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Ooooh, so that’s what we’ve been doing wrong?
History driven home
It’s NAIDOC Week next week, when we pay our respects to Australia’s past and present indigenous communities.
In Bendigo, it kicks off with a flag-raising ceremony on Monday at 10.30am in the gardens next to the Town Hall.
But every time this event comes around, DTM can’t help recalling one of the single greatest acts of helping non-indigenous Australians understand the other view of history.
In 1986 a remarkable film was made, BabaKiueria.
It changes the races and had some Aboriginal people in formal naval uniforms coming ashore to plant a flag where a group of fair-skinned Ockers were having fun at the beach.
The most senior naval officer asks one of the ockers: "What do you call this place?"
He replies in a confused state: “Errr, Barbecue Area.”
The flag is duly planted and it’s announced that from now on, out of respect for the local people, the land would be called BabaKiueria.
You can probably still find copies in your library.
Conflicting message
Mark and Narelle Burgess were standing in a park in Golden Square, staring at the following and wondering… and wondering.
Ummm, no cricket, eh? And those lines on either side of the wall are, what? Decorative?
Ooooh, hang on, we get it. “No HARD ball games…” Perhaps a few easy ones, like hand ball or catchy, then?
Acronyms confuse
It’s so easy to become confused these days.
A bloke we know has taken on the job as stand-in newsletter editor for the Bendigo Sports and Classic Car Club while the real editor wanders the globe (grumble grumble.)
The first of the cobbled-together newsletters was sent out by email, marked as the “BSCCC Newsletter.”
Back came a stern response: “Please remove us from the mailing list as my son – Samuel – is no longer a student and has not been since last year. I have already notified you of this previously!!”
The two exclamation marks set the tone.
Two days later, came the following: “I apologise for my wife’s inability to confirm the origin of the email before replying. We have been receiving monthly newsletters from Bendigo Senior Secondary College (BSSC) since our son left school last year and commenced working. She has confused BSCCC with BSSC.”