Indigenous Carnivale 2006: what went down...

This is what Carnivale 2006 was all about... and by all accounts, this year's is going to blow all of your hearts and minds and expectations!

** I wrote this post originally for the blog SydneyLife


The Hardest Word in the English Language original post here

National Sorry Day was last Friday - did you remember it? A massive crowd at Manning Bar certainly did!

I’ve just finished helping out with an event I couldn’t be more proud of. A good mate of mine, Jack, decided last year to stop merely talking the talk, and he began the National Sorry Day Indigenous Carnivale. It’s a big party held at Manning Bar on campus, and it was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time. Even better, the money made on the night is going towards an indigenous mentoring program for local high school students.

National Sorry Day was first held on 26th May 1998, one year after the Bringing Them Home report was tabled in Federal Parliament. The report was from the National Inquiry into the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal Australian children who were forcibly removed from their parents by the Australian government.

One of the report’s recommendations was that a National Sorry Day should be declared, to allow the community to acknowledge the injustices wrought against indigenous Australians in the past. Many people will probably remember Sorry Day 2000, when 250,000 Australians marched over the Sydney Harbour Bridge as a mark of respect and an apology for past wrongs against indigenous Australians.

But six years later, there are no massive crowds on one of our most recognisable landmarks, no skywriters scrawling “sorry” in the air. It feels like Sorry Day is at risk of falling out of our collective conscious as Australians. We’ve got terrorism to worry about, and interest rates. I think that while having a Sorry Day as a mark of respect is a really positive step for Australia, it hasn’t been utilised to its maximum potential. How many of you remembered it, how many of the mainstream news media paid particular attention to it? If I hadn’t been helping out with the Indigenous Carnivale at Manning the day probably would have been off my radar too. I don’t think that this is anyone’s fault necessarily, but it does signal that more needs to be done in terms of reconciliation in Australia.

The Indigenous Carnivale was one small step towards making Sorry Day more relevant, particularly for the younger generations. It was about creating an accessible and fun party to pay respects, but also to celebrate. It was about celebrating the cultural hybrid that is Australia. The artists who performed reflected this diversity: from Emma Donovan’s gorgeous vocals and the way she held the crowd’s attention, to Blue King Brown’s rapid-fire tag team drumming finale, to Kid Confucius and their infectious melodies, and finally to the way TZU had the entire crowd going off. Artists from so many different backgrounds and histories, coming together to say wake up to anyone who thinks reconciliation is no longer relevant to Australians.

Jack: congratulations for your amazingly tireless work on this event. You saw everyone’s faces that night, you know you made a difference.