Culture is the thread that binds a population to its country through survival. For Australian First Nations people, their aboriginality is a 65,000 year contract with nature. But nature is unforgiving. Culture has to be hard-wearing. So their perspectives remain fresh and relevant today. This is why we should listen to indigenous voices and why denying them a voice is bad for us all. The stories they tell are relevant to all our futures.
There are many reasons to recognise aboriginal voices to parliament. For First Nations people those hinge around addressing gaps in health, education and opportunity. There is also the matter of recognising that Australian indigenous people were forcibly and violently evicted from a land they’d lived on for fifteen times longer than any European civilisation.
But the spirit of reconciliation is also about living together and sharing values. What we stood to gain was never talked about by us on the run up to the referendum. Only what we feared to lose. The question of ‘gifting’ them a voice perhaps was never the right one. Maybe instead, we could ask them first, if they’d like to tell us their stories.
Culture is hard to build and even harder to destroy
Before I came to Australia the word aboriginal meant any culture native to a particular region. I’d spent time in the company of aboriginal Africans, Indonesians and even perhaps Europeans. Though the native origins of people like me, from the UK, have been confused over many centuries. Nonetheless, most children in the UK can identify common garden birds like the robin.
It takes centuries for that common knowledge to enter folklore, nursery rhymes and Christmas cards. Australian kids, meanwhile, barely recognise garden birds. European settlers will have to learn that cultural connection over the next few thousand years. Or we can choose to learn it from others wiser than us.
Video: There is no better way to connect people to nature but through an immersion in it. The traditional dances and music are aimed to instil respect about animals into the culture we live in by ‘becoming’ the animal.
The spirit, stories and sheer joy of connecting to country can be seen, heard, is enduring and important beyond measure. This culture will, nonetheless, be used to instil fear in the minds of those who have not given themselves the chance to listen.
Culture is our blueprint for survival
We get too easily get bogged down in concepts like bloodlines. But from an evolutionary perspective, culture carries far more inertia and relevance to our lives. It takes tens of thousands of years for culture to form because it follows similar rules to evolution. Hence, if culture isn’t strong enough to survive, a population disappears. However, once it becomes fully developed it reflects any creature’s best behaviour and aligns with the landscape and climate. It becomes its own self-perpetuating blueprint for survival.
There is perhaps no better example of an indigenous culture completely engrained with the landscape than that of the 65,000 year old Australian First Nations people.
The Australian Voice Referendum
In October 2023 Australians were offered the chance to give First Nation Australians a ‘voice‘.
This should never have been a chance for us to ‘give’ them a voice but a chance for us to ‘hear’ what they had to say. Instead, the voices we heard on the run up to the referendum were the voices of a small elite. These were people elected by and for the majority of non-indigenous people. There was little chance to hear any of the people affected by this vote.
Hence, the Australian people voted 60:40 against recognising First Nations people in the constitution. The so-called ‘Voice’ would have had no legal powers. It would simply have enabled indigenous people to be heard on matters that specifically affect them.
The question on the ballot paper asked to vote Yes or No on:
“A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
Wisdom is earnt and learnt
In June I spent a week living in a remote village on an island in Fiji where village elders of surrounding settlements meet regularly to discuss what affects them.
Recently, US-based billionaires backed a scheme to resculpt a coral reef to create ‘the perfect’ surf wave. The argument was that it would attract overseas tourists and bring money to the region. Around the corner, the Laucala resort already commands $30,000 a night, attracting international celebrities and royals. The local villagers built that resort but they are not wanting of the money. They prefer to protect their heritage.
We were invited to stay at the modest Qamea homestay in the village of Naivivi and live among them.
A village representative told us that they outrightly rejected the surf resort development, citing one simple reason. ‘The reef has always been there. It’s there for a reason, it does not need to be changed.’
We stand to gain from indigenous wisdom.
People who have lived on the land for hundreds or thousands of generations are able to value its importance. It’s not easy to distil an objection to multi-million-dollar plans into a single sentence.
Simple, concise statements, that speak to the significance of nature in our lives are missing from our dialogue. Indigenous wisdom can help us overcome that constraint. Like the Fijian villagers did, First Nations people can help us protect our own livelihoods.
“You have to make your own track. You really can’t become connected to a place unless you are interacting with it. The feelings you can’t explain.”
Linc Walker
Perhaps its no surprise that at the after-party for the ‘Vote NO’ campaign on the Australian referendum was Gina Rinehart. Rinehart is Australia’s richest woman and also Australia’s biggest landholder, owning 9.2 million hectares (1.2% of Australia). A ‘Yes’ vote would be an inconvenience for Rinehart and anyone else dependent on easing their way to mining deals.
Europeans who might share an interest in protecting the environment don’t have the wisdom to fight unwanted change. We cannot articulate our own succinct reason behind our existence and what is important for our future. We gave away that right.
Today we get locked into ridiculously long and costly battles. Teams of consultants are drafted to create thousands of pages of science and law firms pore over policy minutia. These fights are heavy-going on communities trying to stop them and the balance of decision-making is strongly weighted against the local people.
This is the status quo that is under threat from giving First Nations people a voice. That is why the vote failed in Australia. That and a cleverly-run campaign, funded by very wealthy advocates, designed to distract people from the reality and instil fear of change.
We have become victims of our own misgivings
Those of us who care about the environment have given up our rights to make concise arguments about protecting our valuable living environment. Those decisions are taken from us and made by the same powers that we elected, that deny an indigenous voice. Modern society is all about control, about what we can give others, not about listening and sharing.
At any point in time there are literally hundreds of major development proposals threatening permanent damage and extinction. Local communities are virtually powerless to stop this. Consultation happens after decisions are made.
We are hoist by our own petard.
Aboriginal societies evaluate importance through songs and stories, passed down from their ancestors. The rights, truths, realities and souls of their people, live on in the connection they have with the wildlife and landscapes they live among. Who are we to say otherwise? The sacred rights of people, wildlife and places, are increasingly recognised the world over. We all feel the same about the places we are born.
First Nation Australians are famous for their rich culture of storytelling and songs. This natural philosophyNatural philosophy concerns itself with the question of 'why' things work [1]. Natural science tries to work out 'how' [1]. Understanding the difference is fundamental to conservation but is largely missing . Natural philosophy has more in kin with ecological wisdom, such as the beliefs, cultures and traditions of first nations peoples all over the world. It embraces an understanding More is a vital omission from our society that, if present, would not only enrich us but give us hope and a real purpose for survival.
‘The voices we need to be listening to are the ones we aren’t able to hear’
Mike Keighley, author of True Tales of an Outback Guide
It’s vitally important for Second Nations people like us, that these stories are heard over background noise. Because the stories are told for all our survival. We would gain a far greater expression of our own humanity if we allowed these voices to mix with our own.
A statement from the heart
The Uluru Statement from the Heart was drafted as a precursor to the referendum and is a plea to all Australians ‘from the heart’ for a ‘fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.’
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors … With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.
Yet these stories that all Australians needed to be heard, to make sense of this vote, are the ones that have once again been silenced because of it.
First Nations people may have lost the chance to have a voice, but their voices will and can still be heard.
Australians though have lost something far greater by voting no. We lost the chance to listen.
A nation that refuses to listen will always be poorer for it.
