Welcome to Country Has Become an Issue

In Australia, we’ve all experienced a Welcome to Country, or Acknowledgement of Country, possibly multiple times per week. They’re two different things, but essentially two sides of the same coin. They have their place in certain situations when welcoming foreigners to our land. But I think what Australians are starting to take issue with, especially after the long, drawn-out Voice referendum campaign, is being welcomed to their own country. When people welcome us to their land, it makes it sound like it’s not our land. It’s very divisive, is it not? Look, I’m not against individual dancers. For many of them, this is probably a job. Good on them! They’ve found their place in the world. But it’s the political messaging that starts to grate on people.

Katrina Power, an Aboriginal Elder from the Adelaide region in South Australia. A couple of weeks ago, she gave a Welcome to Country at the Adelaide Convention Centre, which went somewhat off the rails. According to witnesses, she said things such as, “This event is being held on stolen land!”, “Seven in ten of you didn’t want me to have a Voice!”, referring to the Voice referendum defeat, and “King Charles should be dethroned!”. That was a nice Welcome to Country, wasn’t it? I feel rather welcome now, don’t you? In 2018, she called the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, “Malcolm Cows**t” at an International Women’s Day address. Perhaps Malcolm Turncoat would have been more fitting. In 2017, during her Welcome to Country at an Anzac Day Dawn Service, she made reference to “slavery” and “invasion”.

Just as a quick note, the modern Welcome to Country is accredited to actor Ernie Dingo and musician Richard Walley. In 1976, they were members of an Aboriginal Theatre Troupe and were asked by a group of Polynesian performers to give them a Welcome to Country, as their spiritual beliefs dictated, so they did. Since then, Dingo has stated, “Before that occasion, we couldn’t do it to white people because they wouldn’t understand, and there was too much negativity.” Never fear! The ceremony has since become a very positive experience, hasn’t it?

Another thing that perhaps some Australians are also getting a bit tired of are Acknowledgement of Country’s. Just so that we’re all on the same page, a Welcome to Country can only be performed by a Traditional Indigenous Owner of the land, while an Acknowledgement of Country can be delivered by anybody else, and is, very frequently. This is probably what is driving so many Australians crazy of late. For example, every Australian website now has an Acknowledgement of Country. This is Coles supermarket for example, “Coles Group acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia.” Blah, blah, blah. Universities are handing out Acknowledgement of Country palm cards. Sorry, I don’t mean to be so dismissive, but I’ve seen or heard these things at least a thousand times before. That’s the issue with these Acknowledgements, they’ve been overused, and now almost have no meaning with most people ignoring them. Whenever I attend a Zoom meeting for work, they inevitably start the meeting by saying, “Our meeting is being held on the lands of the [so and so people], and I wish to acknowledge them as Traditional Owners.” Because we’re online, we’re not even in the same state half the time. We’re using a satellite connection going to outer space.

American comedian Bill Maher had something to say about all of this, from a North American perspective: “To all the people who start every public event now with one of those land acknowledgements where they say, ‘I’m standing on land that was stolen from the proud Indigenous people of the Chumash tribe’, I say, either give it back, or shut the f*** up!”

I was at a tree-planting ceremony recently commemorating a person who had died in a local community group. It was on council land, and the council lady who was running the show of course began by saying, “I begin today by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we gather today… blah blah blah”, and then I thought, if you truly acknowledge that this is not your land, why the hell do you think you can just plant a tree in it? How do you justify council owning it? Did you seek permission from anybody? Did you ask the local elder if you could use this land? No, of course not. So why do you keep acknowledging that it’s not your land? It’s like you’re rubbing it in their faces. These people need to do one of two things (in the words of Bill Maher), either give the land back, or shut the f*** up!

WELCOME TO COUNTRY OR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
https://www.indigenous.gov.au/contact-us/welcome_acknowledgement-country

ERNIE DINGO AND RICHARD WALLEY ON THE 40TH YEAR OF THEIR WELCOME TO COUNTRY
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/23/ernie-dingo-and-richard-walley-on-the-40th-year-of-their-welcome-to-country

MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn