Letter to Oz: No, I don’t feel welcomed to my country

Tristan Heiner I 28 September 2024 I Spectator Australia

My fellow Australians, I write to you regarding our ongoing, and by this point, centuries-old, disagreement over the land on which we both live. I draw your attention to a divisive version of the Welcome to Country practice performed by an elder at the AFL semi-finals which recently lobbed the ceremony into the public spotlight. I cannot help but feel that every time I am welcomed to your Country, I am left with more questions than answers about my relationship with what I thought was also my country. In the hope I might be released from the engulfing confusion, I have seven questions that I would appreciate you answering, at your earliest convenience.

1. Why do non-indigenous Australians need to be welcomed by indigenous Australians to their own lands? I ask this question with the understanding that the Welcome to Country practice is a cultural protocol in which an indigenous person, usually an elder, acknowledges and gives consent to events taking place on their traditional lands. I object to this reasoning on two grounds. Firstly, the need for non-indigenous Australians to be given consent to use any land is predicated on the flawed logic that they do not have an equal right to its use. While I am happy to be obliged to the truth that your ancestors occupied these lands before mine, I am less happy to accept that this fact grants you a pre-eminent right to its use and enjoyment. This is because rights cannot be strengthened or weakened according to the length of time they have been held. It would be wrong, for example, to argue that an 80-year-old has stronger rights to life and liberty than a 3-year-old by virtue of his holding of those rights for a longer period. Equally, it would be wrong for a fourth-generation Australian to have stronger rights to live in Australia than a first-generation Australian. Factors which we cannot determine should not influence the rights to which we are entitled. Secondly, I repudiate the belief implicit in the Welcome to Country practice that the land means any more to indigenous Australians than it does to the non-indigenous. The right to live freely on these lands has been paid for by indigenous and non-indigenous blood in two world wars. It is the land on which families have been raised and memories forged. It is miraculously arrogant and ignorant for any group to claim a greater connection to the land than another. When you and I sprang forth into existence, neither you nor I chose our ancestors and the length of time they had lived in Australia. What is our choice, however, is the mutual respect we afford to each other’s equal land rights and the meaning we each attach to the land.

2. Why should your desire to welcome me trump my desire to not be welcomed? Any assessment of the continuing relevance of the Welcome to Country protocol should consider the opinion of the audience which is subjected to the welcoming. This includes considering whether they, in fact, want to be welcomed. After all, the modern version of the ritual only re-entered the mainstream because Māori and Cook Islander dancers refused to perform without one when they were on the lawns of the University of Western Australia during a multicultural dance performance in 1976. According to the 2021 census, the breakdown of Australia’s religious affiliation percentages was: Christianity (44), No religion (39), Islam (3), Hinduism (3), Buddhism (2). It is therefore likely that the spiritual importance of the Welcome to Country ceremony, to speak bluntly, means very little to at least 91 per cent of modern Australia. If Christians, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists are not provided with special opportunities to publicly and forcibly impose their cultural and spiritual practices upon the rest of the population, then why should indigenous Australians? The protocol’s origins predate colonialism, when Australian lands were not home to a diversity of faith. This is simply no longer the case. It is reasonable to expect cultural practices to adapt and if necessary, disappear, to reflect the society in which they operate. After all, traditions are not relevant because they are old, they are old because they remain relevant.

3. At what point are the ‘welcomed’ able to do the welcoming? I ask this question after experiencing an awkward brush with imposter syndrome during a lunch with some refugees who had recently arrived from Somalia, Congo and Myanmar. These new Australians, who were delighted to be within the safe embrace of Australia, were quick to express their immense gratitude for being here. At this point it felt natural for me to verbally welcome them to Australia. I had not planned to ‘welcome’ anyone at this lunch but found myself doing just that in a spontaneous and sincere expression of well-wishes to my new Australian friends. On my drive home, I thought about why those almost patronising words came out of my mouth. Without too much thought I arrived at the conclusion that it was because I wanted to let them know that this country, my country, was now also their country. As an Australian citizen I felt that it was my custodial right to welcome them to the land upon which we lunched, and I felt that my welcome was as legitimate and sufficient as any welcome that could be offered by an indigenous Australian. Likewise, upon naturalisation, and arguably well before then, it is the right of these families to in turn welcome other new Australians to this country. They should certainly not feel obligated to redirect them to me or anyone else further up the ‘Welcoming Chain’. The moment somebody becomes an Australian the lands of Australia are shared equally with them, and they are as welcome to welcome as anyone else.

4. If the welcome is half-hearted or given on a pretence, what is the point in saying it? I ask this because on occasion, I am loathe to admit, I have not exactly felt very welcome by your welcome. On the contrary, I have detected an undercurrent of dutifulness, even bitterness, and in the worst scenarios, contemptuousness. It would seem the modern incarnation of the Welcome to Country protocol has less to do with spiritual niceties and more to do with grinding an ideological axe. I, for one, would prefer not to be welcomed at all than to be made to feel unwelcome.

5. At what point have I been sufficiently welcomed? When one attends a dinner party it is customary for the hosts to welcome the guest upon arrival. Cross-culturally, this is performed with some kind of warm embrace; a hug, a handshake, a kiss on the cheek, a bow or curtsy, or a nod of the head. After the welcoming rituals have been performed it would be a little odd for them to be done a second time, then a third, and again and again throughout the course of the night. At a point the guest would be apt to find the behaviour not only odd, but insincere. To be subjected to a never-ending series of welcomes to your own country is as inane as it is demeaning.

6. Does the practice begin to interfere with the opportunity to have better conversations about more serious topics? The decision to invest time, energy and money into the Welcome to Country practice leads to the opportunity cost of not talking about more pressing concerns. On the topic of indigenous Australians, these are not in short supply. To mention but one example, indigenous children are overrepresented in areas where child safety and security are compromised, including sexual assault, youth justice, child abuse and homelessness. I struggle to see how a Welcome to Country helps resolve the parlous predicament of the small girl suffering from domestic violence in a remote Northern Territory community or the humiliating struggle of an adolescent boy bouncing between magistrate courts.

7. In conclusion, I would like to ask: what would I be if I were not welcomed? I would hope, like you, a proud Australian.

Author: Tristan Heiner