NAIDOC WEEK celebrations on 2 July

Last week, staff at IKE celebrated several events for NAIDOC week.

NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

IKE held a morning tea on Tuesday 2nd July to invite guests to decorate their banner to take to the annual NAIDOC march. At this event Associate Professor Gabrielle Fletcher gave an overview of the meaning of NAIDOC week and a statement on this year’s theme:

The history of NAIDOC week

NAIDOC is an acronym for National Aborigines and Islander Day Observance Committee. It was founded in its current iteration in 1991, but NAIDOC is the product of a long history of protest and advocacy.

Before the 1920s, Aboriginal rights groups boycotted Australia Day (26 January) in protest against the status and treatment of Indigenous Australians. By the 1920s, these groups were increasingly aware that the broader Australian public were largely ignorant of the boycotts. They realised that if the movement were to make progress, it would need to be active.

Several organisations emerged to fill this role, but their efforts were largely overlooked. William Cooper, who founded the Australian Aborigines League (AAL) in 1932, would present several petitions and policies to the Australian government over the next decade. All were rejected as the Australian Government felt that the issue was outside their constitutional power.

On Australia Day 1938, protestors marched through the streets of Sydney. This was followed by a congress attended by over a thousand people. It was one of the first major civil rights gatherings in the world and was the first time Australia day became known as the Day of Mourning.

Thanks again to the work of William Cooper, the Day of Mourning became a regular event. From 1940-1955, the Day of Mourning was held annually on the Sunday before Australia Day and was known as Aborigines Day.

In 1955, Aborigines Day was shifted to the first Sunday in July after it was decided the day should become not simply a protest day but also a celebration of Aboriginal culture.

Up until the early nineties major Aboriginal organisations, state and federal governments, and a number of church groups all supported the formation of the National Aborigines Day Observance Committee (NADOC) to oversee the day. The “I” was added later to acknowledge Torres Strait Islander people.

NAIDOC now encompasses a whole week, not just the day. Each year, a theme is chosen to reflect the important issues and events for NAIDOC Week.

This year’s theme: Voice. Treaty. Truth. Let’s work together for a shared future

Image- courtesy of N Bowdery, 2 July, 2019. IKE

This theme invites a celebration of Indigenous voice that include know-how practices, skills and innovations. These are found in a wide variety of contexts, such as agricultural, scientific, technical, ecological and medicinal fields, as well as biodiversity-related knowledges. They are words connecting us to Country, an understanding of Country and of a peoples who are the oldest continuing culture on the Earth. 2019 is also the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages; it’s time for our knowledge to be heard through our voice.

This is about the recognition of our unique place in Australian history and contemporary life. We need to be the architects of our lives and futures.

For generations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have looked for significant and lasting change. Voice. Treaty. Truth. were three key elements to the reforms set out in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. These reforms represent the unified position of First Nations Australians.

However, the Uluru Statement built on generations of consultation and discussions among Indigenous people on a range of issues and grievances. Consultations about the further reforms necessary to secure and underpin our rights and to ensure they can be exercised and enjoyed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

It specifically sequenced a set of reforms: first, a First Nations Voice to Parliament enshrined in the Constitution and second, a Makarrata Commission to supervise treaty processes and truth-telling. (Makarrata is a word from the language of the Yolngu people in Arnhem Land. The Yolngu concept of Makarrata captures the idea of two parties coming together after a struggle, healing the divisions of the past. It is about acknowledging that something has been done wrong, and it seeks to make things right).

Truth Telling

Some of these truths are uncomfortable and difficult to articulate. This week is a time of celebration. It is also a time of reflection. It is a commitment to remembering and finding voice, particularly for those who have experienced depths of ongoing trauma so visceral (and inter-generational) that it is experienced as silence. The telling of truth and how that truth may be received is centred upon trust and healing. Trust must be established and maintained, and NAIDOC Week provides for joy and contemplation upon this ongoing journey and consider the place of truth in this process – of telling with safety; of listening with humanity; of doing with integrity and strident purpose.

Without the truth, the past cannot be reconciled. And meaningful relationships, as just and equitable, may be inauthentic or token. The probity of reconciliation is mediated around five key dimensions: historical acceptance; race relations; equality and equity; institutional integrity and unity. The acknowledgement of the past, its impact and the move to reparation and healing is the responsibility of everyone. The recognition that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People’s Knowledges, ingenuity and cultural practices are sophisticated modalities that can inform other frames also forms the basis of re-shaping a shared contemporary Australian narrative that is respectful, rigorous and self-aware.

Victoria is particularly prescient in this truth telling with the adoption and implementation of the domestic Treaty agreement. And perhaps there has been some skittishness around the idea — where it seems too difficult or too political. It is a politic of recognition, without question. With no formal legislative framework in place to acknowledge the history and experience of First Nations People, all that we have has been based upon good will. Against a backdrop of massacre, oppression, silencing and erasure, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, being born at all is political act.

We need to acknowledge and celebrate the richness and diversity of all that we are. Who we are. Our struggles and savvy in surviving. Let us remember our warriors who have gone before. Who are here now. Family, friends, colleagues that have fought and suffered for us — their evidence is that we are here. Now. Today.

Let us walk together in truth, in community and as a call to action. In ending, I quote a Waradjuri Elder: ‘We are the people we have been waiting for’.

Image- courtesy of N Bowdery, 2 July, 2019. IKE

 

 

 

 

                                                                                

 

 

 

Thank you,

Associate Professor Gabrielle Fletcher

Acting Director, Institute of Koorie Education                             

The Institute acknowledges the Wadawurrung Peoples, the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waterways of the Country we meet on. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Those of us who are out of Country also pay our respects to the Great Ancestral Creator, Bunjil, in guiding us as we talk about Indigenous business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image- courtesy of N Bowdery, 2 July, 2019. IKE