Basic map of the five languages of the Kulin nation. Image: Wikimedia Commons /Nick carson at English Wikipedia / Public Domain

We need to be educated about what the LNP does not want taught but prefers ignored.

These days, Melbournians celebrate the contribution of the Kulin clans to the life of the city. But even as Elders welcome us to the MCG, and clan members, young and old, bring vibrancy to the city’s cultural, intellectual and spiritual life, commentators on the Voice referendum report that many voters have little knowledge of the history of this place and its continuing impact on Kulin lives. It is as if a people just walked away and left the place to the invaders.

The claim that colonisation had no lasting negative impact is absurd. That Kulin have survived at all is a measure of the extraordinary determination of their Old People and their current leaders. That many carry generational trauma and labour under a continuing burden of structural inequality in education, health, housing, and rates of poverty and incarceration is apparent in the continuing gaps in Victoria’s life tables. That Kulin welcome us to Country and share culture so generously is a gift to us all. A ‘Yes’ vote in the Voice referendum just may go some way to closing these gaps and to addressing historic wrongs.

Source: Bitter truths: colonisation was not so good for some – Pearls and Irritations