The theme of this year’s NAIDOC Week (July 5 – 12), Fifty Years of Deadly, ‘encourages us all to build the respectful and decent relationships that engender pride within communities’, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ.
This year celebrates 50 years of the National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) Week. It was built on the determination to work for change shown by many First Peoples in an Australia where they were neither respected nor heard.
For us at Jesuit Social Services, the history of NAIDOC embodies our three values: Welcoming, Discerning and Courageous. The Week grew out of the discernment a century ago by First Peoples groups that it was neither welcoming nor discerning to celebrate Australia Day on the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet. For First Peoples, this event marked the beginning of their dispossession. They showed great courage in establishing and maintaining a Day of Mourning, held annually on the Sunday before Australia Day.
Later they moved the date to the first Sunday in July to be a day both of protest and of celebration of Aboriginal culture. In 1974 Different Indigenous and Government groups supported the formation of the National Aborigines Day Observance Committee (NADOC) and later included Torres Strait Islanders in the Committee.
This year the theme of the Day is NAIDOC Week Fifty Years of Deadly. It explains that the celebration ‘is a marker, not just of time passed, but of the momentum still building. It’s proof of what our people build when culture leads and community comes first. NAIDOC belongs to mob. It always has.’
The theme strikes a note of protest and of pride in what First Peoples have built in the face of active opposition and apathy among non-Indigenous Australians. We resonate with the theme in celebrating the commitment of our own Indigenous members of staff and of those whom we serve.
It is the business of all Australians, not simply of First Peoples, to enter into the spirit of the week. It encourages us all to build the respectful and decent relationships that engender pride within communities. The Week is a time for us to engage with one another, and also to recognise and celebrate the many ways in which Indigenous communities have worked to build pride in their culture.
It is also a time to press governments and other institutions to understand and respect First Peoples culture. They can then make use of this understanding in their relationships to people and to the environment in which First Peoples are the experts.
