Reconciliation Week: Australia Discusses Progress, But What Are the Real Outcomes?

Tiantian’s journey to Australia in 2015 was marked by a certain awareness of Aboriginal culture and the ongoing dialogue around reconciliation. However, she soon discovered there were many aspects she was unaware of.

“When I first arrived, I overheard conversations among backpackers concerning First Nations people. It wasn’t until I pursued social work studies that I recognized those comments as discriminatory,” Tiantian recalled.

She reflected, “I don’t believe there was any malice intended, but much of what was said stemmed from a lack of understanding of Australia’s historical context.”

Initially, Tiantian admitted she had only a superficial knowledge of her university’s National Reconciliation Week (NRW) event. This annual event focuses on healing and truth-telling for First Nations peoples.

“I initially thought NRW was akin to NAIDOC Week,” Tiantian, who opts to go by her first name, shared with SBS News. NAIDOC Week, celebrated annually in July, is a time for First Nations communities to honor their rich culture and achievements.

But when she became a social worker in Cairns, she made friends with her First Nations colleagues and engaged with local First Nations communities. Her understanding of NRW has significantly expanded.

This year, she decided to actively engage with NRW by sharing Chinese-language materials about it on her social media.

Tiantian’s sharing was paid back. Many of her Chinese friends also shared their involvement with the NRW to her. “I feel we have more people practising and engaging with the NRW theme this year, which is ‘All In’,” she said.

Under the theme that encourages everyone to commit wholeheartedly to reconciliation, Reconciliation Australia, which led the itinerary of the annual event, provided translated posters and resources of 13 languages to encourage members of multilingual communities to go all in and learn about

However, even passionate volunteers like Tiantian have found that despite the help of translated materials, it could still be challenging for them to hold conversations about First Nations culture in their mother tongues.

Lost in translation?

For Tiantian, who speaks fluent English, the main source for her to learn about First Nations history and culture was through English channels. “Sometimes it takes time for me to express what I learned [in English] in Chinese, because I want to ensure my translation to Chinese is accurate,” she said.

One word that challenged Tiantian was “reconciliation”, which translates literally into Chinese as “making peace”. She came across the word during an NRW event where was told about significant history events for the First Nations community, including the 1967 referendum and the Stolen Generation policy.

On her social media, Tiantian said the event had helped her understand the term reconciliation deeper.

“I was impressed that reconciliation was officially defined as ‘strengthening relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous peoples, for the benefit of all Australians’,” she said.

“But if we try to understand this definition, we need to confront the other side of the colonial history of Australia, that for First Nations people, that was a history of land grabbing, violence, systemic discrimination and cultural damage.”

Such a challenge of understanding First Nations content in English and then translating it to other non-First Nations languages could also be faced by professional translators, according to Professor Jing Han at Western Sydney University.

Han, who translated First Nations author Melissa Lucashenko’s fiction Too Much Lip from English to Chinese, recalled that when translating the 2019 Miles Franklin Award winning novel, she often had to pause to ponder words that contained deep historical and cultural contexts.

“History, culture, language literature, political affairs and all sorts that are related to the First Nations [community], a lot of terms are historically embedded, and it’s not a straightforward literary translation at all,” she told SBS News.

“It’s not just about translation. You do need to dig in what is missing because one fundamental thing about translation is there is no equivalence between languages,” she said. “It needs to be embedded in contextual information.”

During the Voice Referendum in 2023, the federal government had to revise the Chinese translation of the referendum question, after some members of the Chinese community raised concerns that the government adopted a literary translation of the term “First Nations”, and that could imply ranking among different ethnicities.

Han said translation like this may lead to misinformation about the First Nations community. “Translators must know Australia’s history, Indigenous history and politics [with] in-depth knowledge to be able to do the job properly.”

Call for national body on translation for First Nations content

Besides translated materials, Han said it’s also important to have community events throughout the year to help multicultural communities to learn about First Nations history.

Han said there should be an official body that oversees translations of First Nations-related terms and content to ensure they are consistent.

“People take for granted that there is equivalence [between languages], that humans or machines can do [translations] easily, that’s not true,” she said.

“Translation is all about negotiation, because there’s no equivalence between languages, let alone historically loaded terms.”

Tiantian said she supported the theme of “All In” for the NRW this year. “Everyone living in Australia can take action and contribute to reconciliation,” she said.

In a statement to SBS News, Reconciliation Australia said it was the fourth year of the organisation to provide multilingual resources for communities.

“Reconciliation Australia has developed a partnership with leading multicultural communications agency Cultural Perspectives to connect with linguistically and culturally diverse communities directly and drive engagement and grow understanding of reconciliation amongst these communities,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

A 2024 survey by the organisation found 90 per cent of multicultural Australians think the relationship between First Nations and non-Indigenous people is important.

“We want to lift our engagement with non-Anglo Australians and ensure multicultural communities are well informed and able to take their places in the national reconciliation movement.” the spokesperson said.

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