A controversial subject...
This is a controversial subject in Australia at the moment....
With our recent elections The Greens Party were successful in many seats, in fact they have done better as another alternative party than ever before ..but.. it is the removal of the Australian flag from their press conferences that has caused the most controversy among so many and that is very understandable.
As quite a new Australian...of some years now I add...but not being born here I'm often reluctant to say what I think...so here goes:
I understand where they are coming from by promoting the aboriginal flag but I think it's totally the wrong way of going about things. It is dividing rather than uniting the nation. In saying that I fully support the first nations people and always feel they have been downtrodden and taken advantage of by so many, for so long, through the ages since white settlement/colonisation took place back in 1788. Also I totally support the flying of their own officially proclaimed flag but don't think leaving out the Australian flag from press conferences will win any friends either.
When our new Prime Minister won the election recently in his first speech he stated there would be an Uluru Statement From The Heart.. given its full title. Meaning an historic consensus of Indigenous leaders in seeking constitutional change to recognise first Australians through a voice to Parliament. This was first introduced five years ago by the previous administration but nothing became of it.
It is a significant recognition of the original inhabitants of this land.
I cannot understand why there has never been a treaty as in, as far as I can see, all other Commonwealth Countries of the world have done so with their own people.
I lived in New Zealand, from the United Kingdom, before arriving on these shores and in N Z they have long had a treaty with their first nation inhabitants since 1840 called The Treaty of Waitangi which is, and always was, greatly respected. So it was with great surprise when I found out there was never a treaty here with first nation people said to have been here for 40,000..some say 60,000 years prior to white settlement.
I can understand the bitterness, their resentment, towards white Australians in many cases as they are, it is said, amongst the most incarcerated people on Earth. And the deaths of so many Aboriginal people while in custody is of great concern.
Everyone always wants to help but it seems really no one truly succeeds.
The way I look at it, and I know it's rather simplistic, but if I, we, as white people were living here for however many thousands of years and suddenly a ship arrives with dark skinned people and they started to take over our land or as they referred to it at the time ..Terra Nullius..or "un-owned land".. meaning nothing was ever here, as though we were never here, never existed, I was never here, I also would be outraged.
Taking our land as theirs, murdering our people with guns when we only had hand made weapons and many other instances; too numerous to mention here. Massacres are well documented facts.
The interview below I have shared is from a television current affairs programme where a new senator of The Greens party is questioned about the flag, her beliefs, and why she is now in parliament and just what she hopes to achieve while there. And I can understand what she's saying...really I can.
I only hope for a good outcome from all this but at the moment removing the Australian flag from their press conferences is not a good look and is tending more to divide even more than bring us all together.
I hope I will be proved wrong...
The Aboriginal Flag
The Australian Flag. I did try to place them side by side but unable to do so. Unintentional to position one above the other. Have to be so careful...especially at the moment.😧
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