Analysis Of Redfern Speech

Impassioned orators provoke a strengthen desire for peaceful resolution to a situation that has previously aroused hostility. Two prominent Australians who achieved this are Noel Pearson’s speech ‘An Australian history for all of us’ and Paul Keating’s ‘Redfern Speech’. Both speeches portray the lack of national identity through the unjust treatment of the history of Aboriginal Australians. They also provoke a profound desire to resolve injustice due to one’s realisation of the amounting necessity for change to achieve a more harmonious and socially just society. This is to unite and unify the audience therefore encompassing a better future.
Australia’s national identity has for a long time arguably been based on a white Australia. Therefore Keating’s arrival at Redfern adds textual integrity to his speech as it is an area where there are many Indigenous Australians. Keating’s Redfern Speech also acknowledges the presence and injustices amongst Indigenous and Aboriginal

people, this includes past trials and tribulation faced by Aboriginal people like the Stolen Generation. Keating takes these modern injustices and makes the White Australians pity the faults of their ancestors. Paul Keating use of anaphora moves the Australians and sends his message across. This is through," We brought the diseases, the alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers". Here the emphasis of 'we' stirs the emotions of Australians and creates a sense of guilt in their minds by referencing historical injustices of the past. This creates a sense of realisation toward the treatment of Aboriginal people from the ancestors of the white-Australians. It also sends Keating’s message across as it influences the thoughts of Australians towards Aboriginal people to hopefully generate a peaceful nation and identity. Therefore the use of anaphora sends Keating’s message across and moves the Australians to a better motive towards Aboriginal people.
In relation to The Redfern speech, Noel Pearson’s ‘An Australian history in all of us’ provides critiques on those who perpetuate the injustices towards Indigenous Australians. He comments on the notion of guilt through historical injustices. Pearson applies this through a rhetorical question, “has the so called black armband view of history been about apportioning guilt?” Academic evidence from contemporary, respected figures including politicians, professors and historians are employed to support Pearson’s arguments and convey its importance behind his personal and calm tone. This stirs the emotions of the audience making Pearson connect with the audience through his use of pathos. The term ‘black armband’ makes the audience question their treatment in terms of the way they viewed and treated Ingenious Australians. This derogatory term was applied to the work of historians who saw the history of relations between indigenous Australians and their colonisers as a story of dispossession, exploitation and violence.
Keating creates and explores new ideas and thoughts shifting away from the British-centred past to a history grounded in the Australian experience, revitalising the movement toward an Australian republic that had cut all ties with Britain.

He does this through the use of descriptive language when he reflects back to the treatment of the Non Aboriginals to the Aboriginals. “In the prejudice and ignorance of non-Aboriginal Australians, and in the demoralisation and desperation, the fractured identity, of so many Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders” Keating explains past views of history as ‘prejudice and ignorance’ he also further mentions what those past views lead to a ‘fractured identity’, this highlights the immorality faced by Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. Keating does this to shift the audience’s perspective of a British centred history and transforms the audience’s way of thinking about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people so that a true national unity can

occur.

Pearson also discusses Australia’s issue of Aboriginal reconciliation and its progress in Australian Society. He aims to give an account of the history behind the relationship between the Europeans and Aboriginal inhabitants to recognise the discrimination and responsibility of the past, present and future. “We have taken from you and we should not belittle ourselves by contending that we have had no choice in the matter. The reverse is also of course true. You have taken from us not just our land and not just all of the icons of Indigenous Australia...” Here, Pearson utilises divisive language to distinguish between indigenous and European Australians throughout the repetition of “you” and “we”. Noel Pearson also creates an argumentative state in which the Europeans say “we” hiding the truth and fact of the dehumanisation and destruction of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. However, he replies back with the arguments of the Aboriginal people creating a strong sense of the word “you” creating strong facts that question the arguments of the Europeans. Here, he reinforces his beliefs that unless the Non- Aboriginal Australians understand the injustices of the Aboriginals, no unity can occur.
Therefore, we realise to a large extent that the moral and modern injustices of Aboriginal people and the ignorance of the European settlers at the time. Pearson and Keating do this by moving emotions of guilt historical fact. Influencing and changing the viewer’s perspective through Pearson and Keating use of pathos and logos. This changes one’s perspective of national identity as issue that is mainly ignored and handled awkwardly by the speaker, in which causes tension amongst the speakers immediate and wider audience and convinces the audience to change their views on Aboriginal and Indigenous Australians.