In this together: the theme of National Reconciliation Week 2020 is a simple, yet profound statement for the times that we live in. These three words have taken on a meaning like never before both at a community and personal level. As Australians slowly begin to emerge from isolation to once again enter workplaces, jump on public transport, and return to schools and universities, they do so with the realisation that our communities and daily lives may never return to normal.
I reflect on this year’s theme for National Reconciliation Week from the make-shift office space in a spare room of my St Kilda apartment. I have to force myself not to let my mind wander and get lost in the enormity of the global pandemic. ‘Think local, think community’ is the mantra I tell myself as I search for the words of this article.
As I repeat these words to myself, I am struck by images of the 2000 Bridge Walk – perhaps because this week marks 20 years since this historical event.
However, the images of more than 250,000 Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia’s walking side-by-side across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the name of Reconciliation sits in great juxtaposition to the words that have permeated our social consciousness in recent months: isolation and social-distancing.
Thousands walked over Sydney Harbor Bridge, for the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation event, Corroboree 2000. Source: John van Hasselt - Corbis / Contributor Getty
I have always been a strong believer in looking to our past to shape our future. In a time of such uncertainty, perhaps we can draw insight from this historical event that shaped the reconciliation movement two-decades ago, and consider how we will choose to move forward as a more reconciled nation in a post-Covid world.
I find it interesting that the 2020 Reconciliation Week theme ‘In this together’ could have easily found itself a catch-cry of the 2000 bridge walk. It alludes to the soul of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia as intrinsically linked, like the hands of those walking over the harbour on that Sunday morning in May.
Perhaps their message for the nation might have sounded something like:
In this together: the simple act of standing shoulder to shoulder.
In this together: a powerful message of love and connection.
In this together: towards a future unknown
And if they’d placed these messages in a time capsule, to be opened 20 years later amid the unforeseen COVID-19 crisis, would we be wise enough to connect that unifying act with the act of unity in a time of social distance? Maybe we would take heed of the importance of looking out for each other, leading with love, striving for connection and combatting uncertainty with courage.
So, as I sit in my make-shift office, uncertain about the state of the world, I repeat once more ‘think local, think community’. I am reminded of the lyrics from ‘listen to the news’ composed by Jimmy Chi in Bran Nue Dae:
“So look to the day when the sun shines it's rays cause I know that a new day is dawnin'
And dawn it will come and the people as one shall rise to the light of the mornin'”
I think to myself. In this together: yeah, we’ve got this.
Benson Saulo is a Wemba Wemba, Jardwadjali, Weregia and Gunditjmara man. He was appointed as the Australian Youth Representative to the UN in 2011, and has been a Young Australian of the Year finalist.
