Canberra. Along the walkway between the High Court and the National Library there is a rock inscribed:
This law
this country
this people.
No matter what people
red, yellow, black or white
the blood is the same.
Lingo little bit different
but no matter.
Country…
you in another place
But same feeling.
Blood
bone
all the same.
You in another place?
.
.
You might occupy the same physical land as me, but we perceive it, describe it, and believe it to be different places.
The language we use to describe land varies according to our purpose.
Language difference does matter because it’s at the heart of what has made non-indigenous Australians perceive land differently and to claim it as their own, blind to the claims of original and traditional owners.
.
.
William Fox writes of about European maps (2007;45):
“Underlying all maps…is the presumption that we can impose a systematic geometry upon the planet, a belief founded on both the construction of the world itself and to our own biology.”