In its broadest sense ‘Reconciliation’ is the Australian term that refers to the unity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. To support reconciliation means working to overcome the separation and inequality between all Australians (Australia, n.d.). In 1992, then Prime Minister Paul Keating, delivered the Redfern Park speech that publically acknowledged European soldiers were responsible for many crimes against Indigenous communities, "We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice (Government, 1992)." Since 1993, Reconciliation Week is a national event that celebrates a positive and respectful relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It enables all Australians to close the gaps, and to achieve a shared sense of fairness and justice. The ultimate goal of the week is to build a strong and trusting relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and other Australians, as a foundation for success and to enhance national wellbeing (Australia, n.d.). However, this advocacy for Indigenous rights and recognition was advanced be civil right activists in the 1950’s and 1960’s. One significant activist from this period and until her death in 1993 was Oodgeroo Noonuccal. Oodgeroo Noonuccal has significantly contributed to the civil rights of the Indigenous people in Australia due to her tireless campaigning to educate non-Indigenous Australians and enact political change that would not only recognize Indigenous Australian and Torres Strait Islander people within the census but further understand their rich and diverse culture. Noonuccal’s contribution can be seen through her significa... ... middle of paper ... ...ed on Australia's working women and Oodgeroo Noonuccal's life is featured as one of the exhibitions. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English wrote, "Overall her work, and life, was a passionate and articulate expression of wrongs inflicted upon Australian Aboriginal people and of the Aboriginal's indomitable will not only to survive but to flourish." Oodgeroo's seemingly timeless popularity is a testament to both her survival and her prosperity. Read more: http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Mi-So/Noonuccal-Oodgeroo.html#ixzz32Lc9ZFQE Read more: http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Mi-So/Noonuccal-Oodgeroo.html#ixzz32LbtoYk8 - In about every primary school in Australia Walker’s poem are used as literacy devices in teaching the younger generations about Indigenous culture
One of the many factors that have contributed to the success of Australian poetry both locally and internationally is the insightful commentary or depiction of issues uniquely Australian or strongly applicable to Australia. Many Australian poets have been and are fascinated by the issues relevant to Australia. Many in fact nearly all of these poets have been influenced or have experienced the subject matter they are discussing. These poets range from Oodgeroo Noonuccal Aboriginal and women’s rights activist to Banjo Patterson describing life in the bush. Bruce Dawe is also one of these poets. His insightful representation of the dreary, depressing life of many stay at home mothers in “Up the Wall” is a brilliant example of a poem strongly relevant to Australia.
This quote describes how Louise Halfe uses all four common elements of native literature in her writings. I have chosen to discuss two of the elements she frequently uses, Spirituality and Orality in relation to three of her poems: My Ledders, She Told Me and The Heat of my Grandmothers.
It is evident that by successfully manipulating rhetorical treatment of human aspirations and beliefs, powerful speeches are able to communicate confronting ideas that often challenge firmly-held views of an audience, thus demanding their engagement. It is through this process that Paul Keating in his Redfern Speech and Noel Pearson in his lecture, An Australian History For Us All, collectively present a compelling picture of the historical racism once endemic within Australia that many are still unable to come to terms with. The provocative nature of this perspective leads the two speakers to challenge their audience to finally accepting this confronting past, allowing progress for a nation-wide reconciliation.
It demonstrated just what can be achieved when determined people join together to make the effort to combat injustice. The Mabo case and its legacy were driven by Mabo the activist, his family and fellow plaintiffs, and a key support cast of lawyers, academics and now film-makers. Food for thought as we lead up to a referendum on the constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians.” Professor Joseph says as she ends her
among Aboriginal Australian’, in N Purdie, P Dudgeon & R Walker (eds), Working Together: Aboriginal
Impassioned orators provoke a strengthen desire for peaceful resolution to a situation that has previously aroused hostility. Two prominent Australians who achieved this are Noel Pearson’s speech ‘An Australian history for all of us’ and Paul Keating’s ‘Redfern Speech’. Both speeches portray the lack of national identity through the unjust treatment of the history of Aboriginal Australians. They also provoke a profound desire to resolve injustice due to one’s realisation of the amounting necessity for change to achieve a more harmonious and socially just society. This is to unite and unify the audience therefore encompassing a better future.
“Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human History. We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations—this blemished chapter in our nation’s history. The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians” (apology by Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, 16th November 2009, Parliament House, Canberra.)
