The people of Australia are celebrating Australia Day this week, but to the indigenous people of the continent the day will always linger in their minds as the one on which some strangers from faraway reached their land and made it their own. National Day Chairman, Adam Gilchrist, noted the government last February had apologized for past horrors committed on the people who originally inhabited the land as a first step in moving toward an Australia which encompasses humans of every background and color of skin. Shelly Reys, deputy chairperson for the celebration, said: “I fully expect a range f indigenous people and their supporters to celebrate Australia Day as they wish, whether it’s celebrating or focusing on invasion day.”
There is no way to undo the past because the past lives on in our daily lives and ways of thinking. In the absence of time machines, all we can do is work for a future in which vestiges of past wrongs no longer occur. That requires both an individual and a national commitment to change.