In Wales, the English ignorantly renamed Welsh villages, towns and cities with all manner of Anglicizations and titles which swept over the rich native Welsh history of these places. The subtle but pervasive inherent racism of these policies was finally addressed and amends were made, replacing all new signs with bilingual ones which respectfully returned history to it’s public place. And tourism as well as cultural education is richer for it. Shamefully, Australia has little intention of doing anything so enlightened or respectful.

I love the land of this country and its rich multicultural and indigenous history but as I go from Anglo place name to Anglo place name across the vast rural countryside I am struck by the subtle reinforcement of a false history, a conqueror’s history and one which makes us culturally poorer, blander, not richer. I’m reminded of the voicelessness of Indigenous people in a political system which for 200 years hasn’t given much more than a recent token nod when reminded of the original names, languages and histories of these places.  Where are all the indigenous place names?
Where are the tourism plaques introducing visitors to these rich cultural routes? Where are the bilingual town names which would respect both the new and the original and be an essential part of a proud Australia, a reconciled Australia? Where is the stimulus for non-indigenous Australians to ask those first questions of shared Australian identity, a shared history? Probably too politically inconvenient. It’s easier to dot a few cultural centres around the country than bring cultural diversity to signposts.

And of course there’s cost of bringing back the public place of these indigenous place names. But where’s the cost in a policy which would have us merely replace signs which were already due to be updated with those which add to the cultural interest of this country, allow tourists to know us as a more truthful nation, not a bigoted one conveniently ignoring the remnants of our own whitewashing.

With Howard in power, I won’t hold my breath.

http://www.donnawilliams.net/