Nice biting criticism at the Spectator.com.au, which has published great critical material on the cultural wars, about the Welcome to Country ceremonies. It is in the form of a letter lamenting about the number of mind-numbing ceremonies the writer has been in. It is pointed out in commentary that there is no traditional cultural or religious significant of these ceremonies, but serve only as part of the cultural wars for the dispossession of traditional Australia:
"Dear Sir,
I am currently attending a conference in a major Australian city. Upon
landing here I was welcomed to country. In the five days since, I've
been welcomed to country another 20 times and there's more to go.
Despite this being a major medical conference, I've heard about white
privilege, systemic racism and 'always was, always will be' throughout.
Flying back tonight, where no doubt to top it all off, I'll receive my
22nd welcome.
The above is from a letter to the editor of this magazine. And it
reflects the experiences of Australians from all walks of life who now,
after several decades of having the faux Aboriginal smoking and other
ceremonies rammed down their throats and noses, have decided that enough
is enough.
Last year, the so-called indigenous Voice to parliament referendum,
which would have required changing the constitution and establishing a
race-based third chamber of parliament, was decisively defeated across
every state and territory bar, of course, the bureaucrats' capital of
the ACT.
It is likely that most of those who voted against the Voice would also,
if given the opportunity to do so, cast their vote against the
performing of Welcomes to Country and Acknowledgments of Country now
ubiquitous across the continent.
These two versions of a supposedly ancient Aboriginal ritual were,
apparently, concocted back in the 1970s as a promotional stunt to rival
New Zealand's impressive haka dance ceremony at the beginning of
football matches and other events. The smoking aspect of the Australian
performance is itself according to some Aborigines either a cleansing of
evil spirits ritual or the moving of a dead spirit into the afterlife,
so not exactly a cheerful 'welcome to this game of football' or 'welcome
to our exciting board meeting'.
By making these ceremonies so common, the activist class have stripped
them of whatever genuine sentimental or symbolic meaning they may once
have held. Now, without a shred of doubt, these rituals are surrogates
designed to promote and propagandise hardcore left-wing political
activism. Both welcoming people to and the acknowledging of 'country'
are built on the foundational ideology that Aboriginal sovereignty was
'never ceded', that Australia 'always was, always will be' Aboriginal
territory, and that non-indigenous Australians must 'pay the rent'.
Indeed, the ultimate goal of the endless repetition of these mantras
from classroom to boardroom to government buildings can only be to
undermine the property laws, and thereby the rule of law itself, of this
nation. Already, the High Court has played into this notion with its
baffling ruling in Love v. Commonwealth, repeatedly derided in these
pages by constitutional expert James Allan, that found some bizarre
spiritual connection to property passed down through genetic make-up.
However this unscientific tosh was legally justified, it has clearly
made a mockery of concepts such as legal ownership, racial equality and
the supremacy of the written law over 'the vibe', not to mention
sovereign risk.
Far better for all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous alike,
would be for one special day (or week) of the year to be set aside to
replace the current mishmash of days, festivals and other occasions
celebrating or guilt-tripping over the history of indigenous Australia.
Why not make Naidoc week the official celebration of Aboriginal
Australia, during which the ceremonies can be performed, the flag flown,
and the true history studied - and then that's it until the following
year. Scrap the Sorry Days, the Apology Days (there is a difference,
apparently) and all the rest of it.