Uluru Statement a misappropriation of culture
Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO
Executive Chairman at Nyungga Black Group Pty Ltd
By Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO and Dr Victoria Grieves Williams
The Uluru Statement from the Heart was announced at the conclusion of the final Regional Dialogue on constitutional recognition in May 2017 held at Voyages Resort, Yulara about 25 km north of Uluru. ?
The concept of the Uluru Statement from the Heart is a play on words alluding to the "heart" of the continent, the spiritual heart of Aboriginal country, aligned with the idea that the delegates at the Dialogue were speaking from their heart.
In reality, it’s a misappropriation of traditional culture and a call to replace our traditional cultures with something else that is not ours. This began with the misappropriation of Uluru itself, the spiritual and cultural heart of its traditional owners, their centre of everything. And if Australians vote Yes to the Voice, it will end with the takeover of traditional owner autonomy over their own lands and seas across the nation.
There were 14 Regional Dialogues in all. Attendance was by invitation only to “ensure” consensus. And we learnt from SBS’s National Indigenous Television that the traditional owners of Uluru were not invited. Indeed, they didn’t know in advance that the event was happening. While some few members were invited in, there was no consultation and no interpreters. Those who did attend were upset by the tenor of the meeting, the disagreements, division and screaming.
Anangu Tribal Elders and the Uluru Kata-Tjuta Board of Management responded with a request that the name "Uluru" be taken off the Referendum Council’s "Uluru Statement from the Heart". The message was couched in no uncertain terms "And get it out of there - people have to get their own name and stop using Uluru". The word “Uluru” was attached to the statement without consultation of or permission of Uluru’s traditional owners.
In June this year, Senator Kerrynne Liddle, an Arrente woman, reported that a group of Uluru-Kata Tjuta elders were “gutted” that Uluru, their most sacred place, continues to be used for political and promotional purposes. She named four men who?told her they’ve been misrepresented as supporters of the Uluru Statement when they did not agree to be a part of the push for a Voice; and that nobody had sat down with their people to explain what was being proposed.
Three of the men attended the 14th Dialogue by invitation to dance and then signed what they understood to be an attendance register. One has said ‘’We didn’t sign that we were happy for this to go ahead. There was no way we agreed.” Senator Liddle also told Parliament that she has heard from women surprised to see their signatures on the statement and unhappy for their attendance and consultation to be interpreted as consent. But they were not prepared to come forward publicly.
Most Australians have seen the 439 words of the Uluru Statement reproduced on canvass surrounded by attendee signatures and artwork. But when these signatures were affixed, the canvass was a blank white sheet. The artwork and Statement were added later. Photos of the signatures on the blank white canvass are easy to find on Google and social media.
The four men who reached out to Senator Liddle sent a message of great sadness; they feel deceived, disrespected and ignored. They are concerned Uluru is being used as a symbol for a debate that is dividing Australians. In fact one told her “that canvas is now causing a lot of problems for us. If I could only get my hands on it I would burn it!” As Senator Liddle told? parliament: “In the Anangu-Pitjantjatjara language, there is only one Uluru - just one. It is not a canvas. It is not a statement. It is not an artefact. It is not a political tool or campaign tool, nor does it speak of a point in time or come with a date.”?
This is a very inauspicious beginning for a political movement that claims it wants to change the constitution for the benefit of Aboriginal people and to give them a voice. How is it that this movement saw a need to ride slipshod over cultural protocols and assume a kind of ownership of the people?
How can the push to a referendum and the changing of the constitution to include a Voice be taken seriously as an honest and principled development when the disrespect for traditional owners is there from the beginning?
领英推荐
The answer is in the now infamous “Document 14”, a record of the 14th Dialogue, released by the National Indigenous Australians Agency a few months ago under Freedom of Information laws. Document 14 spells out what the Uluru Statement is about, what it’s intended to achieve and what the words on the canvass are actually asking for. It’s a document architects of the Voice have, until recently, urged everybody to read in full. We agree.
Document 14 is steeped in grievance and victimhood and contemplates a future of separateness. It has a vision of First Nations sovereignty as a homogenous pan-Indigenous movement standing as overlord of traditional owner autonomy over their own lands and seas. This will e badministered by a Makarrata Commission, the second body demanded in the Uluru Statement, to be conferred with “all necessary powers and functions” to settle agreements between all Australian governments and all First Peoples, nationally and locally.
This is not our culture. In Aboriginal cultures, only countrymen and women can speak for country. No person can speak for another person’s country.
Document 14 states that recognising “First Nations law” is the “unfinished business of Australia’s nationhood” and that "the connection between language, the culture, the land and the enduring nature of Aboriginal Law is fundamental to any consideration of constitutional recognition". Yet it ignored, disrespected and saddened the traditional owners of the place whose name it appropriated and who hold to traditional laws more than many others.
The disrespect the 14th Dialogue showed to Uluru traditional owners and the appropriation of their culture and cultural icons for its own purposes is a taste of what the Uluru Statement demands. And of what is to come if it’s implemented, starting with the Voice at the referendum.
?
Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO DUniv (Hon. Causa) is Director, Indigenous Forum, Centre for Independent Studies. Dr Victoria Grieves Williams is Warraimaay, an historian and widely published in Aboriginal Australian history, spirituality and philosophy and the connection between history and climate change.
This article was first published in The Daily Telegraph on 23 September 2023.
This article is the second in a four-part series:
?
?
Experienced legal counsel for business people. Author and social commentator. The opinions expressed on Linkedin are my own and not that of the firms with which I am associated.
1 年See too https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/peterjanssen001_statementfromtheheart-thomasmayo-thevoice-activity-7093708834619195392-CHE3?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios
Darian Zam Publishing
1 年From the person that assisted Tony Abbott in cutting half a billion dollars from vital indigenous services. There's nothing you do or say that isn't motivated by simply furthering your political career.
Communications Cultivator at Kialla Pure Foods + Designer & Diviner at Sheridan Kennedy Jewellery & Soul Level Astrology
1 年Aside from the obvious deception and manipulation of the process, I am struck by your comment: "In Aboriginal cultures, only countrymen and women can speak for country. No person can speak for another person’s country" which makes perfect sense according to the cultural understanding of belonging to a place & being custodian. This means the Voice at topmost level must have people from every traditional area, not a few spokespeople for all indigenous people. It is a fundamentally different way of governance. Then in respect to Senator Liddle's summary: “In the Anangu-Pitjantjatjara language, there is only one Uluru - just one. It is not a canvas. It is not a statement. It is not an artefact. It is not a political tool or campaign tool, nor does it speak of a point in time or come with a date” it's clear that those who prepared the Uluru statement have had their own minds colonised and thus lost touch with the understanding that place and country are real - not representations. Here we can clearly see the distinction between those living culture and those who are representing it. In short: it's an act of neo-colonialism to appropriate the sacred name for someone else's country and use it to represent what you want it to.
Community Worker
1 年Oh Warren, why? ??????
Gavin Keeley it’s an interesting read!