Principals Reflection

Nelson Mandela stated, “In the end, reconciliation is a spiritual process, which requires more than just a legal framework. It has to happen in the hearts and minds of people.”

This week the country celebrates National Reconciliation Week with the 2022 theme being, ‘Be Brave, Make Change.” National Reconciliation Week takes place on the same dates each year: 27th May to the 3rd June. These dates commemorate two significant milestones: the 1967 Referendum which granted Aboriginal people the right to vote and, the 1992 Mabo decision. The week presents an opportunity for Australians to come together as individuals, families, communities and organisations to acknowledge and pay respect to the world’s oldest surviving culture.

From the Reconciliation Tasmania website, the following summary of this week’s focus is articulately expressed: We all come from one tribe or another, all different colours and family trees from across the globe. Tasmanian Aboriginal connection to country runs deep and is mapped in our timeline. Hundreds of generations occupied the lands in what is now Bass Strait, harvesting and farming there before the last ice age flooded the area, isolating Aboriginals on Lutruwita/Trowunna (Tasmania) and living in harmony with the land for the next 10,000 years until 1642 when Dutch ships were sighted from the shore. A century and half later came the French expeditions, then bands of sealers from Port Jackson and eventually British colonisation in 1803, fundamentally and devastatingly altering the way of life they’d known for over 60,000 years. Many of Tasmania’s early European settlers, be they convicts or free settlers, came from harsh and violent backgrounds making the early days of the colony a brutal environment for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Coming out of a climate of slavery, industrial revolution in England and famine across Ireland and beyond generated a desperate fight for survival in the early days of European settlement in Tasmania. The tragedy of the Black War and other frontier violence in Tasmania is well documented and can never be forgotten. There is no justification in any way for the violence and dispossession that followed the arrival of settlers and convicts but judging what occurred with today’s standards is counterproductive and does little to acknowledge the mixed tapestry of ‘boat people’ who arrived on these shores and the climate of brutality they existed under. The contribution that the 70,000 convicts made in building infrastructure, roads and farmlands, often in harsh, unforgiving conditions, must be acknowledged, as well as the pioneer spirit of many new settlers who just wanted to create opportunity and a better life for their families in the great southern lands. 

We all struggle with the concept of reconciliation – to go beyond ‘the quality of mercy’ in the sense of ‘forgiving and asking forgiveness’ and instead becoming instruments of real positive change. I know in my own household my mother held fast to her family’s sense of great injustice that was associated with ‘her family’ being forced to leave Ireland in the 1840’s. Similarly, my father would never talk of his family being dispossessed by the terrible upheaval caused by World War Two, eventuating in him leaving his homeland and never seeing his family again. We can all share intimate stories of dispossession and loss, and it is no accident that our key Mercy values are Compassion, Mercy, Respect and Hospitality. It is appropriate to conclude with a quote by Henri Nouwen, arguably one of the twentieth century’s most influential spiritual writers whose following quote highlights the importance of ‘compassion’ as being intrinsic to the ever-present topic of reconciliation, “Compassion - which means, literally, "to suffer with"- is the way to the truth that we are most ourselves, not when we differ from others, but when we are the same. Indeed the main spiritual question is not, "What difference do you make?" but "What do you have in common?" It is not "excelling" but "serving" that makes us most human. It is not proving ourselves to be better than others but confessing to be just like others that is the way to healing and reconciliation.”

Thank you to all in our school community who are ‘brave in being agents of change’ when being asked to support what is ‘good’ – a sense of values in action - rather than what is deemed ‘right’ – the sense of procedural correctness, which is extremely important as we all appreciate, however, not if it comes at the cost of human dignity.

Regards,

Rod Linhart

(Principal)