Identity, social justice and Voice
If you head about 500km north of Adelaide, you’ll be on Adnyamathanha Yarta (country). I grew up here, in a tiny coal mining town where all roads led to the picture theatre, the school, the swimming pool and the local pub.
These roads started on the coast as arterials in major cities, taking people and supplies to the red centre. However, like most of us, the solid intention of this highway met the ancient and endless desert sands and was forever changed. This highway eventually passed our family home then peeled back into the town, seeming more serpent than road, shedding the now scarcely attached asphalt in the relentless circling heat.
Surrounding us were endless horizons, where the impossibly big sky reminded us of who we were, are and would be. Dust storms would turn the sun red, reminding us of Yulu, the old kingfisher man, who made this land with fire.
“Here in my childhood adventures I learnt about my ancient and deep connection to Country. This land and my mob set in me a deep sense of responsibility and belonging. And it was in the same dust with the other excluded kids outside the classroom that I grew to understand I lived in a segregated community. My disquiet grew. ”
Sitting on the edge of town was an open cut brown coal mine, that menaced closer to our town’s edge with each blast, rattling mum’s crockery and covering everything in fine red dust. As kids we ran wild in a world of our own, riding bikes from one side of town to the other. Catching snakes, trying to outrun the nyaram (frill neck lizards) and snarling camp dogs, we would then head down the creek to cook up a feed of fresh-caught yabbies.
The town’s school was a collection of demountables that were intolerably hot by midday. Us Aboriginal kids were often locked out of the school room for “misbehaving”. We’d hang out in the dust and shade under the classroom floor until home time. If your Aboriginal parents didn’t work in the mine or at the airport, you didn’t go to the town school, but were sent to learn sums in the dust at the old mission school, Nepabunna. The police station had a cell out the back made of cinderblocks just for Blakfellas. Our pub had a white’s only entrance.
Here in my childhood adventures I learnt about my ancient and deep connection to Country. This land and my mob set in me a deep sense of responsibility and belonging. And it was in the same dust with the other excluded kids outside the classroom that I grew to understand I lived in a segregated community. My disquiet grew.
The miners continued to chase a rich seam that led to a large lignite bed beneath the town. When the blasting grew close enough to finally break mum’s crockery, the entire town was relocated south. Moving us all off country – again – to make way for the mine to expand.
Dad had had enough so packed us up and literally moved us to the greener pastures of lutruwita (Tasmania). I still remember staring, confused, out the window of our canary yellow Mazda station wagon. These colours, this country, felt strange — there was no dust and no Yulu.
A new school brought new lessons. I was told that the Tasmanian Aboriginals were “extinct”. I was told that no “true full-blood Aboriginals” were alive in these lands. In the school yard I met Rachel, Simon and Bec, three palawa kids. I didn’t understand how they didn’t exist. I felt awkward and invisible myself, as a fair-skinned Aboriginal kid.
This denial, this lie, felt different to the overt segregation in the desert, and somehow more insidiously racist. More disquiet. The mannerisms, language and understanding that made up my identity, now were a matter for discipline. I was still being locked out of the classroom, but mostly for using traditional language, gazes and hand gestures that the teachers interpreted as profanity and rudeness. Disquiet and confusion.
“The awkward feeling of isolation, ache for country and absolute denial of my existence germinated in me some intractable anger, but more, a determination to hear and see those who are marginalised. ”
These experiences sit uncomfortably within me, even now. They are not eased by the distance of time, having injured me 30 years ago. The awkward feeling of isolation, ache for country and absolute denial of my existence germinated in me some intractable anger, but more, a determination to hear and see those who are marginalised.
I became a nurse as an act of social justice. For me, the ethical principles of nursing have been fertile ground to reconcile social injustices.
Nursing trains us to be holistic. We are governed by unambiguous codes and principles – mandated to provide culturally competent, patient-centred, evidence-based care. The culture of nursing is collaborative and seeks to align with a patient’s needs.
Nurses are not just human scientists, we are required to listen and advocate. We partner with patients, families, carers and communities to provide and implement individually tailored nursing interventions that improve emotional and social, as well as physical health. We are held to a higher ethical standard – even when we are out of our scrubs.
“I became a nurse as an act of social justice. For me, the ethical principles of nursing have been fertile ground to reconcile social injustices.”
In this decisive year for Australia, the upcoming referendum calls for nurses, and all healthcare workers – as citizens – to help decide if this nation has matured beyond denial and will constitutionally recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples whose Voice will be heard in parliament. This question asks merely for people who have long been denied the full expression of their identity to have a say in their own life and to influence their own future.
If we ignore the rhetoric, stay aligned to our vocations, and stay true to the principles that govern our conduct, don’t we as healthcare workers always say yes to the needs of our patients? I ask you to consider that now is a time to say yes once again.
