This is a very difficult question to answer and perhaps you might say it’s not for someone like to me to say.
Would a treaty bring us closer to national reconciliation?
In my last column I felt that we were unsure about what national reconciliation would even look like? Would a treaty be a formal recognition of national reconciliation?
What is Makarrata?
When the Uluru Statement from the Heart was signed in 2017 one of it’s key components was the establishment of a Makarrata commission to oversee the process of treaty-making and truth-telling.
First I reject the use of the term “Makarrata”.
For our non-indigenous readers you would be unfamiliar with the term but for those who are aware Makarrata is a Yolngu word describing a process of conflict resolution, peacemaking and justice.
The word itself literally means a ‘spear penetrating, usually a thigh of a person that has done wrong, so that they cannot hunt anymore, that they cannot walk properly, they cannot run properly to maim them to settle them down, to calm them, that is Makarrata.
It does not take a genius to work who in the symbolic sense who is getting the spear through the thigh and it ain’t the First Nations people.
I have never harmed any First Nations people nor has anyone I know.
When they use the term “Makarrata” especially when it comes to treaty talks with our representatives in Government, it is a not a flattering term basically they are saying that the people of Australia, a nation that they do not identify with and it’s citizens including different ethnic groups that have migrated to Australia since British settlement have cause harm and therefore need a symbolic spear through their thigh so they won’t case anymore harm.
I find that highly offensive and highly divisive and if that is going to be the process in which we have a treaty then I don’t see this benefiting a large amount of people.
Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull rejected the Uluru Statement from the Heart because in his the voice would create a “third chamber”, interestingly he has changed that position declaring he would yes in a referendum.
While Scott Morrison flat out rejected in a recent speech to parliament.
Prime Minister Albanese has promised to implement the Uluru statement on the night he was elected while State and Territory Governments have gone ahead with their own treaty making and truth telling processes.
Could a treaty work?
New Zealand, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, Greenland and the US have all negotiated treaties with their indigenous populations, while the USA ratified more ten 364 treaties between 1778 and 1868, which they used to put an end to conflict but also Native Americans off their lands while the vast majority of treaties were broken or never honoured by the US Government.
New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi signed in 1840 is still being grabbled with and in came to light that Maori leaders never ceded sovereignty in 2014.
Treaties are not necessarily going to be a sign that we achieved national reconciliation.
Wrongs from the past can never be made right this side of eternity now matter how sincere and earnest the treaty provisions maybe.
Is it helpful that we create in a sense two nations in one? Do we have 2 nations in one already?
Indigenous leaders are calling for aboriginal communities and aboriginal organisations design and deliver the services for aboriginal people.
According to the Uluru Statement from the Heart ‘sovereignty was never ceaded’, they are calling on the Government to deliver a First Nations voice who will act on behalf of this sovereignty that was never ceded.
Would they accept any treaty that makes us become one nation, would aboriginal submit to the Government of the day which as Christians are Bible tells us to do (Romans 13)?
This is not going to be an easy fix and I pray that unity, peace, forgiveness and grace reign.