The ensuing racial enmity can be virtually impossible to eradicate. The first step would surely have to be to increase our own awareness, of the level of awareness throughout the community, of the reconciliation process and why it is so vitally important. Incorporating the objectives of reconciliation into the existing objectives of our organisations, is one way to ensure that we are continually confronted by the challenge of reconciliation, continually wrestling with what it means and how we can contribute to its achievement. This process will inevitably involve making contact with our Indigenous counterparts and learning to work together on issues of mutual concern. We also need to convey what we learn and what we achieve to our wider communities, through our newsletters, our training programs, our research studies, our reform campaigns and any other avenue which is available.
Education is absolutely central to the success of the reconciliation process.
The gap between the pain of Indigenous peoples' experience and the level of recognition of this in the wider community remains extremely wide. Non-Indigenous community organisations can play a vital role in narrowing this 'recognition gap', particularly through education and information campaigns. We need to work towards widespread recognition of the fact that Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders have suffered through a continuing cycle of dispossession and disadvantage. Towards recognition that political and social subordination continue as features of the relationship between our Indigenous peoples and the wider community. Towards recognition of the fact that our community has been built on a history of dispossession, amounting to genocide, involving brutal hostility, assimilation and the forced removal of children.