There’s a film that was made over a decade ago that posits a Chinese invasion of Australia seen through the eyes of teenagers. Back in 2010 it would’ve been impossible to predict that the CCP would ink a pact with the Solomon Islands which Australian authorities are enviously eyeing as heralding the start of a new Cold War.
In response (again, unthinkable in 2010 when the movie was released) the United States has started devoting more effort to the Pacific. A new frontier for global diplomacy. Two hundred years ago the Frontier Wars were resulting in unnumbered Aboriginal deaths as the colonial government threw its forces into an effort to try to stop reprisals against settlers – who had stolen the land from the continent’s original inhabitants – by persecuting tribes up and down the east coast.
Nowadays it’s easy to sit back and reflect soberly on the injustice, as though we deserved this period of relative calm, but what about Manase Sogovare and his overtures to China? If we deserve our peace then what do we do about people who would disturb it?
Perhaps the answer lies in trying to come to terms with our past in a way that might light up the way forward. The offer of friendship that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have held out to the settlers’ descendants is genuine and it’s a generous opportunity to find a solution to the problems that we see playing out in the media every day. How many massacres make a genocide? How many deaths in custody perpetuate it?
How can we move toward a place where there is justice? An authentic response to the troubles currently informing the public sphere in Australia must involve all parties. At the table we must have representatives from the three strands that make up modern Australia.
As the Uluru Statement points out there is much to be thankful for, but the benefits of the long peace haven’t been distributed equally. It’s not a matter of “equalising” through reparations it’s just a matter of telling the truth. It may make you free. The alternative is certainly bondage.
