In the inaugural Colin Tatz Memorial Lecture, presented by The Jewish Independent last night, the journalist and indigenous advocate issued a challenge: we can ‘endlessly litigate the past or we can choose a peace and put the bones of our ancestors to rest’
SPEAKING AT NSW Parliament House in Sydney, and to an international audience via Zoom, Stan Grant used the title of his lecture, Talking with Ghosts: the haunting of history, to argue that so many of today's conflicts around the world are based on grievances about identities.
These grievances are profound and need to be acknowledged, he stressed, referring, among others to Australian indigenous, American blacks, American whites, Islamic State, the Balkans, and the Chinese, who have felt humiliated by the West for decades.
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But in trying to exact justice for past wrongs, Grant said, many groups were focussed on exacerbating conflict rather than finding a path to peace and reconciliation with the past.
The only exception was South Africa, he said, which decided to have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, instead of a truth and justice mechanism.
"Justice perhaps would have been easier and it would have electrified the blood of a people with every cause for vengeance," Grant told the audience. "By choosing peace, Archbishop Desmond Tutu set South African people a more godly task.
“Forgiveness is not facile or cheap. It is costly business that makes those who are willing to forgive even more extraordinary.”
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Professor Colin Tatz, who was a founding member of the advisory board to The Jewish Independent, passed away in November 2019.
Professor Tatz was a distinguished Australian academic, scholar and public intellectual across broad race politics, genocide, the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, and racism in sport. He was the director of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
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READ THE FULL LECTURE HERE
Main photo: Stan Grant speaking at NSW Parliament House on November 20, 2020 (Michael Visontay); other photos by Uri Windt
