From Cheri Yavu-Kama-Harathunian

A little about Cheri - Cheri Yavu-Kama-Harathunian (B.App.Sci. Indigenous & Community Health; Masters Criminal Justice)
Director, Indigenous Wellbeing Centre
Central Queensland University

Cheri: “Junjarin-nga dhar’guna yau’eembai’ya ngoolam’bula dhar’kun yar war gow” These are Kabi Kabi words. They are from a 40,000 year old blessing and they mean: “May the spiritual forces of Mother Earth guide and protect your inner self and truth”. I offer this blessing to you.

Brother Jerry,

Just some thoughts I felt to share with you.

Yes, it was a brave new day, (or so we thought), when the brothers set up their gunya in Canberra. I too was much younger then. The brothers actions, did galvenate the Aboriginal baby boomers and others into acts of courage and activism. I remember watching on television our warriors being carted off in the back of those paddy wagons. My children watched with me and began to realise that being Aboriginal in the country in which they were born did not mean that they 'belonged'. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy shaped our thinking about who we were as a family. It was my young son who came home from school one afternoon, and asked, "Mum, what's a refugee?" I took the time to explain to him my understanding of the term. Hours later, he came back to me and said, "Mum you must be a refugee." I thought about that, and then somewhere I heard that Aboriginal people were actually saying that “We are refugees in our own country.” I guess he must have heard it. Refugees in our own country. Made refugees by an invasion that was recorded as 'settlement'.

What our brothers fought for, seems to me to have changed very little. But still their spirit has stayed strong and it is their strength that strengthens so many of us.

The RCIADIC also came with such hope and with such a spirit of purpose. I remember it well, I remember the ‘hope’ that came to those of us who worked in some capacity for this Commission. I was a research officer and in comparison to the data today, what can one say. It hasn’t changed much. Or has my head been in the sand too long, and things have changed?

Whilst our men are in prison, their wives, their children, and their communities suffer so many layers of trauma. Spiritual, physical, psychological, social, cultural, individual and collective trauma, such pain! Prison is a business. It is not a good business. Henry Ford said, “ A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business.” I wonder what would happen if we started looking at prison, and its repercussions from within prisons, what would we see, looking out? Most of what we know is looking at prisons from outside, looking in. What hope then do our brothers have if we continue to look from outside in? From the inside prison experience, how do we empower our brothers to come out into society again? Come out to a world that has changed, its not the same place that they left to go inside. Wife has changed, children have grown up, community has moved on, how do we empower them to take responsibility for what was lost by them and their loved ones?

I know that just because a judge hits his gavel and announces ‘ You will be sentenced to 5 years in prison,’ no matter how long the sentence may be –sometimes the sentence fits the crime – but that gavel does not stop life continuing for the prisoner’s family, especially the children. Some children grow into youth who can’t wait to commit crime just to be in prison with their fathers, or their brothers or other family members. I recall a song I sang for the first National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Conference held in Perth back in the 1980’s the first few lines come from a poem written by an anonymous black poet:

“ I am the black child, all the world waits for my coming

All the world watches with interest to see what I shall become

Civilisation hangs in the balance, what I am the world of tomorrow will be…….”

All the way through the RCIADIC I held all the words of that song (not just the above) in my heart because it seemed to me to be pointing toward a better way. A way that our brothers from the Tent Embassy portrayed. Even when I went and began to work in prisons the hope in that song still kept me strong in the work that I was committed to do.

I a traditional Aboriginal woman, mother, grandmother, aunt, niece, and now an Elder, living in an urban Aboriginal community, who knows, lives, grows and maintains her cultural values, wonders what the world of tomorrow will be for my children and my grandchildren? Will there come a time when we will see different prison statistics from the ones that I read today? Will I ever see the day, when posted in the news will be ‘ 20?? No intake of Aboriginal prisoners for petty crimes, at ??prisons’. Will that day ever come?

We've had the apology, but if it was just political rhetoric what hope do our brothers and sisters 'who were taken away' have. They are still healing, and searching for ‘belonging’. Will we ever see change for the better in the statistics in health, education, social engagement, management portfolio's, housing, prison intake, unemployment, integration into this 'multi-cultural society? Will we ever be given the 'right' to declare, 'This is our sacred lands. This country owns me. Its ownership of me is eons old.' I do believe that the strength that our brothers showed is still present even today, especially where we see our mob standing up, making their interpretation of ‘change’ happen. I still carry that picture of the ‘white little tent gunya’. It has always inspired me as has meeting some of the warriors who went and made that landmark claim.

Closing the gap as my son said to me the other day is not about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples aspirations, its about appeasement, being seen to be doing something about our people. It’s not about doing something for our people. At the end of the day who will benefit the most? Were we asked to 'Close the Gap'? From what I can gather, the ‘gap’ was dumped on us and there is no closing it. How can you ‘close’ something that has been ‘dumped’ on you? How can we close it, when it victimises the people it is supposed to help. Isn’t that way of doing ‘something about is’ come from the past? And isn’t it disenfranchising us all over again?

I pray that all who attend on 26th January, will carry with them, the light and love of those like me who cannot be there. Please fly our flag high over that little white gunya. I pray that the messages that come will be heard right around the world. Thank you for keeping our voice alive.

Cheri

acykh1989@gmail.com