The backlash against the ubiquitous, fatuous “Welcome to Country” nonsense in Australia is growing. And it’s not just coming from unruly soccer crowds or right-wing politicians. A growing number of Aboriginal Australians are going public that they’re fed up with “bullshit” symbolism in their name.
For the unfamiliar, “Welcome to Country” is a ‘tradition’ that was fabricated in the mid-’70s. A visiting troupe of Polynesian performers at a West Australian festival refused to appear unless they received a “traditional welcome”. Actor Ernie Dingo and musician Richard Walley duly cooked up a ‘tradition’.
The ceremony had tenuous links to some forms of welcoming ceremony that were occasionally recorded in some parts of Australia – especially where transgressing on tribal boundaries was as likely as not to involve a ‘welcome’ at the point of a spear. But, as it stands, the ceremony is almost entirely fabricated, even if with the best of intentions.
Even so, it was supposed to be reserved for important occasions, particularly those involving foreigners. Instead, the faux ceremony has become near-ubiquitous in everything from football games to school assemblies and domestic plane flights. Large supermarkets even print them on their dockets.
But, as growing numbers of Aboriginal Australians are pointing out, such asinine, hollow symbolism doesn’t do a damn thing for Aboriginal people.
Bess Price said such ceremonies would only ever be indigenous symbolism while Aboriginal women in remote communities continued to suffer higher rates of domestic violence.
Bess Price is a member of the Walpiri people of remote northern Australia. A former Northern Territory MP and minister, Price is mother of prominent Federal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. In 2012, Bess Price received the prestigious US International Women’s Courage Award from former US President Barack Obama in 2012 for her work tackling domestic violence.
She argued that gestures to improve the self-esteem of first Australians did nothing to address the dire living standards of women in remote Aboriginal communities, where alcohol abuse and poverty were rife.
“No wonder we Aboriginal people can’t get ahead. No wonder Aboriginal women experience the highest level of violence against us,” the former Northern Territory government minister told her Facebook followers from Alice Springs this week.
“All the ‘Welcome to Country’, all the ‘Smoking Ceremonies’ and all the made up bulls*** rituals about ‘pay our respects to elders past and present’ is just one big lie.
“Shame shame shame.”
Price, like her daughter, is up against some extremely powerful vested “Aboriginal Industry” interests, almost entirely based in the inner cities and often absurdly white. These are people who charge thousands of dollars for conducting “Welcome to Country” and “Smoking Ceremony” events, and rake in taxpayer cash from their “indigenous” boards and NGOs.
Anyone who threatens their lucrative little empires is ruthlessly attacked.
Jacinta Price had been targeted by online trolls, who had wished her a ‘painful death’, and left-wing indigenous activists who accused her of selling out indigenous people […]
“The hate that has been directed at my daughter for having a different opinion to those who want to remain in their victimhood mentality is disgusting and I’m appalled,” Bess Price said.
“There is a dark side that has come to surface and Australia is now witnessing this up close.”
Daily Mail
That “dark side” is the unhinged hate on the left that feels not a blush of shame for calling Aboriginal Australians the worst imaginable racial slurs should they have the temerity to step off the leftist reservation.
But, hey, it’s different when they do it.
