I would like to acknowledge the Dharawal and Wodi Wodi people of the land which the University of Wollongong stands. I pay my respects to elders and the ancestors before us, their sovereignty remains unceded.
I am a 21-year-old proud Bundjalung man, and I come from a long line of hard working Aboriginal men and women. Like most Indigenous people, my family and I are all too accustom with navigating the racial tensions pre-existent within the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. May 26 marks National Sorry Day, which references the past injustices towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The week that follows has come to be known as National Reconciliation Week, a national campaign initiated by the federal government, which seeks to foster positive race relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Reconciliation in Australia has been established with the priority of healing historic wounds – caused by cultural genocide, land dispossession and social marginalisation – in order to move forward equally as a nation. Many Indigenous and non-Indigenous people firmly embrace reconciliation. However, I unequivocally suggest that the Australian politicisation of ‘Reconciliation’, has become an outdated and redundant idea, disruptive to Indigenous excellence. In an article for the University of Melbourne, PhD Candidate, Todd Fernando asserts that “young Indigenous Australians are becoming quickly disillusioned by reconciliation as a deficit narrative too susceptible to tokenism.” (2019). The over emphasis on historic disadvantage and sympathy towards Indigenous peoples, have led to a plethora of tokenistic gestures rather than mutually progressive, institutional change. Therefore, take my tone as a rebuttal against the notions of such tokenism, to which this article may have been initially sourced to fulfil. Instead, I offer a critical perspective on Reconciliation and my thoughts on what constructive political progress should look like.
The over emphasis on historic disadvantage and sympathy towards Indigenous peoples, have led to a plethora of tokenistic gestures rather than mutually progressive, institutional change.
Whilst Reconciliation has honest foundations in truth-telling and the healing of intergenerational trauma, young Indigenous people are seeking higher aspirations. The Reconciliation rhetoric – though may be presented as the will of good intentions – maintains paternalistic ideologies towards the assumed condition of Indigenous Australians. Thus, perpetuates a deficit discourse within social thinking and policy, or as Noel Pearson would put it, the soft bigotry of low expectations. However, I do see great value in the theme presented in 2019’s National Reconciliation Week. The theme being: ‘Grounded in Truth – Walking Together with Courage’.
Grounded in Truth
So, let’s get grounded in some truths. In the current era, 50% of Indigenous people in Australia are under the age of 23, the Indigenous business sector contributes $6.6 billion annually to Australia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and through access to education and economic opportunity, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples may represent one of the fastest growing middle classes in the world. Despite the stereotypes the government would have us believe, young Indigenous people are far beyond a traumatized and disadvantaged group. This is due to the work and sacrifice of powerful activists before us. My elders envisioned a reality where our youth are recognised as powerful, independent and valuable.
Unfortunately, Anglo-European ideologies still dominate institutional frameworks. Institutional representations of Indigenousness still reflect colonial hegemony, invisibility and otherness. This in turn influences Indigenous self-efficacy when navigating institutions. At times, many Indigenous people develop an internalised deficit discourse and embody the narratives that permeate throughout Australian media, academia and politics. Disrupting this cycle is not easy when the national focus is solely built on healing past wounds and closing the gaps of disadvantage we blackfellas are simply born into, and can’t seem to change on our own.
Walking Together with Courage
It took me a long time to break free from the same narrative. Too often, the way we [Indigenous students] are addressed, included, and engaged in the academic institution, originate from the colonial pretexts of the disadvantaged, minority group. I do not propose we rid of everything to do with Reconciliation. But, suggest that Reconciliation can change with the times, so we can continue to progress without being limited by a rhetoric built on low expectations. I see the potential for Reconciliation taking a more sophisticated approach to achieve a shift from representing Indigenous peoples as disadvantaged, to what we truly are - pillars of knowledge, value and excellence. I see us relinquishing the paternalistic, sympathetic models of engagement, and embracing a more collaborative and nuanced relationship. This of course, takes courage. Just as it takes courage to step into an institution that even still today, wilfully neglects the colonial violence (such as the theft of land, the rape of our women, our stolen children, our languages lost and our voices silenced) all at the hands of western civilisation. This so called ‘civilisation’ that still denies our culture as complex, legitimate and relevant to contemporary knowledge and nation building.
Reflecting on the change I would like to see in the future, I pondered on the question of: what is the ultimate goal of reconciliation? I conclude, being the redundancy of a continuous conversation about reconciliation. And the existence of institutionally centred Indigenous epistemologies, and equal economic, political and educational inter-subjectivity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. This starts with cultivating socio-political independence and embracing the notion of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as embodiments of Indigenous excellence.
See the article published for the Tertangala here.