{"id":1371,"date":"2013-06-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bahai.org.au\/index.php\/news\/indigenous-professor-and-lawyer-address-reconciliation-reception\/"},"modified":"2017-10-14T04:49:56","modified_gmt":"2017-10-14T04:49:56","slug":"indigenous-professor-and-lawyer-address-reconciliation-reception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bahai.org.au\/index.php\/indigenous-professor-and-lawyer-address-reconciliation-reception\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenous professor and lawyer address Reconciliation reception"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Indigenous
Indigenous professor and lawyer address Reconciliation reception<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Professor Shane Houston and Ms Bettina King<\/p>\n

Australians need to learn from their history to find a way that all people can be respected regardless of their differences, an indigenous speaker told a reception following a National Reconciliation Week Service at the Baha\u2019i Temple in Sydney on 2 June.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lessons from our history can be used to help us become better people and a better nation, said Professor Shane Houston, Sydney University\u2019s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services), a Gangulu man from Central Queensland.<\/p>\n

Special guests attending the service and reception included a member of the NSW Legislative Council and Parliamentary Secretary for Justice, the Hon. David Clarke, and Warringah Councillor Vanessa Moskal.<\/p>\n

Among the Baha\u2019i representatives were two members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha\u2019is of Australia, Professor Fariborz Moshirian and Dr Arini Beaumaris.<\/p>\n

Professor Houston began his address with a tribute to his parents, acknowledging that he obtained hope from his mother, and clarity about the role of values in life from his father.<\/p>\n

\u201cHope doesn’t mean we don’t have a journey to continue and there aren’t things to tackle, but we do have to accept that we have come some way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to think we are changing and that we have seen substantial progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the last census I think we\u2019ve got just over 22,000 Aboriginal graduates across the country– things have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Houston said that much racism flows from ignorance.<\/p>\n

It is easy for someone who is in the majority to say we should just \u201cget over\u201d racist remarks, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut put yourselves in the shoes of the other who hears those messages all the time, and understand why we might react the way we do.<\/p>\n

“My solution is greater education. We need to think about the question of cultural competence. How do we operate in an environment where there is more than one culture in play and do so in the way that we respect the difference of everyone in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australians need to walk together, owning the challenges we have, looking at the future and thinking what we could or should do.<\/p>\n

Professor Houston said the objective of Reconciliation Week is not turning away from the bumpy journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about what the road ahead looks like and what sorts of values and perspectives we need to promote in order to ensure that our future learns from our past and is better than it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spiritual response<\/strong><\/p>\n

The other keynote speaker was Bettina King, a Narrungga and Wardaman woman. A lawyer, she is a member of the Australian Baha\u2019i Community.<\/p>\n

Ms King gave an example from the experience of her mother to show why she has never thought that she as an Aboriginal person had to \u201creconcile\u201d with non-Aboriginal people, as opposed to forming good relationships with them.<\/p>\n

Ms King said two of her mother\u2019s children were taken from her and placed in the home of non-Aboriginal families. According to Welfare records, it was done because they were Aboriginal and so they could assimilate into white society.<\/p>\n

After one of the babies was taken away, her mother never saw him again. The only news she had of him was 15 years later when Welfare told her he had passed away in an accident, Ms King said.<\/p>\n

“My mother never got over this– grief and trauma carried her through her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms King said that when thinking about a spiritual response to reconciliation, she remembered Uncle Fred Murray, the first Aboriginal Baha’i.<\/p>\n

“In the 1960s, when my mother was having her kids removed, he was over in London at the World Congress of Baha’is.<\/p>\n

“I want to dedicate today to him. How amazing is it that an Aboriginal man got over to London and to speak to the World Congress of Baha’is –he had no rights, and yet he went to London to talk about his Aboriginal culture.<\/p>\n

“That leads me to my own culture, a very strong culture, a very strong spirituality. I became a Baha’i because my spirituality aligned with the Baha’i Faith, and the teachings of Baha’u’llah are about unity. I believe in unity, I believe in the oneness of humankind– we are all humans.”<\/p>\n

As chair of the reception, Ms Venus Khalessi said the Australian Baha\u2019i Community was happy to have been a supporter of National Reconciliation Week since it began.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1993 we were among the faith communities that started the Week of Prayer for Reconciliation, which was expanded in 1996 to become National Reconciliation Week,\u201d said Ms Khalessi, Director of Public Information for the Australian Baha\u2019i Community.<\/p>\n

The Temple service included prayers and readings from the Baha\u2019i Holy Writings and from the scripture of other world religions. There were also songs and chants performed during the service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australians need to learn from their history to find a way that all people can be respected regardless of their differences, an indigenous speaker told a reception following a National Reconciliation Week Service at the Baha\u2019i Temple in Sydney on 2 June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-releases","category-uncategorised"],"yoast_head":"\nIndigenous professor and lawyer address Reconciliation reception - Australian Baha'i Community<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bahai.org.au\/index.php\/indigenous-professor-and-lawyer-address-reconciliation-reception\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Indigenous professor and lawyer address Reconciliation reception - 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