Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
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The Jewish people know very well what it is like to be on the receiving end of oppression. No nation in the human family has been persecuted as viciously, as systematically and over as long a period of time. That is why the oppression and the attempted genocide of Australia's indigenous community has a special resonance for Australian Jewry.
In recent times, the non-indigenous community in Australia has started to confront the full magnitude of the horrors that have been visited upon the original owners of this country - the massacres, the forcible dispossession of indigenous communities from their traditional lands, and the stolen children.
It's just not good enough for anyone to say today that all this happened a long time ago and has nothing to do with today's generation of non-indigenous Australians. Let's be honest with ourselves. A very high proportion of Australia's wealth comes from the mineral and agricultural produce of land that was stolen from Australia's indigenous people.
If the rest of us continue to enjoy the fruits of that dispossession, then it is not morally open to us to try to wash our hands of the problem. We continue to be the beneficiaries of the crimes of the past and the present and if we have any sense of self respect and dignity we should, at the very least, acknowledge our responsibility and, as a nation, make restitution to the extent that that is still possible. And that means among other things, giving sincere and generous effect to the High Court's recognition of Native Title, and rejecting the demands of the various commercial interests who want to confine Native Title to its narrowest ambit or extinguish it altogether.
In the Jewish community, and I am sure in the non-indigenous community at large, most of us still believe in that core Australian value of a fair go. What are we to do when we are confronted with a situation in which the government, booked by powerful commercial interests threatens to override the clear demands of morality and conscience? The very least we can do is to join indigenous Australia in speaking up loud and long about our desire to see fairness prevail - by letting the government know that it will pay a heavy political price at the ballot box and in the international community if it rides roughshod over the just entitlements of indigenous Australians and by telling the racists and the bigots who try to deny or belittle the horrors of the past exactly what we think of them and their racist statements.
Just a couple of weeks ago the Federal member for Oxley was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald as saying that she could not understand why sections of the Jewish community were in the forefront of efforts to undermine her, and asking "What have I ever personally done or said against the Jewish community to warrant these attacks on me?" She just doesn't get it, does she. All over Europe today, churches, governments and other institutions have been making formal apologies to the Jewish people, more than fifty years after the event, for having remained silent during the Holocaust - for biting their tongues while Jewish children were torn from the arms of their parents and transported to the death camps where they were gassed and cremated. Despite the passage of time and the belated apologies, the psychological wounds still run deep in our collective memory. In the face of our own historical experience of what can happen when good people fail to speak up against evil, does the member for Oxley seriously think that silence is an option for the Jewish community when indigenous Australians, or any other minority groups, are victimised?
There has already been far too much silence during this century. Genocide has had far too easy a run, and I can at least speak for the Jewish community when I say that we will not be mute, we will not maintain a criminal silence, in the face of continuing attempts at genocide against indigenous Australia, even if it is genocide by stealth. I don't want my children or grandchildren to have to get up in public in fifty years time and apologise for my silence in the way that people throughout Europe are today having to apologise for the silence of their parents and grandparents during the Holocaust.
I would like to conclude with 9 message from the Jewish community to all indigenous Australians. We know what it feels like to become disheartened in the face of oppression and injustice. We know how tempting it can be to give in to feelings of despondency and despair. But just remember, you are not alone. Look around at this meeting and at dozens of other meetings that have taken place and will take place throughout Australia. There are millions of Australians who support you and who understand very clearly how important it is that your cause prevails, if Australia is to live up to its image of fairness and decency. Three thousand years ago the great Hebrew king, King David, composed Psalm 37 in which he prophesied that: "The meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace". Don't succumb to despair. Don't lose hope. Morality and justice are on your side and they can and must win through in the end.