[Kokatha man]

Non-political Reconciliation/intro post

Hi everyone – a couple of things have prompted me to post on the abovementioned topic; and I thought in doing so (after 60 odd posts) that a more complete introduction of myself was also relevant to the members of this fantastic forum (IIS) I have been fortunate to (only recently) join.

With the imminent opening of the newest session of parliament, the delivery of (for many) the long-awaited Apology to Indigenous Australians by our PM has become a current talking point. It is, and let me personally re-state this, not an apology that carries any sense of personal responsibility by Australian citizens for any of what has best been described as “the wrongs and injustices of the past.”

But before I venture any further, let me do the right thing and properly introduce myself. I am a (rapidly not getting any younger!?) man, residing in Adelaide, who has had the good fortune to have had an Irish-German father, and an Aboriginal-English mother, whose own (maternal) grandmother was a tribal girl from South Australia’s west coast: a member of the Kokatha group (pronounced cooker-ta) – part of the Western Desert nation of Australian Aborigines. Thus my forum sobriquet – Kokatha man.

I grew up in the 50s and early 60s where, unfortunately, discrimination was an ugly reality: but in trying to “finger” any particular catalyst for my interest in astronomy, I can only rationalize the following circumstances. Being an enterprising young fella, I earnt considerable “pocket-money” by collecting bottles at the local footy matches for their refund deposit and catching yabbies in the local waterways (not much life in them now I’m afraid) - selling them to the fishing tackle store – 9 pence a dozen for the correct sized ones, used for catching yellow-belly and ponde (callop and Murray cod) - and on a Friday night/Saturday morning me and my mate Ralph would haul up, with pieces of meat on strings, up to 60 or so dozen of em – to the point where sometimes we were told “to give it a rest for a couple of weeks lads” by the store owners (who froze them.)

Ralph, a lifelong friend, who lived across the road, was not Aboriginal: and he really was the first person to teach me that being racist had nothing to do with your cultural background – but far more to do with your intellectual capacity (measured by both logical/rational, and emotional maturity, quotients.)

His parents bought him, when we were about 7 years old, a “Newtonian reflector” and in memories’ hindsight it just about looked like the one old Isaac first invented! A tripod with legs about a foot long, a ball and bracket/claw above this and a tiny 2”-2.5 inch (50-60mm) scope with a “push-pull” ep (Huygens, most probably made by Christiaan himself!) That little “scope,” and a battered pair of Zeiss 7x50s with a cracked prism on one side, were the keyholes to an infinity of aspirations. (if you’re reading this Omnivorr, they’re the real “busted K-Mart noccies”)

Well, that was it, cut down on the lollies, comics and Saturday arvo flicks Darryl, and soak up anything/everything I could on astronomy. At nine years old joining the ASSA and grinding/polishing my very own 6 inch mirror: god knows what they thought of this skinny (unfortunately not-so-now) very young and small Aboriginal kid rolling up in the city unaccompanied in the dark to listen to the night’s speakers; or out at the old horse-stable rooms at the Marryatville Technical High to attend scope-making sessions, with Ronchi and Foucault jerry-rigged devices. My head spun with aspirations; I could lay out there in the night-time and reel off the names of dozens of stars: what fantastic and awe-inspiring words of power and knowledge they were: Rigel, Saiph, Fomalhaut, Betelguese, Achernar, Hamal, Alpheratz, The Great Nebula in Orion and the Jewel-Box cluster etc etc: I was going to be an astronomer, I would be involved in and discover all manner of wonders! But I was really only an Aboriginal kid in a society that (in general) only reserved the opportunity to expand your horizons according to certain dictates, and by the time I was 15 or so, though the wonder and interest stilled glowed in me, the realities and issues of an Aboriginal teenager struggling to grow and survive had dulled my optimism and aspirations: cynicism, bitterness and reactivity spiralled off into years of aimlessness and wasted time…….

But I did come back, thanks to principally (initially) the support within Adelaide’s Aboriginal “community” and then, as my confidence grew and a career that still draws on that skinny little kid’s sense of wonder expanded my horizons and sense of self-worth and validity; I started to think again as I cut back on workloads about those nights long ago……………

I can be too flippant as well as too pedantic and serious, argumentative and (still) reactive: but as one protagonist in some inconsequential forum argy-bargy noted as his final post on the matter; it really is about “being civil” (thanks JB.)

And that point best sums up the point I’d like to make about the upcoming parliamentary event: Reconciliation and “saying sorry” are ultimately about “being civil” and civilized about something that anyone with an ounce of nous recognizes as a “sorry” aspect of Australia’s past: that expressing sorrow for past policies and attitudes is neither owning/accepting guilt personally about these realities of history or compromising any of our individual characters with guilt or recrimination: it is an expression of understanding, or awareness, of past injustice: a response any mature and confident person can endorse – as John said: “in the interest of being civil.”

Thanks if you’ve read through this tome: I’d just like to say once again that I’m privileged to have “discovered” this forum. Regards, Darryl.