What DO WE DO WITH THIS STORY
The time has come for all Australians to unite in recognising the truth of European arrival on this land.
It is imperative that we listen to the First Peoples and stand alongside them, supported by the collective goodwill of our nation.
Common sense tells us that no present-day Australian can be held responsible for the actions of our forebears 253 years ago, or even 100 years ago. What we can do now, however, is make a collective commitment as a nation to face up to the stains in our past.
This magnificent opportunity has already begun!
Truth Telling – The Recognition Way was launched in Australia in an inaugural gathering held on Saturday 29th October 2022, when just under 100 people from all over Australia gathered near the Lieutenant James Cook 1770 landing site of first encounter at Kamay Botany Bay.
The next gathering, open to the Australian public, will be held on Saturday 2nd March 2024 in the Kamay Botany Bay region – the exact site to be confirmed after investigations about available space are finalised.
You are invited!
The Program will include bringing early factual records into the open and placing them under public scrutiny.
This will place all of us, the Australian people, in a position where we can assess those records for ourselves, and come to our own mind about them. The Program will include the assembled gathering given the opportunity to stand together and proclaim A Declaration of Recognition of our true history since colonisation (view text below put in declaration).
The day’s program will be recorded and filmed.
How to register?
More details of this gathering will be made available on this website in the near future.
Save the date! Saturday 2 March 2024
A Declaration of Recognition
We gather at the place where our shared history began – Kamay Botany Bay.
Though we speak of untold loss and grief,
Yet also we are filled with gratitude – for what we have found in each other.We see the many fair minded people who live on all these lands.
We see First Nations people who have generously shown love and forgiveness.
We see later Australians who, seeing truth, labour to make wrong things right.And yet, we know that the heart of our nation is disturbed.
At the heart of our nation there lies a profound injustice – and a deep divide.
It is a divide between descendants of those who were here and those who came.First Nations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, became oppressed.
On our first day of shared history, an armed attack was launched against them.
Tall ships came from the sea – and other people overran Country.Belonging to Country, First Peoples were dispossessed of their homelands.
Elders looked and saw – old people displaced, no Place of belonging.
They looked and saw – language forbidden, culture, identity – all lost.
Young lives broken by inter-generational trauma – lives over before they began.The time has come to recognise the truth about European arrival in this land.
The voice of First Peoples must be heard,
And the voice of all people of goodwill heard with them.With this Declaration of Recognition we enter the Truth Telling space together.
We declare that at this place we recognise the truth – the stains on our past.We publicly reject, and strongly condemn these colonising actions.
They are not acceptable to us – they were not done in our name.We celebrate a truth that binds us together, the truth of our common humanity.
We commit to walking together – in our resolve to making wrong things right.“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
