Talent Acquisition Supervisor at Hoag Hospital - Highest Ranked Hospital in Orange County
2wLove the matching outfits!!!