Statement of Pride
Bronwyn and Lex are proud:
- to be Australian, whatever that means, and while we regret the theft of this continent, we're glad we live here, and that our forebears came here;
- to share this continent with the descendants of the First Australian peoples who created the wonderfully ingenious cultures of the at least 60-70,000 years prior to the 1788 British invasion, cultures which we see no reason not to speak of as civilisations¹ ; and
- to share this continent with all the various peoples who have come here to live since 1788.
¹ Recognising that most people from at least European, Asian, and Middle Eastern backgrounds have considerable difficulty, if not finding it completely impossible, to define "civilisation" as including cultures, social systems, and religions or spiritual beliefs totally different from their own, or even giving such any degree of validity. We're taught from birth how to define "civilisation", and not to even think of the possibility to question such a definition. Indeed, we are actively discouraged from questioning cultural, societal, religious, economic, and the like norms.
Like most, we're not taken with much so-called "New Age" ideas , back-to-nature movements, and the like, but believe the modern world could benefit greatly from being less automatically rejectionist, and at least genuinely thinking about and considering what we reject and, yes, "cherry picking" those aspects that will be of value to us in physical, political, emotional, spiritual, or economic terms.
On the other hand, we very much wish people would be more questioning before blindly accepting as "truth" things that with some rational questioning and thought they would surely see are a total dunny can full of dead wombats' bollocks.