This Sunday is celebrated as Aboriginal Sunday in our Uniting Church. It falls each year on the Sunday before 26th January, the date in our calendars marked ‘Australia Day’. For aboriginal people, however, it is known as Invasion Day or Survival Day and is a day of grief and mourning for what has been lost – people, land, culture, language, respect.
This year there is an extra dimension to this day since later in the year all Australians will be invited to participate in a referendum to change our nation’s Constitution to include an enshrined indigenous voice to Parliament. This is the first of three measures outlined and sought in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, representing the voice and wishes of indigenous people across the country.
Psalm 19 begins by suggesting that creation speaks of God’s glory and God’s handiwork. This message is proclaimed night and day in every part of the earth, yet is spoken without words or speech. This unspoken voice of God inspires wonder and awe in some people and is ignored by others who don’t hear and don’t pay attention.
So it is with the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It is the heartfelt cry of indigenous people wanting to be heard. Some Australians are listening and are inspired by this voice from the heart of our country. But other Australians are either not listening or are actively opposed to giving indigenous people a voice. The attitudes of this second group illustrate why such a voice is needed. Ever since that fateful day on 26th January 1788, colonisers, settlers, immigrants and all other Second peoples have tended to ignore or silence the voice of indigenous people.
This year we have a chance to right this wrong and give indigenous people their rightful voice.