What does it mean to be the oldest culture? – By Dr Sean Perera In my previous article titled Are we one?, I enquired whether indigenous Australian reconciliation policy is ridden by white guilt that aims to atone for the past in an attempt to reinvent national identity. In this subsequent article, I aim to interrogate efforts driven by a modern Australian social consciousness which seeks to rectify errors of the past with the aim of reconciling the future. In particular, I seek to unpack the contemporary claim that Aboriginal Australians are the oldest living culture. Is it a badge of honour or just another camouflaged colonial shackle to be the oldest living culture on this planet? Culture First, we need to clarify what is meant by “culture”. Scholars such as Raymond Cohen define culture as people with a common past and future distinguishing themselves from other populations through distinctive ...
Are we one? By Sean Perera “We are one, but we are many. And from all the lands on earth we come. We’ll share a dream and sing with one voice,” sang the recently deceased Judith Durham, in The Seekers’ iconic pop hit “I am Australian.” But what does it truly mean to be “Australian” in the multicultural social landscape of this antipodean continent? In particular, what implications are there for immigrants to Australia, as they bear witness to an apartheid induced by “white-guilt”? From all the lands on earth we come… There is on one endemic to Australia. Everyone who is living in Australia today, and those who have lived previously, have migrated from other continents, even indigenous Australians. In their search for a new home 64,000 years ago, the ancestors of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples too would have left behind generations of family and friends, as they migrated ...
