BRAVE NEW WORLD
Kent Rosenthal sj
Pat Dodson has some sharp words for anyone who thinks the Aboriginal reconciliation process involves delving into the past. The man known as the father of Aboriginal reconciliation is adamant that the challenges of the modern world are the same for Indigenous people as they are for Christians.
‘You can also retreat into the trenches as a Catholic and hope that the catechism is going to save you, or you can face up to the world and deal with the challenges.’
While reconciliation may appear low on the current political agenda, Pat—who once chaired the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation—has been slogging away at a grassroots level to maintain contact between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. His work also involves connecting Aboriginal and Islander communities and preserving their cultural heritage through information technology.
For Pat, reconciliation is not just about waiting for politicians to say sorry, but about taking practical steps such as getting to know each other.
Pat recently spoke to a group of high-school students and teachers about the benefits of experiencing life in an unfamiliar environment. Each year students from Melbourne’s Genazzano FCJ College and Xavier College trade places with a group of students from St Mary’s College in Broome to heighten their awareness of each other’s cultures and lifestyles.
If all Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians could share a night in each other’s homes, the reconciliation process would be greatly advanced, Pat says. ‘There are some elements of commonality, but there is a lot that is terribly confusing and difficult for young people to understand.’
It’s difficult to get an understanding of what’s happening in the Indigenous world just by reading the newspapers or watching the TV news. But students from big cities like Melbourne who spend time in the Kimberley have a chance to see at first hand various aspects of Aboriginal society.
‘And the young people are often exposed to not just the beneficial aspects of that but also the downside of it—the negative repercussions of that cross-cultural interaction. And that can be very puzzling to understand, particularly if you’re young, enthusiastic and have high aspirations to love people and to care for people and to ensure that justice is done for all—and they’re very important aspirations to sustain throughout life.’
Pat sees human relationships as a vital aspect of reconciliation—and he practices what he preaches. Nobody escapes his attention while he’s in the big smoke. He notices what goes on around him and how friendly people are when he visits the city. ‘I was very impressed at the level of cordiality, the level of friendship of the people on the street … young people, and some not so young … people who just say "G’day".’
‘If there’s a genuine warmth, a genuine sense of accommodation and interest in who you are and what you represent, not in a patronising way, but in a genuine, human way then that helps tremendously in the process of reconciliation.’
Pat believes the human approach is the only way to diminish the barriers of ignorance and misunderstanding that stop Indigenous people from being on equal footing to enter the workforce. The workplace is one crucial area where reconciliation can take place in a practical way.
‘In the workplace it means being prepared to accommodate and include the Indigenous people. One of the sad things that I hear at the moment is that many of the young Indigenous people do not want to be in the workplace with non-Indigenous people.’
That’s where cross-cultural exchanges such as the Kimberley program can bridge the gap and avoid misunderstandings. While Pat doesn’t pretend reconciliation is not affected by politics, he sees the process working at a range of levels.
‘There are serious issues of constitutional recognition for Indigenous people, but on the other hand there are these essential day-to-day bread and butter issues about being decent, being courageous, being open, and being available; to use your talents and your efforts to enable the best in the other person to be realised. But that’s what the challenge of reconciliation is about; it’s working at a range of levels.’
‘Some people have a view that thousands of people can walk across bridges, and people can sign books saying they’re sorry for the stolen generation and the government’s policy that’s taken kids away.’
‘But what we’ve had are millions of dollars spent on very expensive court cases trying to defend the right of the Crown to do those things.’
The weeping sores of history associated with people being taken away and put into institutions won’t be resolved by the Prime Minster saying sorry, Pat says. It has to be resolved by a range of things.
‘Reconciliation began not as a way to get better outcomes from public funding, but by inviting the Australian people into a process that would get us to focus on the nature of our relationship, the nature of our intertwined history, the nature of how we continuously speak.’
Pat points out the glowing statistics of this relationship such as the fact that Aboriginal people are dying 20 years earlier than non-Aboriginal people.
‘The students from here who go to the Kimberley will see some of the physical conditions as to why it happens. They will see the poverty. They will see the violence. They will see people who are trying to make ends meet.
‘They see some very wonderful things as well. They see the art centres in many of our communities; the beautiful art which touches the very core of our spirituality which is reflective of another side of Aboriginality that is so rich and has so much to offer to our nation.’
Somewhere between the stark poverty and the richness of Aboriginal culture and spirituality, Pat challenges us to find an integrated way forward. Ultimately, he says Aboriginal culture is on about the same things as Christianity.
‘That’s what traditional Aboriginal life’s all about—about ways of living, about moral code, about forms of conduct, about the rules of engagement. It’s about respect for the country, it’s about knowledge that you acquire in relation to the country and the animals and things that live there, and their position in relation to you.’
Pat’s simple message is that reconciliation is a dynamic that has to be worked at. ‘Nobody is relieved of the task and it’s just as crucial in today’s global environment with tragedies in East Timor and concerns about global warfare. The internal reconciliation and the building of community in Australia is just as crucial now as it was 10 years ago when the process began.’
'Out of reconciliation comes strength that will be needed to deal with any adversity that we are going to face in this country in the next two to three years.’
Visit Reconcialiation Autralia on the web:
www.reconciliationaustralia.org
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