If you believe you’re an outsider, you are an outsider.
If you believe you’re beaten, then you’re beaten.
If you believe that the rest of Australia has no respect for you or your culture, then for all intents and purposes it doesn’t.
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These things are self-fulfilling and we have to find the symbolic basis, as well as the practical basis, for living together and bringing out the best in one another.
And the evidence is there to see in countries that have found ways to formally recognise and honour the special place of dispossessed Aboriginal populations. Although New Zealand’s Maori population still experiences significant disadvantage, the discrepancy in life expectancy has narrowed and is now only seven years less (for men) than that of the total male population, compared with our 21-year discrepancy.
In the United States, life expectancy for the Indigenous Indian and Alaskan native population (women) is five years lower compared to 20 years for Aboriginal women in Australia.
These numbers show that symbolic aspects of reconciliation – the framework that has been developed around relationships in these countries – has a significant impact on reducing the enormous social damage caused by the displacement of Aboriginal peoples’ customs and economies.
To bring all this back to the notion of true reconciliation, my feeling is that we need to find a balance between operating as best we can within the context in which we find ourselves, and showing the context up for what it is.
For all of us it is a matter of negotiating a creative mix between different objectives without losing sight of our core values and responsibilities – a blend of realism and optimism which allows us to push out the boundaries of our social engagement in the community.
This is an edited version of a speech to the Mensa Annual Gathering in Brisbane on 15 November.
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