Extract from The Guardian
“Cuz, can you call me?”
It was my cousin Robbie Simpson leaving me a message, when I called back he wanted to talk about a speech I had given months earlier. The speech had suddenly gained a new life after being posted on the Ethics Centre website to mark Australia Day.
I had been out of the country and when I arrived back my wife told me how the video had been viewed thousands of times. It had all taken me by surprise. I had long forgotten the speech, delivered as part of an intelligence squared debate for the BBC posing the question: is racism destroying the Australian dream?
The debate had been sparked by the Adam Goodes booing controversy, but it was more than that. It challenged us to ask hard questions of a country that is demonstrably among the most tolerant, free, prosperous and safe in the world, yet has a stain on its soul.
It was my cousin Robbie Simpson leaving me a message, when I called back he wanted to talk about a speech I had given months earlier. The speech had suddenly gained a new life after being posted on the Ethics Centre website to mark Australia Day.
I had been out of the country and when I arrived back my wife told me how the video had been viewed thousands of times. It had all taken me by surprise. I had long forgotten the speech, delivered as part of an intelligence squared debate for the BBC posing the question: is racism destroying the Australian dream?
The debate had been sparked by the Adam Goodes booing controversy, but it was more than that. It challenged us to ask hard questions of a country that is demonstrably among the most tolerant, free, prosperous and safe in the world, yet has a stain on its soul.
I hadn’t prepared a speech, I didn’t want to rely on notes. I wanted to speak directly and honestly about some of my family’s experience and how we live with the weight of history. I wanted to speak of how we have reached out to Australia, fought in its wars, loved its people, worked and raised children. I wanted to speak of our heroes, people like the artist Albert Namatjira, Vincent Lingiari and his handful of sand from Gough Whitlam that ignited a land rights movement, Cathy Freeman lighting the Olympic flame.
But, I said, each time we are lured into the light we are mugged by the darkness of this country’s past.
Australia’s myths, poetry and anthem tell of a land that can appear unrecognisable to us. We don’t share in the “boundless plains”, we have not enjoyed the “wealth for toil”, the sweeping plains and rugged mountains ranges of a sunburnt country were too often places of death for us on the Australian frontier.
Indigenous people die still a decade younger than our fellow Australians, we are 3% of the population yet a quarter of those in prisons. By every measure Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders remain the poorest, most disadvantaged people in Australia and this is no accident. The seeds of our suffering were sown in dispossession at a time when the very humanity of my people was denied.
We are better than this, I said. I mean it. I have seen the worst of the world and this, in so many ways, is a remarkable nation. Those who have marched for reconciliation, who have supported the apology to the stolen generations, who voted to acknowledge our citizenship, who have extended the hand of friendship, they are better then this. A nation whose highest court can overturn the fiction of terra nullius and lay bare the lie of dispossession and settlement, is better than this.
The extraordinary and overwhelming response to my speech tells me we are better than this.
How am I feeling? I am astounded, humbled and perplexed. Australians are coming to this with newly opened ears and clear eyes, yet we have been telling this story for so long.
Other Indigenous people have delivered speeches similar to mine, frankly more courageous and enlightening – extraordinary, heroic people like William Cooper, Bill Ferguson, Jack Patten, Faith Bandler, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Charles Perkins, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Tracker Tilmouth, Dennis Walker, Gary Foley, Chicka Dixon, Lowitja O’Donoghue, Pat O’Shane, Marcia Langton, Michael Mansell, Ken Colbung, Peter Yu, Senator Neville Bonner, Mick Dodson - all have rattled the cages, shaken us from our lethargy, changed minds hearts and laws.
Today we have brilliant orators and thinkers like Noel Pearson, tireless champions of sovereignty like Michael Anderson, broadcasting pioneers like Tiga Bayles, the remarkable father of reconciliation Pat Dodson and Ken Wyatt the first Indigenous person to sit on the front bench of one of our two major federal political parties.
I wish I could name everyone, they deserve it and they have inspired me beyond words. This Australia Day we should recognise them all and the Australians of all backgrounds who have stood with us for justice and freedom.
This is the essence of Australia Day for me, a recognition of what makes us great and what that greatness demands of us. We all view this day through our own lens. For so many of my people it can be a day of pain and I fully understand that. For me, I mourn invasion and the suffering that followed, I commemorate our survivals and pride as Indigenous people, I honour my family and I acknowledge what is extraordinary about this country – our grit, our open heartedness, our generosity, our democracy, and I ask, how can we be better?
We have a new generation blazing trails in business and medicine and law and engineering and architecture and we are helping change the face – literally – of the performing arts. In sport we are often transcendent.
For all of that remember always that there are our brothers and sisters – far too many in number – for whom the Australian dream remains a long dark nightmare.
My speech has been compared to those of Martin Luther King, the sentiment is flattering but embarrassing, I am not anywhere near worthy and that is not false modesty. I haven’t been in the trenches of our struggle, I am the beneficiary of those who fought those battles. There are hard fights ahead, tough conversations of recognition and treaty and sovereignty led by others better equipped than me.
I am a journalist and a proud man of Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi heritage who also has the blood of white Australia in my veins. I want the best possible country for my children – don’t we all?
It is enough that my family – my cousin – can ring me and say “thank you for telling our story.”
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