Bathurst event: Yindyamarra Pledge for Democracy
Start: 12 Apr 2023 11:00 am
End: 12 Apr 2023 1:00 pm
Bathurst
Please join Charles Sturt University and Stan Grant, Professor of Indigenous Belonging, in Bathurst to sign the Yindyamarra Pledge.Yindyamarra Winanghana: “To live with respect in a world worth living in.”
Yindyamarra is a Wiradjuri word, preserved and handed down to us by Uncle Stan Grant Senior.
Yindyamarra. A way of being. To live with respect. To walk softly. To sit in silence. To seek to understand, not to be understood.
What more could our democracy – could our world – need more now than Yindyamarra?
In the spirit of his father and of his people, Stan Grant calls us to set aside our historical prejudices and live Yindyamarra values: to make our democracy a home for justice, forgiveness, mercy, and love.
The Launch of the Yindyamarra Pledge in Bathurst will begin at 11 am at Building 1305. The event will consist of reflections from Stan Grant on Yindyamarra and what it demands of us at our moment in Australian and global history. This will be followed by a panel on themes arising from Yindyamarra and a call to sign the Yindyamarra Pledge for Democracy.
This event is free to attend.
Event location
The Yindyamarra Pledge for Democracy
The first people touched this land as our continent was being formed.
Their birthright has never been ceded.
Those people live still in their descendants.
With their grace and generosity, we enter into their heritage and respect their traditions.
We honour too those who have come from other lands and carry with them their cultures and faiths.
Though our bonds may strain, we seek to live together in harmony. Though we may disagree, we find no enemy among us.
We cherish the foundations of our nation, and our rule of law and democracy.
In so doing we commit to fulfilling our democracy’s promise.
It cannot speak to us all while ever it does not speak to all of us.
We abide by the democratic will of the majority but defend the rights of the minority.
We are all equal in dignity.
Opportunity is for all.
Worth should be measured not in privilege.
By our efforts we should prosper. In a land of plenty, we must care for those without.
From the first footsteps to the most recent arrival, this land is our home.
There can be no other.
Here, today, we come together as a people formed by our history yet not bound by history’s chains but committed to forge a just union.
In this spirit we offer the Yindyamarra pledge for democracy. A gift from the Wiradjuri people to all people.
Yindyamarra: Respect. Kindness. Quiet. Justice.
Yindyamarra Winhanganha: to live with respect in a world worth living in.
Source: Adapted from Professor Stan Grant’s “Australia Day” (Harper Collins, 2019).