A Reconciliation Odyssey: Negotiating Towards 2001

Abstract

Relations between the indigenous peoples of Australia and non-Aboriginal Australians have been marked by racial tension, hostility and brutality: a classic case of the result of the collision of alien cultures. In the eyes of some, the differences in these world views are so great that they are irreconcilably incompatible. The acceptance by, or the imposition on a minority, of fundamental values antithetical to its own culture may spell its demise. Cultural survival is not synonomous with cultural preservation. Through the interstices created by legislation, common law and education and therefore ultimately through the will of the nation it may be possible to create an environment in which vastly different cultures may come to some improved position of reconciliation. The necessary political, legal, social and economic adjustments will need to be addressed and effected if the currently most disadvantaged group in Australia is to be in the necessary position of an equal at the concatenate negotiations which separate today from reconciliation.