Clarence
Valley Environment Centre
Winter 2000 Newsletter
Mick Dodson on Reconciliation
People for co-existence
The
Millinenium is short
Mick Dodson
"...Our obsession with one man's incapacity to say sorry - the words he wants on a piece of paper - and the ruination of any meaningful apology with excuses and denial will forever distract us from lasting reconciliation.
Let us not get hung up on this man's incapacity to utter a simple human response to the suffering of others. It's not worth the effort and distracts us from what we simply must do as a nation if we are to go forward in a true sense of reconciliation.
The notion of 'practical reconciliation' is also a furphy. Although issues of the health, housing and education of indigenous Australians are of key concern to a nation, they are not issues that are at the very heart or the very soul of reconciliation. But they are - quite simply - the entitlements every Australian should enjoy. The tragedy is that they are entitlements successive governments have denied. Why should they be given some higher order of things in the reconciliation process?
Reconciliation is about far deeper things - to do with nation, soul and spirit. Reconciliation is about the blood and flesh of the lives we must lead together, not the nuts and bolts of the entilements as citizens we should all enjoy. There are those who will come along and try to denigrate and obstruct reconciliaiton and our efforts. We must try our best to bring them along on our journey. And, if they are not willing to walk with us, we must leave them behind."
-This is a small excerpt from
Mick Dodson's
Corroboree 2000 speech.
The full text is in the Environment Centre library.
People For Co-Existence Top of page
People for Coexistence is a group of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal friends which meets at the Grafton Ngerrie Land Council, 50 Wharf St, South Grafton, at 6.00pm on the first Tuesday of each month.
We try to raise community awareness of the need for patience, understanding and comnmunication - recognising the gift of one anothers' presence. Come along - everyone's welcome.
The millenium is short: time is long Top of page
According to Hindu chronology, we are now 5000 years into the age of kali-yuga, the age of darkness. There are about 411,000 years to go. There are four yugas, or epochs - pritha- yuga, tretha-yuga, dwaspara-yuga and kali-yuga.
Together, the four yugas occupy 4,320,000 years, or one maha-yuga. A maha-yuga is one revolution of the yuga cycle. Seventy-one maha-yugas are equal to one manuvanthara. Fourteen manuvantharas are equal to one kalpa, or one day in the life of Brahma.
After Brahma has worked for one day there is destruction, after which he rests for an equal period of time. This pattern continues for 100 Brahmaic years.
The entire lifetime of Brahma is equal to one day in the life of Vishnu.
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