Published: 25 April 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Support for the treaty from all sides of the political spectrum, and especially within the Victorian Parliament, is essential. None more so than from minority groups who are familiar with the pains of conflict and struggles to survive.
READ Victoria introduces to parliament 'history-making' Indigenous voice legislation (Guardian)
In the case of the Jewish community, there are obvious differences in the cases of Jewish and Indigenous struggles for freedom and self-determination. Jews have forever been pushed to the fringes of society, our existence questioned in every generation, while Indigenous Australians have faced ongoing physical and structural genocide, irreversible colonial damage and dispossession of land.
Our respective battles for justice and sovereignty remain in significant parallel. The Jewish people have demanded recognition for self-determination for millennia, albeit in different ways and in very different circumstances. Jewish values associated with self-determination can be linked to almost every festival, almost every traditional song, almost every part of our scripture and liturgy.
Self-determination is not about fighting for your own people to the detriment of others, but about being empowered in a world of other nations. It’s about the future of your people being chosen by yourself and no-one else, a concept underlining the current treaty process.
Jews in Australia need to keep working to acknowledge this for the First Nations and support their right to self-determination, just as we ask the same of the world.
It is no secret that the Jewish people place particular emphasis on freedom and land. Having just celebrated Pesach and Yom Ha’atzmaut, the idea of liberation and self-determination is still fresh in our minds. Current events in Israel remind us about the importance that land plays for so many different peoples.
And yet, we as Jews remain noticeably quiet when it comes to the land of Australia and supporting the struggle for Indigenous self-determination from the many lasting remnants of our colonial past, and in many cases, our colonial present.
According to literature surrounding the treaty legislation, the Indigenous community expects the intergenerational legacy of colonisation acknowledged. Ongoing pain and structural suffering has been alleviated in some areas, but for most Indigenous people, much remains the same.
Daily battles are fought and only sometimes won for land rights, compensation for stolen wages, acknowledgement and redress of the Stolen Generations, and the disproportionate number of Indigenous children being taken away from their families.
There is no Band-Aid solution that could alleviate the intergenerational trauma of Indigenous people. So too with our own community – we have just commemorated Yom Hashoah, a day in which the memories and stories of the Holocaust remind us of the suffering of the past.
The Jewish people are no strangers to the impacts of institutional violence, and while there are notable differences between the Nazi regime and the projects of British colonisation, both were responsible for suffering that will undeniably impact future generations of both Jewish and Indigenous peoples.
Thus it is incumbent upon other communities, including the Jewish community, to demonstrate active support for Indigenous treaty legislation - not just out of moral obligation and historical empathy, but also through our responsibility as non-Indigenous inhabitants of this country.
We are a people who thrive on connection to culture, history and land. Just as we want to continue enjoying the right to live in this country while maintaining these connections, we have an obligation to acknowledge the same aspirations of First Nations peoples and support a treaty to promote that aspiration.
Photo: The Victorian Treaty Advancement Commissioner, Jill Gallagher, addresses state parliament on March 28 to mark the introduction of legislation to create the basis for treaty negotiations (Julian Smith/AAP)
