Every year between May 27 and June 3 Australia celebrates "Reconciliation Week". The week is a time for Australians (and dirty foreigners) to learn about the shared histories (between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals), cultures and achievements and to explore how people can join the national reconciliation effort, whatever that means.
Unlike most publicly recognized weeks or months the dates for RW actually hold some significance.
May 27 marks the anniversary of Australia’s most successful referendum and a defining event in the nation’s history. The 1967 referendum saw over 90 per cent of Australians vote to give the Commonwealth the power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and recognise them in the national census. One could read this to mean that 90% of, what was at the time, White Australia, chose to have legal empire, including the power of law enforcement, over the Aboriginal people. On the other had, one could understand this to mean that 90% of Australians chose to give the Aboriginals the same legal rights as them. If the latter is true than 1 out of 10 people didn't want Aboriginals to have the same rights as them. To be honest, that isn't much of a surprise. We've noticed that there is a very tangible undercurrent of racism and xenophobia in Australian society.
On June 3, 1992, the High Court of Australia delivered its landmark Mabo decision which legally recognised that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a special relationship to the land—that existed prior to colonalisation and still exists today. This recognition paved the way for land rights called Native Title.
As far as I can tell Reconciliation Week is basically intended to honour the original Australian culture. There are a bunch of ceremonies around the country where lots of people, mostly non-Aboriginals, show how much they care. But they're not sorry. That was yesterday. National "Sorry Day" is an Australia-wide observance held on May 26 each year. This day, like other Reconciliation Week events, includes activities such as concerts, outdoor events, marches, speeches and politicians pretending that they care. The first "Sorry Day" was held in 1998 to commemorate the Aboriginal families that were destroyed when children were forcibly seperated from their families during the early days of the European settlement. It's basically the same thing that happened in Canada except that, in a very un-Canadian fashion, we still haven't officially said "sorry". At least not with a day on the calendar.
How did I find out about it? Was it the banners that were flying in the city? Was it in talking to co-workers and acquaintances? Was it because I got the day off of work? No. I got an email at work from our Regional Manager saying that he was going to be attending a RW event and that my employer is a proud participant in RW. They also go on to say that they are committed to participate positively in closing the gap between all Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. I don't know what that means exactly but I do know that I have yet to run into co-workers in my current office that are of Aboriginal descent. I'm not suggesting that they should be running sort of affirmative action but they I can't see what is actually being done to make a claim like they're closing the gap. The Aboriginal 'issues' here get a lot of lip service paid to them, even moreso than in other places (*cough* Canada *cough*) but at the end of the day, Australia's record when it comes to dealing with Aboriginals is spotty at best.
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