A voice for justice
This year’s National Reconciliation Week theme, ‘Be a Voice for Generations’, urges all Australians to “use their power, their words, and their vote, to create a better, more just Australia for all”. Tahana Turner, The Salvation Army’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Engagement Coordinator for Southeast Queensland, says her role supporting Salvation Army services and faith expressions to create culturally safer environments for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities is “a great privilege”.
By TAHANA TURNER
There is a verse in the Bible, in the book of Proverbs, chapter 31, verses 8-9, that says, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
I am so privileged to be a part of the great Salvation Army Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander team from around Australia. Much of my role is about being a voice – offering support, guidance and advisory work to our frontline workers in the Salvos.
It is an amazing role that involves offering teaching, training, involvement in yarning circles and staff recruitment to help our services support and encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in their communities and serve them in a culturally safe and sensitive way.
Challenges of speaking out
While roles such as this are important, it is also important that every person – young, middle-aged and old – should be a voice for justice, because the reality is that many in our Aboriginal communities are still broken and hurting.
It’s not always easy to speak up for justice – when we speak up there is always opposition, but that can’t stop us. If we have a message to bring, I believe that is because someone needs to hear it.
There are times when I don’t feel I have the courage to speak out bravely as I believe God’s called me to do, but I say ‘yes’ anyway. In the end, I want to be part of a solution. I want to make a difference.
Our team was recently in Victoria, and we met some amazing Elders – Indigenous Christian leaders who had, and have, a deep sense of their culture and their identity in God. What they have achieved in their lives is phenomenal, including Uncle Vince Ross who stepped out in faith and created the Narana Aboriginal Cultural Centre.
I was so honoured and inspired to hear their stories. Their courage has made such a difference in the lives of many Indigenous (and non-Indigenous) people’s lives.
I also look at my parents, who are both pastors, and the many challenges they have faced. They have stayed strong and clung to God and to the vision they were given.
Together with many other long-serving Indigenous leaders, they have not wavered from their calling and the privilege to make known the importance of the Indigenous voice in Australia and make real reconciliation happen.
Faith and culture
National Reconciliation Week started as the Week of Prayer for Reconciliation. The privilege that we as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have to interconnect our culture and faith in Jesus is something that God has intended from the very beginning. It’s the perfect match!
I am a Bundjalung woman, from the Coodjinburra Clan, which sits on Booningbah (Fingal Head). There is great power in feeling like you belong and that you are at home within your kinship systems, language systems and ceremonial systems.
I believe God created me to love him, and he created me as a strong and proud Bundjalung woman. When I go home, I am able to reconnect with nature and listen to what Country is teaching me. It is a place where I correspond with the creator and with creation. The chaos of life leaves, and I connect more deeply with God. He created me that way – to have this deep and enduring connection to him and to my Country.
