Professor Smallwood has asked me to submit to you the article below. She is in the NT and cannot contact you directly.
Sincerely,
Gary MacLennan
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Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has done us all a favour by her recent statements opposing the Voice to Parliament. She has made it clear that to seek a Voice is wrong because it implies criticism of the Settler Colonial conquest of Australia. Presumably for Price what the Indigenous survivors must do is to become more like herself and display a lot more gratitude to the conquerors. It seems for those like the Hon Mr Dutton, who has praised Ms Price for her “courage”, we do not need a Voice. At last, I begin to understand the opposition to the Uluru Statement From the Heart. For those who say “No” to a Voice, we First Nations people should be saying “thank you” instead.
I did not think it would ever be necessary after the brilliant scholarship of historians such as Lyndal Ryan, Henry Reynolds, Ray Evans, Joanne Watson, Patrick Wolfe, Mark Copland and others to point out the truth of the colonial conquest of Australia. But let me quote from a great Australian, Paul Keating and his Redfern Address of 1992. There he said-
We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask – how would I feel if this were done to me?
I recall myself and a group of my friends sobbing with heartfelt tears when we heard these words. We cried because we saw the possibility of another future for the land, we all love, Australia. The future we saw was that of an Australia where reconciliation could become a lived reality. We also wanted, especially for the young, an Australia which would turn its back on the rapacious modernity that was brought to these shores from 1788 onwards.
That modernity strove with whips, chains and guns to wipe out the ancient way of life that had evolved in Australian over the millennia. Now that same modernity threatens the very existence of life on this planet.
In the years since my friends and I have continued to plead for all Australians to listen to the wisdom that Indigenous Australia can gift to Australia. To non-Indigenous Australians we plead “Recognize our humanity”. We ask that because in recognising our humanity Non-Indigenous Australia will discover their own humanity.
For over 60 thousand years we Indigenous Australians have understood that to survive we must reach a balance. As the Navajo philosopher and scientist, Gregory Cajete, has pointed out we humans must live in harmony with the earth. We must live in harmony with one another, and we must listen to the spirit that began all things.
I will finish this plea to the people of Australia in the way I finished my doctoral thesis. I will quote a poem by another great Australian, Oodgeroo Noonuccal. For her son Dennis, she wrote these words. They hold out yet once more the promise of another future, that of a reconciled Australia, liberated at last from the legacy of the dire deeds of colonial conquest.
My son, your troubled eyes search mine,
Puzzled and hurt by colour line.
Your black skin as soft as velvet shine;
What can I tell you, son of mine?
I could tell you of heartbreak, hatred blind,
I could tell you of crimes that shame mankind,
Of brutal wrong and deeds malign,
Of rape and murder, son of mine;
But I’ll tell you instead of brave and fine
When lives of black and white entwine,
And men in brotherhood combine-
This would I tell you, son of mine
I will conclude now by speaking truth to power as I have tried to do all my life. We the Indigenous people of Australia are holding out to the rest of Australia the hand of love and friendship. Please do not scorn that gesture. It comes from the heart.
In the name of all the dead generations, I beg you to say “Yes” on the 14th of October.
Gracelyn Smallwood
28 Sept 2023