Reconciliation

The 2025 theme for Australia’s Reconciliation Week is “Bridging Now to Next” and calls on us to build strong, respectful relationships that honour the truths of the past while paving the way forward. This ‘past’ spans 65,000 years, hundreds of language groups and diverse communities - from the Saltwater People to the custodians of the Western Desert to the arrival of the British in 1788 and today, where 27 million people call Australia home - 50% of whom are born overseas or have a parent born overseas.

I am a fifth generation Anglo Australian from Melbourne, Victoria where it is understood that 60,000 Aboriginal people may have lived pre-European contact, by the early 1850’s when my ancestors began arriving from England, the Aboriginal population was less than 2,000.

I am also Muslim and my journey of identity after embracing Islam in 2004 - by choice - has been profoundly shaped by the spirit of Aboriginal Australia.

Immigrating to Australia in the 1850's

My ancestors came to Australia from England on the promise of a better life, some for the gold rush settling in Yálla-birr-ang on the lands of the Wurundjeri people - otherwise known as Collingwood.

In searching for my roots recently, I came across a coroners report dated 1855. Peggy was my Great Grandmother x4 from Fardel Farm in Devon. She left England with my Great Grandfather x4 and seven children in 1853 and was one of 270,000 immigrants that had arrived into the new British colony of Victoria by the end of 1854. Melbourne struggled to accommodate the influx of arrivals in the 1850's and many had to be housed in tents. While Gx4 Grandfather went off to the gold fields Peggy was left with the children and another on the way, surviving in a corrugated iron tent. According to the report, she wasn't coping very well and had been seeing a doctor, but one early morning it must have all been too much and she took her own life. May Peggy rest in peace, inna illallah inna ilayhi raji'un - From God we come, and to God we return.

Around the same time, in November 1852 more of my English ancestors arrived into the Victorian colony from Seven Oaks, Kent, settling on the lands of the Ngurai-illum Wurrung, also known as the Ngooraialum people, (Murchison in the Goulburn Valley) where they established a Mill and Farm. After my Gx4 Great Grandfather's early death after being pinned against a fence by a bull, my Gx4 Great Grandmother Anne raised their seven children and ran the farm while excelling in the male-dominated Victorian business world selling flour in the Melbourne market - albeit struggling with poor selectors and disputes with agricultural machinery manufacturers.

This was our beginning the legacy and the loss as colonial immigrants to the new British colony.

Muslim Australia

Long before my English ancestors arrived, Muslims had been engaging with Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory for hundreds of years. The Muslim Makassans from Suluwesi were granted permission from the Anindilyakwa People of Groote Eylandt along with the Yolŋu People of North East Arnhem Land to gather pearls and harvest trepang, a dried sea cucumber and highly sort after aphrodisiac. These goods were processed and exported to the lucrative southern Chinese market in what was in effect, a sophisticated tri-lateral trade arrangement, long before the British arrival in 1788.

The second wave of Muslims to Australia simultaneously arrived when my widowed Gx4 Grandmother was raising a family and selling flour at the site now known as the Queen Victoria Markets - built on a cemetery with graves of Aboriginal people and early settlers. In June 1860, the first ship of Muslim cameleers and 24 camels arrived into Naarm (Melbourne) from Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and Northwest India to assist in exploration and transportation, particularly in the arid inland areas, they established families with Aboriginal women, creating a legacy of intermingled cultures.

Aftermath of 9/11

Navigating the challenges of a world still grappling with the aftermath of 9/11, my unorthodox decision to embrace Islam in 2004 felt unfortunately more than personal, it was by default a decision against the prevailing stereotypes.

Another challenge I faced was in navigating the archipelago of differently constituted 'muslim' communities, each with their own ethnic, theological, moral, educational priorities yet all demonstrating a degree of cultural propriety over Islam. Similarly, what was "Australian society" exactly and where did I fit?

In an effort to maintain my outward identity, my career and the inherited privileges of living life as an Anglo-Australian woman, I suppressed a core part of myself and chose to live essentially, "in the spiritual closet".

Wanting to better understand the socio-political and media landscape so hostile to Islam and Muslims, I gained a Master’s in Islam in the Modern World, and I then went on to undertake my Juris Doctor.

During the lead up to the Voice Referendum I took two law electives, Environmental Law along with First Nations Rights and Law. These learnings for me were far more traumatic than I anticipated. These issues were new and old, ongoing, untold, unheard, unhealed, misunderstood, unfair, unjust, overburdened and overwhelmed by the law of inertia.

Being an Anglo Australian Muslim Woman

As a Muslim, I take time out five times in my day for mindfulness. I place my head on Mother Earth, and I go within. Sometimes I reflect on the Aboriginal concept of "Dadirri" - deep listening. During this particular phase however - learning about First Nations Law and Environmental Law - with my head on the ground of unceded land, I began wondering who was here before me praying on the same land, before the British came 237 years ago?

Over time, with this deeper focus, I could 'hear' a 'voice' emerging from within, telling me that being Muslim was welcomed. I found myself effortlessly identifying as an Australian Muslim woman, I felt that I belonged. Yet at the same time, I still felt my own Anglo-Australian culture was less accommodating, hostile even. It was the strangest, most unexpected and intriguing realisation. 

