General Discussion

I also recognise my ability to pass as a straight, white male has allowed me the privilege that has enabled me to survive here. Had I been born indigenous, I would be dead many times over, or come to think of it my mother would have died in labour with my elder brother, so I wouldn't have been born at all.

My country was founded on enlightenment values and abominable racism both. I appreciate the former and hope to progress the humanist values that so appeal to me and detest the later and hope to mitigate the wrong that was done and continues to be done in this country.

I live on land stolen from the Kaurna people, I would like to give it back, but I have nowhere else to go. I am glad we no longer have ceremonies "Thanking" the indigenous people for the use of there land, it always seemed inauthentic to me. Thanking them for something that was stolen and continues to be denied them struck me as a kick in the guts.

We now see "Acknowledgements" whereby we acknowledge the indigenous people as custodians and traditional owners of the land. It strikes me as more realistic. Unfortunately we have a government, media and a large segment of the population that feels the polar opposite of myself and those who are like-minded.

Do I love my country, I don't know. I love the land, I love the people working it to make it a better, more fair place, but I can't love the people working against this. So I am torn.

I was brought up to revere the concept of the "Fair Go" and I still do. "ANZAC Day" to me is the commemoration of the senseless death in war not the "Victory Day" that it now seems to embody in the public mind. I despair, but I still hope.