This year’s theme for NAIDOC week 3-10 July is Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up!
At first glance, this theme appears to be only relevant for Aboriginal people – what could it mean for non-Indigenous people living in Kangaroo Valley?
Perhaps the key is in the words ‘we must do it together’.
As it says on the official website https://www.naidoc.org.au/awards/current-theme,
“We have a proud history of getting up, standing up, and showing up. From the frontier wars and our earliest resistance fighters to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities fighting for change today—we continue to show up.
Now is our time. We cannot afford to lose momentum for change.
We all must continue to Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! for systemic change and keep rallying around our mob, our Elders, our communities.
Whether it’s seeking proper environmental, cultural and heritage protections, constitutional change, a comprehensive process of truth-telling, working towards treaties, or calling out racism—we must do it together.”
Getting Up, Standing Up, and Showing Up can take many forms. Importantly, it is said that “[w]e need to move beyond just acknowledgement, good intentions, empty words and promises, and hollow commitments. Enough is enough.”
The goal is that “[t]he relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians needs to be based on justice, equity, and the proper recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ rights.”
So, in this edition, as with NAIDOC week in 2021, some articles are presented about Indigenous Kangaroo Valley history. By now we will have all heard of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the goals of constitutional reform, and Voice, Treaty, Truth.
In a sense, this NAIDOC edition of KV Voice is a contribution towards local truth-telling in the Shoalhaven, and it is hoped it will encourage us to see Kangaroo Valley with a sense of deep time and its significance to people, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, over the millennia.
Sarah Waddell
on behalf of
Reconciliation Allies Kangaroo Valley
