Inspiring Words

The first of many posts on the same theme, I hope. Today I post here Paul Keating's famous Redfern Address - which placed third on ABC Radio National's Unforgettable Speeches poll. The full transcript is here



I re-post the quotation I stuck in the comments for the last post:

Ever so gradually we are learning how to see Australia through Aboriginal eyes, beginning to recognise the wisdom contained in their epic story.

I think we are beginning to see how much we owe the indigenous Australians and how much we have lost by living so apart.

I said we non-indigenous Australians should try to imagine the Aboriginal view. It can't be too hard. Someone imagined this event today, and it is now a marvellous reality and a great reason for hope.

There is one thing today we cannot imagine. We cannot imagine that the descendants of people whose genius and resilience maintained a culture here through 50 000 years or more, through cataclysmic changes to the climate and environment, and who then survived two centuries of dispossession and abuse, will be denied their place in the modern Australian nation.

We cannot imagine that. We cannot imagine that we will fail.

Short, uncomplicated language. A very Australian feel. If this doesn't make you stand up and take notice of the big fat elephant in your closet, I don't know what will.