Review 22.8
6-26 June 1997

Jeremy Jones, who heads AIJAC's Sydney office, delivered a longer version of this address to the Australian Reconciliation Convention.

Those of us who are serious about the process of Reconciliation between Indigenous and other Australians understand and appreciate the importance of hearing expressions of pain and responding appropriately.

Meeting in Sydney prior to the Australian Reconciliation Convention, senior representatives of 10 major religious faith groups addressed the specific issue of the role of faith communities in furthering Reconciliation. The climate in which they met was one of despair and disillusion experienced by many Indigenous Australians. Genuine fears for the future of the soul of our country were articulated by the diverse, broadly representative group.

The key issues the meeting addressed were racism; the need for a shared understanding of history; the continuation of dispossession; the treatment of Aboriginal spirituality; and a range of social problems relating to health, education and employment.

For responsible leaders of faith communities in this country, the words "he who does not condemn, condones", articulated by Zofia Kossak-Szcyucka's 1942 statement, have timely resonance.

We live in a community in which "stolen children" are only now having their stories heard and their pain recognised. We are all children and many of us are parents. We care deeply for our own families and respect those who, whatever their personal ethical framework, are guided by their love and affection for their families. From this perspective, it is difficult to comprehend the difficulty for some political leaders to clearly and unambiguously condemn a policy of tearing family units asunder. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) ,and leaders of the Jewish community throughout Australia have urged the Government to endorse the recommendations of the Stolen Children Inquiry as an issue of "basic morality and human rights."

As Diane Shteinman, president of the ECAJ, stated, the stolen generation was deprived of its precious gift of inheritance. The Inquiry started the healing process. The Government has a duty to respond to this Report in a manner in which we can all be proud. Restitution can never compensate for the human cost of the policy, but can serve as a platform for a dignified future. To not accord serious consideration to the Report's recommendations is a blatant abrogation of moral responsibility. The Jewish community has long been concerned for the moral welfare of Australia and there is little morality if a Report of this nature is denigrated, belittled or swept aside.

Both the ECAJ and AIJAC also endorse and echo the use of the term "Genocide" by the Human Rights' Commission in defining the policy of forcibly seeking to totally assimilate Indigenous Australians. The term has a meaning in international law, and it is not in the least insulting to the memory of the victims of the Nazi attempt to murder every Jewish person on the planet, for Sir Ronald Wilson and Mick Dodson to apply this legal term to Australia's past policy. The Shoah, the Holocaust , was unique and this fact is not altered by honest admissions of other genocidal policies or practices.

The persistence of racism in the community, which reveals its ugly face when it is allowed to out-shout decent Australians, is of tremendous concern to members of all faith communities. So many of the myths promoted in the self interest of those who perceive Indigenous Australians as competitors for resources, and by those who occupy the intellectual and moral low ground and gain some feeling of superiority by persecuting the weak, should be understood to be, and clearly identified as, "racist."

All religions and faiths recognise the responsibility of each of us to act as "our brothers' keepers". We all affirm that the human rights of any one Australian should be the concern of all Australians.

The Jewish community has explored similarities between our experiences and those of Indigenous Australians, which have enhanced our recognition of Aboriginal spirituality and the need to combat prejudice against Indigenous Australians. In NSW, the Jewish community has used the shared legacy of oral traditions and memories of exile to create the Oral History Project with Tranby College. More and more of our religious leaders are noting that Jews and Indigenous Australians have both suffered at the hands of majority communities who have been eager to force outsider s to fit their perception of the world.

In the Jewish tradition, the understanding is that we are not alone in the universe but linked to each other and there is much to learn from our respective experiences and spirituality. Martin Buber in the "Knowledge of Man" argues that true understanding is "perceiving and thinking in the mind and body of another individual", and we must try to respect the spirituality of all of humanity.

Indifference to the problems that confront society is, in Jewish teaching, an unforgivable sin. The Jewish community shares a vision of a country that recognises and understands its own history and believes in a future in which all can enjoy dignity, respect and justice.