Welcome! Our national journey for reconciliation sometimes seems like a long, long road. But I'm an optimist! Nelson Mandela was held in prison for 27 years or so. He probably thought he would never be let out, given the fascism and racism of that government.

And yet he did achieve his freedom and he's embraced those who had him incarcerated. He went on to make great contributions to his nation and to the planet.

Often you can have a lot of words written, and you can have lot of words said, but you need to have some graphic way to put the history of Australia's relationship with Aboriginal people into some context, so that it is not segmented off into, well this is an issue about housing, this is an issue about health, etc.

You've got to see how this all fits together over a period of 200 years basically and certainly in more contemporary times.

This is what this "Young Australians and the Next 100 Years" Project is about. It interrogates the time and the process though which the plan for the founding a nation called Australia was devised back in 1891, by a small exclusive group, aboard the boat Lucinda on the Hawkesbury River and in Sydney's Middle Harbour. All of the group were white, all of them had an Anglo or Celtic heritage, all of them were of mature years, and all of them were male!

So it is that we're commencing this new venture, in which we're bringing together a diverse group of young Australians to revisit that 1891 process. It's all a part of our long road, and as such I extend a warm welcome to all fellow travellers.

Pat Dodson, January 2008

Created on 02/04/2003 10:24 AM by admin Updated on 02/20/2008 03:22 AM by admin