To do this, Keating advocates the importance of acknowledging past events in order to re-build a future. He is using the past as a platform to ensure ALL Australians have to opportunity to prosper into the future. Keating acknowledged responsibility for the high incidence of violent crime, alcoholism and chronic drug use in Redfern when he referred to the ‘devastation and demoralisation’ evident within communities like Redfern as a ‘plight’ that ‘affects us all’. The combination of emotive and inclusive language effectively conveys his argument that our humanity and national identity will remain tarnished as long as Aboriginal Australians live in the metaphorical ‘shadows’. His rhetoric use of inclusive repetition – ‘We took the traditional lands… We brought the diseases…We committed the murders… We took the children’ – conveys an assertive tone which suggests that our national identity is burdened by past atrocities which ‘degraded all of
In August 2008 a ‘Statement of Reconcilliation’ was released by the Hornsby Shire and Council in conjunction with the local traditional custodians. The statement discusses the policies in which the community alleges to follow including; education to all those within the Hornsby district on the topic of Aboriginal history, to respect the survival of the indigenous and protect all indigenous sites. The reconciliation statement concludes with a an apology to the Guringai people and acknowledges the lost and trauma in which they all went through. This in conjunction with the national apology by Kevin Rudd in 2008, displays a major change within society. The country and local communities were educated in the statement “this was their land and water and that they remain its spiritual custodians.” (NSW Reconciliation Council, 2008).
The article Apologies to Indigenous Peoples in Comparative Perspective by Michael Tager is an outstanding and well articulated article. Tager puts into retrospect the failed attempts of an apology and the difficulty for the government to apologize for the injustices done to Indigenous people around the world. The history contained within the article gives the reader a look at the injustices that have been done to Indigenous people and the injustices that continue today. This article provides much information about the events that led up to the official apology within Canada, Australia and the issues surrounding the weak apology given by the United States. Michael Tager compares each apology exceptionally and explains how an apology can be
As this poem characterizes the view of a native woman expressing feelings of passion relating to her culture, it also criticizes society, in particular Christianity, as the speaker is experiencing feelings of discontent with the outcome of residential schools. It does not directly criticize the faith, but through the use of a heavy native dialect and implications to the Christian faith it becomes simple to read the speakers emotions.
The power of the spoken word has allowed Keating to connect and challenge to both the immediate audience and the wider crowd. What was the purpose of Keating’s speech. Keatings purpose was to ensure a movement towards a national mindset which could build a reconciled society with a unified national identity. He encourages the audience to accept the values of recognition, empathy and reconciliation, instead of guilt. What sort of long term responses did Paul Keating’s speech have on the audience? It is through the impact of the speech on the wider crowd in which initiates long term responses such as the Native Title Act 1993 and the Native Title Land Fund. The speech put reconciliation on Australians political agenda, it is responsible for paving the way for 2007s formal apology to Indigenous Australians and providing the aboriginals of Australia with the acknowledgement they had been longing for. Although the speech was not given a lot of media at the time, it is now regarded as one of the greatest Australian speeches of all time. It is through Keating’s emphasis on “we” in which he creates a sense of inclusion and acceptance towards the audience as they develop a mutual understanding and sense of support “To bring the dispossessed out of the shadows”. It is through the same line where Keating reflects on his duties to lead the nation through instilling the ideal of racial equality in his appeal to the pathos of European Australians. Power of the spoken word is then illustrated through Keatings repetitive demands for the audience to “imagine”. This evokes the audience to become immersed into the ideal of racial equality as they are encouraged through reassurance “It can’t be too hard” and certainty “I am confident that we will succeed”. Keating further uses
Summary of Text: ‘The Redfern Address’ is a speech that was given to a crowd made up of mainly indigenous Australians at the official opening of the United Nations International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in Redfern Park, New South Wales. This text deals with many of the challenges that have been faced by Indigenous Australians over time, while prompting the audience to ask themselves, ‘How would I feel?’ Throughout the text, Keating challenges the views of history over time, outlines some of the outrageous crimes committed against the Indigenous community, and praises the indigenous people on their contribution to our nation, despite the way they have been treated.
Noonuccal uses emotive language in ‘Then and now’ to strengthen the overall representation of her poem; that, after white people came, the Aboriginal people weren’t viewed as significant. This is exposed in the phrase ‘now I am civilised and work the white way’. The words ‘civilised’ and
Australia has been depicted through several different artforms – paintings, songs, poems – in order to reflect the multicultural national identity of Australia. These artforms in particular, had influenced the nation and advanced thought provoking ideas during the era of the oppressed indigenous people. Indigenous authors enlightened the hardships they faced, through artforms such as poems and contributed greatly to the Australian national identity. Oodgeroo Noonuccal, was the first Aboriginal woman to be a published author, and her poem “No More Boomerang,” highlights the impact the white settlers had on the indigenous community by showing the contrast in their daily lifestyles and the affect of the loss of their culture. These are revealed, through poetic techniques, imagery and symbolism, in order to deliver the subject matter to the audience. The message of the forced cultural differences the indigenous people faced was emphasised boldly and marked the white settlers as thieves of their land and culture.