NAIDOC Assembly speeches
On Friday June 25 the school held a NAIDOC assembly. The two student speeches were delivered by Emma Howes and Daniel Holland:
Good Morning Fortians and Staff
I would like to begin by acknowledging that today’s NAIDOC assembly is being held on the traditional lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora nation, and pay my respect to Elders both past, present and emerging. I acknowledge Sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be, Aboriginal land.
Most know January 26th as Australia Day, marking the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove. But for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the date marks the beginning of the systematic dispossession of the land they’d been living on for more than 50,000 years.
On the 26th of January 1938 hundreds of people marched through the streets of Sydney. Their collective voice, indigenous and non-indigenous joined as one, called for change. The event was called the “Day of Mourning” in protest of the Australia Day celebrations, and was held every Sunday before Australia Day up until 1955, when it was shifted to the first Sunday of July.
In 1975 celebrations were extended to an entire week, called NAIDOC week. It was no longer seen as just a day of protest, but as a way of celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and knowledge. Today NAIDOC events are held all around the country, a chance for all Aussies to get together, engage, learn and celebrate the world’s oldest continuous living culture.
Ziggy Ramo is an Indigenous Australian singer, songwriter and activist. From the top of the Sydney Opera House sails to the harbour shores, in the video of his song “Little Things”, Ramo reinterprets Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody’s 1990’s land rights inspired classic “From Little Things Big Things Grow” in a multigenerational act of truth telling.
Emma Howes
The 2021 NAIDOC theme – Heal Country! – calls for all of us to continue to seek greater protections for indigenous lands, waters, sacred sites and cultural heritage from exploitation, desecration, and destruction.
First Nations people speak of Country as if it is a person, sustaining their lives – spiritually, physically, emotionally, socially, and culturally. Country, therefore, represents more than a place, it is inherent to identity.
NAIDOC 2021 invites us all to embrace First Nations’ cultural knowledge and understanding of Country as part of Australia’s national heritage, giving the rich culture and values of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples the respect they deserve.
For generations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been calling for stronger measures to recognise, protect, and maintain all aspects of their culture and heritage. They are still waiting for those robust protections.
This year’s theme also seeks substantive institutional, structural, and collaborative reform – something generations of their Elders and communities have been advocating, marching and fighting for.
Healing Country means resolving the continuing injustices faced by Indigenous Australians. It means dismantling our systemically racist criminal justice system, one in which Indigenous people are 12.5 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous people. It means fundamentally reworking our approach to policing. 474 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have died in custody since 1991. Now is the time to remember each and every one of those lives, including David Dungay Jr, who was murdered by correctional officers in 2015 while yelling “I can’t breathe”. It is about rejecting performative change and listening to Indigenous voices so we can take real and effective action.
Now is the time to uplift the voices of First Nations people, to jump at the opportunity to heal this fractured relationship by listening to their struggle and recognising their stories, the first stories of Australia.
For over 50,000 years, Australia’s Indigenous nations have cared for country by using land management that worked with the environment. Using traditional burning, fishing traps, and sowing and storing plants, they were able to create a system that was sustainable and supplied them with the food they needed. When Europeans arrived, they brought farming practices suited to an environment very different to Australia. Those practices have in the long-term caused deforestation, erosion and salinity. In this video we will see First Nations cultural sites can be found in our Australian backyards and how First Nations people can teach us a lot about sustainability practices.
Daniel Holland