Gathering to celebrate the strength of the community on January 26, the Toolamba Lions Club and friends engaged in discourse about what would be required to overcome the challenges of the future.
Combating climate change, reconciliation with First Nations people, ending Australia’s harsh treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, and the prospect of facing future pandemics were all open for discussion under the gum trees beside Toolamba’s community centre.
The January 26 event was held to mark the Toolamba Recreation Reserve Committee winning Community Event of the Year for its mid-pandemic installation of a war memorial.
During a time when very little could be achieved amid pandemic restrictions, Toolamba’s Mary Coad and fellow committee members gained funding, designed and installed a war memorial in the Toolamba township.
Professor Paul Komesaroff was the guest of honour on the national public holiday, and spoke about the strength he observed in the Toolamba community — where residents supported one another during hard times.
A Melbourne-based physician, medical researcher and philosopher, Prof Komesaroff is also executive director of Global Reconciliation, an international non-government organisation focused on facilitating healing after conflict and social crisis.
“I know that there’s such a community spirit here and a sense of people helping each other,” he said.
That spirit could be called upon during hard times ahead.
“[The pandemic] is not over yet, and maybe it will never be ... but it is a moment when we can stop and look and think, ‘What have we done right? What can we keep doing?’” Prof Komesaroff said.
“We know now our commitment to mutual support and care is the right way to go.
“Some people have said that we should see COVID as a struggle, not just a struggle against the invisible enemy of the virus, but a struggle for the vision that we as a community want to share.”
He said Australia had “a long way to go” in the ongoing process of reconciliation with First Nations people, as well as taking action to prevent catastrophic global warming.
Prof Komesaroff noted January 26, 2022, marked the 50th anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, and was also known as Invasion Day.
Some First Nations people and allies call for the abolition of Australia Day, or push for the date to be changed, a discussion Prof Komesaroff said he fully supported.
He said the life expectancy gap of about 10 years between First Nations people and the broader population was “unconscionable and we should be able to deal with it”.
“But we've also made progress in the fact that someone like me can come up and can talk so openly about these things and can talk about the debt that we owe to the Tent Embassy, that 50 years ago was reviled and attacked,” Prof Komesaroff said.
“We've got a lot to learn from them [First Nations people] ... but we can only do that if we are open, if we listen, we talk and we are prepared for people to disagree with us.”
Despite the challenges the future undoubtedly holds, Prof Komesaroff’s message was ultimately a hopeful call to action.
“The tasks in front of us are big ones, but the possibility of failure is unthinkable,” he said.
“I believe together we have the resources and ability to succeed.”