When it comes to a systematically disadvantaged, unhappy people transforming into a happy, thriving, confident society, I can draw only from a sample of one... my Irish countrymen and countrywomen, who were brave, inspirational and tremendously driven to shed the shackles that bound them to their miserable, oppressed past.
But what I can tell you is that, I can identify very little in your post that I heard my elderly relatives and their friends talk passionately about.
To arise forever out of the despair of oppression, the burning passion of the Irish, I strongly sense, was focused on the future, and at that a future for which the Irish people themselves - not any third-party agencies - were the sole architects of their own destiny.
By contrast, your The Southern Cross Celebrations--- 2023 narrative seems to be very much backward-looking and reflective of the historical wrongs.
As my grandparents in their thick Fermanagh drawl used to tell us all, "Excuses and blame are the kinfolk of shame."
Unfortunately, any people who seeks to attain a dramatic and permanent improvement in their lot needs to work at achieving it.
Very, very hard. Extremely hard.
While I have no objection to your vision for Southern Cross Celebration 2023 --- I think it will be a fantastic event, but on its own it is likely to be little more than just that... an event with little enduring resonance in the hearts and minds of the Aboriginal people.
No amount of ceremony or gestures or awards or marches or speeches or fireworks or dances, can ever substitute an innate burning desire for upliftment. That has to start at the absolute grassroots level, with unrelenting diligence, study, focus and passion.
