Solid Rock, Sacred Ground, Borrowed Time

The Australian Aboriginal Flag: red earth, gold sun, ancient black culture.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which I sit as I write these words, the Wurundjeri people and four other main tribal groups of the Kulin nation, who were systematically dispossessed, imprisoned or slaughtered throughout the mid to late 1800's. The name of the city where I live can be translated from the original language of the Wurundjeri as "a place in the shade." According to a 2001 census, people of Indigenous Australian descent comprise less than one percent of the area's population. The local council's tagline is "City of Harmony." (Click here to see Goanna's "Solid Rock,' the land rights protest song every Aussie worth their 1980's birthday knows by heart.)

Just yesterday I was reading a piece in an international current affairs magazine that rated nations according to their populations' mortality rates. Australia scored highly, which I found deeply surprising as our Indigenous population has some of the worst mortality rates in the world. (For some disturbing statistics on the comparative life expectancy of several Indigenous cultures from New Zealand, North America and here, check out this report from the Medical Journal of Australia.) I can only assume the exclusion of Aboriginal health concerns from the data on Australia in the magazine article was based on ignorance or denial. I was reminded of the following quote from Baha'u'llah:

"In this Day the secrets of the earth are laid bare before the eyes of men. The pages of swiftly-appearing newspapers are indeed the mirror of the world...This is an amazing and potent phenomenon. However, it behooveth the writers thereof to be purged from the promptings of evil passions and desires and to be attired with the raiments of justice and equity. They should enquire into situations as much as possible and ascertain the facts, then set them down in writing." - Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, pp. 34-40