College Principal’s Speech Night Address 2022 ‘We are a much unloved people. We are perhaps the ethnic group Australians feel least connected to. We are not popular and we are not personally known to many Australians. Few have met us and a small minority count us as friends. And despite never having met any of us and knowing very little about us other than what is in the media – Australians hold and express strong views about us, the great proportion of which is negative and unfriendly.’ In the first of his three part Boyer lecture, published by the ABC last month, Who we were and who we can be, Noel Pearson presents a compelling and balanced argument outlining how constitutional recognition of Australia's First Nations people is ‘not a project of identity politics’ but one of ‘justice, unity and inclusion’. He puts forward his views outlining the trouble Australians have with Aboriginal people and says that while it is readily called racism, which has much to do with it, the reality is not that simple. He develops his thesis further and says that ‘after the discombobulation of the Goodes film, he realised one aspect of the trouble is what he calls, “the white versus white over black problem”. He states that for him, a large part of the conflagration in these past 50 years since racism became unacceptable in the 1960s is the fight between progressive and conservative Australians over race and Aboriginal people.’ He says that while Aboriginal people are the subjects of this fight, they are not its prime protagonists. He says that this is what is now the culture war between liberals and conservatives in the United States and progressives and conservatives here in Australia. For Pearson, ‘Race and the Aboriginal problem of Australia is about white Australians in a cultural and political struggle with other white Australians.’ Yet another agenda of the culture wars. Strong views are certainly the order of the day. And, everyone seems to have them about everything, and apparently, we should all hear them communicated far and wide any time of the day or
‘our responsibility in preparing them lies in teaching them how to walk together with those who are different from them’ night on a variety of social media platforms. Armchair doctors, teachers, lawyers, scientists, the everyman has been empowered to share, argue, criticise, and amplify, often without a care for evidence or truth, often hidden from view – loading bullets and shooting them randomly with no care for where they land. Added to this, we have never been more polarised in our thinking, and this is exacerbated by social media which confirms our bias and amplifies extremism. We
are obsessed with being right or left, conservative or progressive, and what has evolved is an elusive middle ground – in our communities, politics, emotions and our language. We are no longer tired, we are exhausted; we are not hungry, we are starving; we are not hurt, we are traumatised. The world is black and white, all or nothing; you can’t possibly respect the Queen for her tireless, long leadership and still wish for Australia to become a Republic! It is a world of heroes or villains, winners
or losers, left or right. The pandemic certainly exposed the paradox that while we became more interconnected we also became further divided. Dr Catherine Ball, author and futurist, says that social media has become the opium of the people, that social media likes and responses are opium, for they trigger the brain chemistry that creates positive feedback loops. This sucks us further into machine drift where the algorithms are the boss and we aren’t actively making a choice anymore – we have just drifted off into a sleep-like state, not really aware or in control. The more time we spend feeding the apps and training the algorithms, the better they are at showing us what we want to see. It’s confirmation bias in action, fed by our own desire to jump down the rabbit hole into oblivion.’ It is time for us to wake up and it is our job as educators to create an environment where our young are alert. It is our responsibility to teach young people to replace discord with discourse; to understand extremism and its inception; and to critically analyse their own perspectives and their origins. As educators and as parents we need to prepare a path forward, not one where we turn away from discussing polarising issues, but instead learn to engage in conversations with the intent to listen and learn, not to win and not to necessarily agree. This is the Dominican way. This is the Christian way. Pope Francis writes that the task of the reconciler is to endure the conflict, face it head on, and by discerning see beyond the surface reasons for disagreement, opening those involved to the possibility of a new synthesis, one that does not destroy either pole, but preserves what is good and valid in both in a new perspective. This breakthrough comes as a gift in dialogue, when people trust each other and humbly seek the good together, and are willing to learn from each other in a mutual exchange of gifts. It is said that Dominic wept and the Order of Preachers was born. It was born of compassion and humility, it was born in the pursuit of truth as a shared journey of discovery, through study and through dialogue. It was born with an openness to all, especially the stranger, the unwanted and the unnoticed. We need humility to dispense with what we
come to see as wrong and the courage to take on board points of view other than our own that contain elements of truth. As St Thomas Aquinas reminds us, ‘We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have laboured in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.’ It is when we connect with people with the intent to listen and understand that our perspectives become humanised, this is when we can empathise. When Pearson says, ‘few have met us and a small minority count us as friends’, he is saying, how can you see me, appreciate me and my need for justice and for love when you don’t know me; and yet you will decide my future and you will decide my Voice. Pope Francis speaks of the importance of mediators, those who make agreements that prevent rupture and allow all sides to keep walking together. For Pearson, it is a bridge that we need, one that joins all Australians in a common cause to work together in partnership to make a new settlement; a bridge that unites the First Peoples of this country with our British institutional inheritance and our multicultural achievement, under the Constitution.
For him, the constitutional bridge will create an ongoing dialogue between the First Peoples and Australian governments and parliaments, to close the gap between Indigenous and nonindigenous Australians. For Pearson, it is not a dichotomy, it is the three stories of our history, uniting to make us one. If the purpose of an education is to prepare young people to live a good life, one where they can make the world a better place, a more peaceful place, then our responsibility in preparing them lies in teaching them how to walk together with those who are different from them, our role is to teach them how to bridge the gap thereby uniting one side with the other through building relationships: listening, and understanding, with consideration, respect and dignity. Pope Francis says that it is a harmony that will lead to peace and not war, it is what we need to move forward together on the same path. It is what we need for justice, unity and inclusion. There is never harmony when everybody sings the same note. Only notes that are different can harmonise. The same is true for people.
Paulina Skerman College Principal
Ball, Catherine (2022) Converge: Major Street Publishing Pty Ltd. Pearson, N (27 October 2022) ABC Boyer Lecture Who we were and who we can be: ABC iview: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/boyer-lecture-2022-noel-pearson Pope Francis, (2020) Let us Dream: Simon & Schuster Inc.