To the everywhen…

Here I am, in the next century, reading my Uncle David’s papers over and over on the floor of the sharehouse I live in, right across from where the Darebin Creek and Yarra intersect.

I can make sense of myself better if I’m near a river. There is so much I don’t yet know.

And someone once told me we are one of the most studied groups of people in the world.

It’s overwhelming so I decided to go for a walk and record some of what was coming up.

Here are a few of the many thoughts I have had while researching my Uncle David Anderson in archives I collected from AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies). My Uncle, who I never knew, but continue to get to know, dedicated a large part of his short life advocating for the Land Rights and self-determination of Blackfellas everywhere. I had no idea of the extent and amount of archives or the prolificacy of his writing.

My Aunty Nor, or professionally known as Professor Aunty Eleanor Bourke AM, has an huge list of achievements and contributions to Aboriginal Affairs, particularly in spaces of education. She is currently sitting as chairperson of the Yoorrook Justice Comission, a first of its kind formal truth-telling process of what happened and continues to happen as a result of colonisation in so-called Victoria. I have watched my Aunt in awe my whole life, and at 83 years she continues to work tirelessly as so many of our Elders do. Our mob never get to clock off. As we are routinely denied and deceived by the colony’s governing powers, we are even more than survivors.

In 1973, my Uncle David was acting lecturer in the Sociology and Behavioural Studies Dept. at Monash University, and in a paper wrote “it is nonsense to say we have to set aside and forget the past…” and I know I will spend the rest of my life revisiting his words. Even now picking just a few of the many quotes has been a challenge when they all speak to present day.

In a 1988 edition of Social Alternatives: Black Alternatives on the Bicentennial “it will cost the Australian community far more through neglect, than it ever would by making rightful compensation”.

Finally, in a piece from the Aboriginal Human Relations Newsletter, 1976, he also wrote “We do so now as we always did…not concerned with the stupid ideologies of socialism or capitalism…we as Aboriginal people commence from the reference point of what is the social community need”

Holding the past, present and future in the way that only We can - the everywhen within Us.