Ah Reconciliation Week — the time for cupcaked morning teas, “lunch-and-learns”, special meetings and assemblies at workplaces and educational institutions across the continent.
Since I was a jarjum (child), May 27th to June 3rd has been marked by presentations broadly acknowledging historical dates in the First Nations rights movements, and reciting commitments from non-Indigenous people to “come together” for an equal future.
As I got older, I started to be tapped on the shoulder to deliver these presentations, often from overly cheerful superiors who were obviously just tapping the shoulder of the only Black person they knew who felt comfortable in front of a microphone. The difference between Reconciliation Week at work or school, and Reconciliation Week within my own community felt stark. Each year, I would hear the same play on words from my Aunties — “wreck on a silly nation” — followed by a chorus of affirming hums and a giggle.
For Blackfellas, Reconciliation Week has always been a complex time for us. It hit a different level last year when, after the failure of the Voice to Parliament referendum, many First Nations people shared that they felt that Reconciliation was dead. This week, First Nations people have taken time to demand a new pathway to First Nations justice.
“Stuff ya cupcakes,” ABC star Tony Armstrong said on Instagram this week. “From here on, we will be accepting reparations.”
What does reconciliation mean in a colonised country?
It is incorrect to say there has never been opposition from First Nations people to the framework of Reconciliation. However, it would also be incorrect to say there has never been support from First Nations people for the process, either.
The Reconciliation process in Australia officially began in 1991, through the creation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation as a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The Parliament then demanded that it would be “desirable” to have ‘achieved reconciliation’ by the centenary of Federation, a laughable suggestion of only 10 years to make amends.
In its operation, this group had 32 First Nations and 16 non-Indigenous members. It was also Chaired by First Nations activists like Patrick Dodson and Dr Evelyn Scott, who are giants in the history of Indigenous rights movements.
Nine years later, the council delivered its final report, timed to coincide with the 250,000 person-strong Walk for Reconciliation. The Council argued that reconciliation for 200 years of accumulated colonialism, oppression and genocide of First Nations people could not be “achieved” in a mere decade. This injustice, they said, was unfinished business.
Even at the inception of the Reconciliation movement, there were First Nations people demanding more for our people than what the government was offering. It’s this characteristic of demanding better and challenging the status quo that underpins the character of First Nations justice movements. I argue that this characteristic continues today in reflections from First Nations people about the “death” of Reconciliation.
And here we are, 24 years after 2000 Corroboree and feeling further away from reconciliation than ever.
That’s not to say there haven’t been huge changes and integral moments for First Nations justice, hard won by our people that have been won by our people.
The 1992 Redfern Address and the 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generations are some key moments that come to mind. Within the last 30 years, we have seen a rise in awareness of First Nations people and politics, a boom in First Nations-owned business, the re-introduction of traditional place names and languages, a noticeable increase of media representation, greater calls for truth-telling, progress in state-based treaties and Invasion Day rallies that get bigger every single year.
However, the scales continue to tip the other way, with ongoing setbacks and violence against our people and Country. I’m talking about things like:
- The racism of the Northern Territory Intervention
- The racism against Aboriginal athletes like Adam Goodes and Eddie Betts
- The ongoing bigotry of journalists like Alan Jones and Prue MacSween, who both have called for another Stolen Generation
- The ongoing destruction of our Country by fossil fuel companies, resource and pastoral industries who are denying our homelands of our custodianship in order to get profit
- Our children are still being stolen at higher rates than the Apology
- Still having deaths in custody, still being murdered at higher rates than the rest of the population.
When the facts are laid out, isn’t it easy to see why it’s difficult to keep running the peace talks? To quote Sissy Austin, “This Reconciliation Week is different: It is not business as usual. It is off the back of the ‘No’ vote and my people are dying”.
Speaking at a snap rally in Sydney this week, actor Meyne Wyatt said, “To stand here during Reconciliation Week, where this fucking country has brutalised Blackfellas. What is there to reconcile? Nothing! You stole my land, you killed my people, you’re stealing our children and the same thing is happening right now in Palestine.”
Even media icon Tony Armstrong turned his trademark humour to the issue this week, starring in a skit for a campaign called ‘Redistribution Week’ instead of Reconciliation Week, he offers non-Indigenous Australia to “keep your cupcakes and pay us what’s due”.
Demands to pivot from the Reconciliation framework this week comes from a deep disappointment at ongoing dispossession and injustice that has been building for a very long time. The 30 years of this movement has not failed because of First Nations people, who continued to show up every day for our rights. It has failed because of the unwillingness of power to change.
As I reflected on Monday, “Reconciliation is dead. Our arms are tired of holding olive branches while you hold our chains.”
Declaring the death of Reconciliation and the need for a new movement is not being ungrateful for the efforts of our Ancestors – in fact, we are operating in the same vein of activism that was demonstrated in the final report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation
This year, I and many others have again declared unfinished business and demanded more. The question is: who will stand with us?
Image source: Instagram / @tonaayy
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