It’s as if First Nations people been told to forget about the losses we have suffered | Douglas Smith
For the past three weeks the voices of Australians with a different perspective have been reduced to whispers, writes Douglas Smith.
Opinion
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It’s been three weeks since the death of Queen Elizabeth II, and in that time, it’s been hard not to think about the many atrocities my people have suffered at the hands of the Crown since 1788.
As a descendant of the Kokatha and Mirning peoples, I cannot mourn the death of the Queen, it’s something I simply cannot do.
It would be disrespectful to my people, and my ancestors who have come and died before me, fighting for a better life in a country – a colony built on our erasure.
The morning after her death, our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese said it was a “morning of sadness for the whole world, the Commonwealth, and all Australians”.
The fact that he claims this as a morning of sadness for all Australians is more than a misrepresentation of his constituency, but an erasure of the experiences of First Nations peoples who do not share his sentiment.
How can Mr Albanese claim to speak for the whole world, while failing to recognise the very real world that First Nations Australians continue to experience?
What world are you talking about Prime Minister? Is it the same world where a Commonwealth exists of countries that the British Empire has colonised? The same British Empire responsible for the destruction of cultures, many deaths, (my ancestors included) and even worse atrocities?
If he’s referring to that world, well, it’s the same world my people live in today. It’s the same world where First Nations Australians remain disproportionately worse off in terms of health, education, poverty, justice and all other measures compared to non-Indigenous Australians.
The Prime Minister’s proclamation of universal sorrow does not represent the viewpoint of the people who have suffered and continue to suffer because of the impacts of colonisation.
Colonisation has resulted in more than two centuries of suffering, death, economic deprivation and social devastation for First Nations people in Australia, and the government and politicians from all sides of the table know it.
It’s not hard to see how colonisation still impacts First Nations peoples in Australia. Just look around. We are the most poverty-stricken people in this country.
And for the past three weeks, it’s as if we’ve been told how to feel, told how to act, and told to forget about the loss we have suffered at the hands of the Crown.
For the past three weeks, a First Nations perspective on the passing of the Queen has been suppressed because it doesn’t fit the narrative being spruiked by the rest of the country.
If you’re wondering why First Nations Australians don’t share the same sentiment as the rest of the country on the passing of the Queen, well, it’s because our sovereignty was never ceded.
When this country was first invaded and the land stolen, there were no negotiations, no treaty and no recognition that there were over 450 sovereign First Nations occupying every inch of this land.
450 sovereign First Nations that had their own lores, structures, languages, traditions, spiritual beliefs and ways of living that preserved the environment so that it would continue to provide for future generations.
No … instead, this land was deemed Terra Nullius, meaning land belonging to no one. Well, that was obviously a lie, and it’s a lie that has continued for the past 233 years.
It’s a historical wrong committed against this country’s original inhabitants and it’s a wrong that still hasn’t been corrected.
First Nations people have occupied this country for 65,000 years plus and our sovereignty was never ceded. In the grand scheme of things, I mean, what is that compared to the 233 years of Crown occupation?
Although the Queen didn’t invade this country herself and commit the many atrocities against First Nations people, she didn’t change anything for us during her 70-year reign.
For the past seven decades and the decades before that, the only positive change that came for First Nations people in Australia came from the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors and elders who died fighting to give us a better life.
In the same week as the Queen’s passing, veteran journalist, Stan Grant described the ‘asphyxiating anger’ he and many other First Nations peoples felt because of the imposed silencing of First Nations perspectives.
I too, share the same sentiment as Grant, who reminded me that as First Nations peoples, at the end of the day, our voice is all we have until it is silenced.
If the government of the day is serious about correcting historical wrongs by enshrining a Voice in the constitution, then it shouldn’t allow that Voice to be silenced when it suits them.
Not only should there be a Voice, but correcting historical wrongs committed by the Monarchy also means Treaty, which is something that should have been done when the British first stepped onto this land.
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