How did your family react?

It is important to note to write here about my family. They are kind, liberal minded and welcoming. Thanks to a globe trotting childhood, my family is also very well travelled. So how did your family react and what did they say? I get asked this a lot. I recall mum saying back in 2004 before I embraced Islam,

"Our identity is our own to shape and our spiritual journeys are as unique as our thumbprints.

"If you are getting something good out of Islam, then I suggest you follow it."

Nothing has changed, I am still the same old Jess as I have always been and so is my family.

Why though, in my mind did Aboriginal Australia welcome me more as an Australian Muslim Woman than mainstream Australia? What is the difference between thousands of years of First Nations cultures against 237 years of an Australia built upon the idea of Judeo-Christian values?

Reasonable Expectations

It certainly begs a broader question of what is the reasonable expectation of a modern State in terms of its 'minorities'? Is it a demand for compliance and assimilation? Or do we see ourselves as more a mainstream liberal tradition of working toward a consensus to achieve a common ground between all our diverse communities so that we may co-exist?

On my 20th anniversary of embracing Islam - 18 June 2024 - I donned one of my many Aboriginal headscarves and returned to the mosque in Bahrain where I made my Shahada. It happened to coincide with Eid al-Adha and following the Eid prayer, I joined my old Aussie friend Victoria Mcfarlane and her Bahraini family for Eid breakfast at their home in Bahrain.

I met Vic by ‘coincidence’, on the day I embraced Islam 21 years ago when I sat next to her in the mosque. I mean, what are the chances of sitting next to another Anglo Aussie woman, new to Islam herself, in a mosque in the Kingdom of Bahrain?

We’ve been good mates ever since.

Sovereignty, Contrasting Land Rights & Alienation 

Unlike English land law with its right to alienate against the whole world, Aboriginal sovereignty is a “spiritual notion" as the second paragraph of the Uluru Statement of the Heart reads.

An example of this is Ngarra Law in Arnhem Land where the Muslim Makassans were trading with the Yolŋu people long before European settlement. Ngarra law is a comprehensive legal code which includes both land and sea laws and has been the traditional law in Arnhem Land for thousands of years, providing unity across many clans. It recognises a communal relationship with the land and that land passes from generation to generation by inheritance from ancestors. Ngarra provides rules on how much of the land can be used, where clans can go and where they can live. Jugawan land law, is a sub-category of Ngarra law which governs custodianship, use and care of the land. Land can be sold by negotiation however it is not customary practice to buy and sell land.

In contrast, British common law land rights - the basis of Australian property law - is based on the doctrine of tenure whereby all unalienated land is owned by the Crown.

When an individual takes a seisin of land, they hold possessory title, which provides legal rights to land enforceable against the rest of the world (apart from those with greater possessory title). This gives a freehold estate and the right to use and enjoy the land, to alienate and to exclude. The right to alienate is alien to First Nations’ spiritual notion of sovereignty and far more akin to the teaching of Islam in that humans are meant to be responsible custodians of the land for the short time that we’re here. 

نَّا ِلِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ,

innā li-llāhi wa-ʾinnā ʾilayhi rājiʿūn 

From God we come and to God we return.

In 1788 when the British illegally settled under the Doctrine of Terra Nullius – land belonging to no-one - and the Crown assumed absolute beneficial title to all land in the newly settled colony. It took 204 years for this legal fallacy to be overturned on 3 June 1992 in the landmark case Mabo v Queensland (No 2) which led to the introduction of the Native Title Act (1993).

Journey Towards Reconciliation and Shared Responsibility

The traditions of Aboriginal Australians resonate deeply with who I am as an Australian and I am profoundly grateful for developing this deeper understanding in my law studies. Kudos must be given to the Australian National University College of Law, specifically Property Law professor Dr Wayne Morgan for dedicating half of the unit to teaching First Nations land rights. As he said, 

“You can’t talk about land law and teach property law in this country until you first address the truth of history and the struggle of Aboriginal land rights.”

Among many connections between Aboriginal Australia and Islam is the responsibility we have as custodians of the land, and that it is our responsibility while we are here to live sustainably so that we leave it in better shape than when we inherited it.

The concept of a right to alienate others is foreign to the inherent identity and culture of the land we call Australia.

It’s my belief that this inclusive spirit is what I ‘heard’ through ‘Dadirri’ - deep listening - and in praying in the way I have learned through Islam - with my head on the ground - I felt welcomed.

I came ‘home’ and out of the "spiritual closet" as an Anglo Australian Muslim woman.

I didn’t feel alienated, rather I felt more Australian, and as Torres Strait Islander woman Christine Anu sings,

My home is Australia,

we are a land bound by sea,

and though I may travel far across the oceans,

it will never forget me.

This was my turning point, helping me to awaken, to fully embrace and better understand my identity as an Australian.

My story of a shared history - of embracing cultural and spiritual roots - is just one of millions of Australian stories. I am deeply grateful to Aboriginal Australians – the ancient ones, those past, present and emerging - for their wisdom, strength, resilience, patience, forgiveness, tolerance, friendship, hope, survival and faith.

I am an Anglo Australian Muslim woman passionate about reconciliation, because when we honour the truth of our past, we can then pave the way forward, inspired by authentic living and positive change.

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