It is truly sad, and we should be saddened by it. But I didn’t do it, and I can do nothing to undo it. I can no more take the blame than I can take any credit for the benefits that have also come along with the hardships. It is not my fault that indigenous Australians have a lower life expectancy (though I haven’t seen any information indicating what their life expectancy was prior to ‘white settlement’), just as it is no one else’s fault that I can expect to live six years less than the average woman. I am all for reconciliation in its true sense, but I am not for the use of the term ‘reconciliation’ as employed by some: as an emotive soapbox to define any and all issues, real and imagined, used as a tool to perpetuate social division and anger. Yes, speak up about reconciliation. But speak up about solutions, not just problems.

Getting back to Andrew’s point: “We live the way that we do now, because years ago, people who had nothing to do with us did things that we would never do ourselves, though we enjoy the eventual results.” This is not new, and the statement can be applied manyfold to events throughout human history. And each time it has happened has not made it any less wrong. I would dearly like to think that people have finally begun to rise above their delusional beliefs that they are superior to others (usually because ‘god’ allegedly told them they are).

To quote Hippocrates, “Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future … make a habit of two things — to help, or at least to do no harm.” When discussing emotive injustices, people often have trouble separating those first two things. By no means should the past be ignored or hidden. But it should be acknowledged that it is in the past, and attention should be focussed on resolving the truly important issues of what is happening to people now.

arc angel, you have bought into the romanticised depiction of indigenous Australians which is propagated by the AFI and Film Victoria.

There is scientific evidence which supports the fact that the dead heart was not always dead. It was a flourishing, verdant landscape with many bodies of water etc. All that was burned off. By guess who?

Some plants/trees need to be burned off. The majority, however, do not survive it. Indigenous Australians were nowhere near as “in touch with the land” as many believe.

There is no gradual improvement in this area – it is stagnant, and it is stagnant for one reason – the majority of Australians have not made it a priority for our Government to “fix”.

Indigneous deaths in incarceration are significantly higher than the white population: in fact, incarceration is higher, full stop.

The NT intervention is a perfect example of how an emotive issue (child sexual abuse) was used to take away rights of Indigenous communities, and tar them all with the same brush: that of abusive, alcoholic, dole-bludging losers.

I agree, we (white Australians) are not personally responsible for the atrocities that have occurred in the past 200+ years, but for the decisions made by our Governments in our own adult lives, we are. We must speak up, and we must make reconciliation an issue. To do otherwise, does make us personally responsible: yet, that view is likely to be unpopular as it’s easy to say that by doing nothing, you are not adding to the burden.

I quote English philosopher Edmund Burke who said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.’ Silence shapes our history just as much as actions committed by others.

To say that the worst of it is past is technically accurate, to the extent that massacres are worse than getting up each morning afraid that your children might have killed themselves in the night. Of course I am glad for the small steps forward, for gradual improvement, but that doesn’t mean I can’t criticise past misguided policy and individual action, or acknowledge the relationship between present-day disadvantage and past atrocity.

This relationship is important, and acknowledging it doesn’t automatically mean living in the past or casting everyone involved as permanent victim or permanent villain. Acknowledging this relationship is not simply rehashing the past, as you suggest, but is essential in achieving reconciliation and dialogue. It is essential in promoting in the general public wider understanding of and a lived, personal engagement with the human rights travesties that currently exist in this country. It is also essential in guiding governmental policy so that it is sensitive and not blindly, arrogantly paternalistic, and can also point the way forward to positive action, both symbolic and concrete.