A couple of months ago, I experienced something intriguing during my summer travel to Australia. While it was interesting to me, it did seem completely normal to those who live there because it happens all the time.
It was just a simple acknowledgement.
At the end of each flight operated by Qantas Airways, Australia's biggest airline, a flight attendant says these words as a part of the announcement:
We acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, the traditional custodians of the land on which we work, live and fly. We pay respect to elders past, present and emerging.
This citation didn't just happen on flights. As my daughter and I toured the country, we saw this scenario repeat itself in every city and with many of the activities we engaged in.
We saw it happen at the beginning of group tours. We saw it happen at the end of group tours. We saw them do it during river cruises. We saw it written onto museum walls. We even saw signs posted with these words in almost every shop and restaurant we entered.
If you have been to Australia, you may have noticed it also. But it was fascinating to me since this was my first time in the country down under. So, I did a little digging into the country's history.
When the Europeans first arrived in Australia in 1770, they did not recognize the rights of the indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In fact, they declared that Australia was terra nullius - land belonging to nobody. They plundered and ravaged the land; and tried to kill off the original owners of the land.
But things seem to be changing these days.
Over the last 30 years, a lot of work has been done toward reconciliation. And that work continues earnestly today. That's why we heard that simple acknowledgment on local flights in Australia. And the tour guides say them before every city tour they give. It took over 200 years, but these are steps in the right direction.
Reflecting on these efforts by the Australians made me think about my own country. The history of the British arriving in America dates much farther back than the 1700s. So, we have had a longer time to ponder some of the events in our past.
Unfortunately, I don't see similar efforts at acknowledging and dealing with the atrocities committed against Native Americans by the early European settlers in the United States. Instead of federal and state governments leading the efforts on bringing healing, we have elected leaders who seem to be more interested in digging further into old wounds to draw fresh blood.
This has led to a portion of the populace who gets defensive whenever these atrocities of the past are mentioned. They see these as attacks on their progenitors, so they rise fiercely to their defenses irrespective of what history says.
In some states, there are even attempts at rewriting history through the replacement of history books with new ones. One example of this rewrite claims that slavery was beneficial to the slaves. It would seem that they're not only trying to rewrite history, they want to ensure deeper divisions happen between future generations of Americans who would have learned differing accounts of America's past.
But instead of denying the atrocities of the past, I think we should be reaching out for reconciliation. Rather than trying to rewrite history, we should be taking steps toward acknowledging past wrongs and correcting the policies that encourage the continuation of systemic inequities.
I think these would be steps in the right direction. Maybe we can learn a thing or two from the Australians.