Day 11 – A First Nations Child’s Failings: Australia Day When A Nation Truly Remembers
We celebrate Australia Day on the day in 1788 when Captain Arthur Phillip planted the Australian flag to claim the country for England. This began a sad history for those who had inhabited the land for many thousands of years before.
There were those who treated first nations people with kindness and respect. Others literally planned to exterminate them. I am among many thousands who have argued for a change of date from “Invasion Day” to another more suitable one. This poem reflects our need to incorporate truth-telling and kindness into our present and past. Only then can we truly celebrate.
A little First Nations boy hearing his grandmother pray
recites her prayer for forgiveness for
what he has left undone,
that he ought to have done, and for
things he ought not to have done.
It seems silly.
He can’t have done or not done much.
He’s just a little boy.
But somehow in repeating her words,
he seems to understand.
The journey of life is about
always doing our best,
recognising what we could have done better
and trying to do just that.
Now, if only the great nations of the world
would learn from wise grandmothers and
think as that little boy.
Facing the truth of our failings
never diminishes us
but strengthens who we are.
A nation celebrating embraces kindness in its memory,
as well as pain.
It remembers those it has failed and hurt
as well as those who have prospered.
It determines, like the little boy,
to try and do better.
Peoples of a Kind Nation are truly Great, and despite tears
for wrongs of the past, have much to really celebrate.
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