Exploring reconciliation

Background

There are a range of community groups which were established to support the Yes campaign for the Referendum on changing the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples through a Voice to Parliament. In the wake of the rejection of the proposed change, many groups have decided to continue, broadening their focus to advancing reconciliation with First Peoples in Australia.

As these groups move through their formation stages, one of the “issues” that often emerges is the use of the term “reconciliation”. The various understandings and implications that attach to this word are important for these group, whether or not it is incorporated into their group name. This article has been drafted as a means of capturing and sharing various understandings and their associated implications amongst members of these groups.

Reconciliation is Dead

There are a range of suggestions that have been made about “reconciliation being dead”. Some commentary was made during the Referendum process that if the proposed changes to the Constitution were rejected, it would signify that reconciliation is dead. Other commentary was offered following the outcome of the Referendum becoming known. It will be important to understand the degree to which this is part of the devastation and grief that was experienced following the referendum outcome that may now be abating with the passage of time, or whether there is still a groundswell of thinking that is moving towards use of different terms and language.

It is also worth looking more closely at what was said and how it was said. Marcia Langton was initially quite outspoken in deeming that reconciliation is dead. More recently, she has indicated in an interview with Philip Adams that:

If Australians prefer to sustain the lies about Australian history, about peaceful settlement of Australia, and about how white people fought for this country, then reconciliation is dead.

This places the “death notice” in a particular context that leaves open that reconciliation is achievable on the condition that truth-telling advances.

Zena Compston, in a recent BIG IDEAS program, said:

As we all know, historically non-Indigenous Australia has found ways to absolve itself from the hard work expecting the First Peoples of these lands to show endless generosity, to hold everyone’s hands, to provide the solution and to lead everyone on the path to the utterly incongruous idea of reconciliation. Through the now dead idea of reconciliation, our Australian community had failed to pointedly ask, “What did the first peoples do to wrong us to be now equally responsible for the solution themselves? What did they have to reconcile?”

This raises three important issues:

1. Reconciliation requires action on the part of both parties – indigenous Australia and non-indigenous Australia
2. If reconciliation is to advance, then non-indigenous Australia needs to do lots of hard work, and not leave it solely to indigenous Australia to advance
3. Our behaviour as non-indigenous Australia suggests that we believe that indigenous Australia did something wrong and must reconcile that.

If we fail to address these issues, then reconciliation is indeed dead.

Each of these, along with the outcome of the Referendum, are pointers to the need for non-indigenous Australia to do far more to advance reconciliation, and not to see ourselves as simply being supportive of First Nations.

Other perspectives

There are other perspectives being expressed in relation to reconciliation.

Dr Jackie Huggins AM, in the foreword to “Reflections on the Voice”, says:

Although the Referendum was a heavy defeat for most of us, the reconciliation journey is neither lost nor dead. Some looked for scapegoats to blame and reconciliation was the first. However, reconciliation means different things to people. My definition is it means recognition, justice and healing. If we pursue these ideals, it is far from over.

Reconciliation Australia describes their vision for reconciliation as:

Our vision is for a just, equitable and reconciled Australia, based around five interrelated dimensions: race relations, equality and equity, institutional integrity, unity and historical acceptance.

Prof Andrew Gunstone, Co-Chair of Reconciliation Victoria provides a helpful explanation and distinction between performative and substantive reconciliation.

Performative reconciliation is predominantly about improving relationships between indigenous Australia and non-indigenous Australia.

Substantive reconciliation entails:

• recognising Indigenous rights, such as self-determination
• developing national and local treaties
• acknowledging history and truth-telling
• achieving separative and distributive justice
• addressing institutional and individual racism and whiteness
• privileging Indigenous Knowledges
• dismantling existing power relationships
• implementing structural reform
• prioritising and ensuring cultural safety

This is particularly helpful in areas where reconciliation groups have low expectations of forming relationships with First Peoples in their locality.

Changing language

If language is to be changed, then we will need to take into account the range of social, knowledge and political capital that surrounds the current usage of “reconciliation”, particularly considering:

• the existence and operation of Reconciliation Australia
• the existence and operation of Reconciliation SA (and its counterpart state organisations), and other significant organisations
• the existence of numerous local community reconciliation groups in other states (particularly NSW and Victoria) with “reconciliation” in their title, many being in the form of “Reconciliation Locality-Name”
• the development and implementation of Reconciliation Action Plans by over 2,400 organisations employing over 4m people across Australia

Composition and governance of community groups

National and state reconciliation organisations seek membership by indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. They also establish shared governance arrangements, often with indigenous and non-indigenous co-chairs.

This can prove more difficult in a local community setting, especially one like the Unley municipality, where, amongst 40,000 citizens, only 160 have an indigenous identity. To some degree this reflects the challenge that some community groups will face – both its membership and governance may be of primarily or totally non-indigenous composition. That said, these groups are unlikely to exclude membership or holding of governance roles by indigenous people.

Given the challenges indicated by Zena Compston, there is much work that these groups can provide leadership for in advancing non-Indigenous communities in reconciliation. To suggest that non-indigenous people only support indigenous people in advancing reconciliation is to place the obligation on indigenous peoples yet again. These groups are presented with the opportunity to take up the challenge and to materially advance reconciliation and to demonstrate that reconciliation is not dead.

Alternative Perspectives

There are potentially a number of different ways in which we can see and engage in reconciliation.

One area for further consideration is the manner in which non-indigenous Australia needs to adopt different language, different thinking, different communication and different action. There is a need to shape a different articulation of our heritage – for example, changing our use of words such as discovering and exploring the land we now know as Australia. This is a simple of example of the need to more broadly change our world-view from one that has a colonial heritage to one that encompasses multiple heritages.

To this extent, we need to engage in reconciling different world-views. Knowing that indigenous Australia lives in multiple worlds, it is easy to assume that indigenous Australia faces the challenge of reconciling world-views. Yet, to a large degree, indigenous Australia has a reconciled world-view already. It is non-indigenous Australia that faces the greater challenge in reconciling world-views, especially since many of us have little knowledge or understanding of an indigenous-based world-view.

We might, then, consider the ways in which non-indigenous Australia can become reconciled:

• to multiple world-views
• to our various heritages and histories
• to different perspectives in relation to equality and equity
• to indigenous Australia