We desperately need a new way of looking at ourselves so that we might come to recognise that we ourselves are in need of liberation and that our own liberation ultimately is bound up with theirs. Over recent years I have been performing or attending the funerals of young Aboriginal persons frequently. Some of them appear to have suicided. It forces me to reflect on some of the differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. The pride and pain of their race is being held almost in a sacred trust, but always unfiltered and undiluted.
Nothing is blocked out.
It is humanly unbearable to hold that sort of fire in one's heart. Without promise, they can only lose all hope. We white people on the other hand, are ordinarily well equipped with the defence mechanisms of denial. Selective hearing of truths is an understandable, even necessary, psychological device for use in the face of bitter realities, particularly basic human survival. One would like to think that Aboriginal people could resort to such safety devices when it is they who are fighting to live at the harsh edge of survival.