ABC Forcing Indigenous Place Names on You

If you’ve been to the airport recently, you may have seen signs alternating between Australian city names and their Indigenous equivalent, while also alternating between different flight codes, confusing the s**t out of everybody. It’s the same plane, but with different flight codes and different place names displayed. Personally, I found it quite confusing. I’m not the only one: “‘Bloody confusing’: Indigenous names on departure signs at airport”. If Aussies are have trouble understanding this, well how can we expect international travellers to know what the hell is going on? Nobody has ever taught me these names, so to just suddenly thrust them on the population is just a recipe for disaster. Not only will people not understand, they’ll probably resent you for it. From years of language teaching and learning myself, forcing languages on people just doesn’t work, unless your goal is to piss off the entire population.

According to their website, Tourism Australia have adopted Aboriginal dual naming.

Our favourite tax-payer funded broadcaster, the ABC, has now started to slip in Indigenous place names in their articles. “Phoebe Paradise's art explores the relationship between the housing crisis and climate change in Meanjin/Brisbane.” “What does Meanjin look like?” “Two-time defending Women's World Cup champions USA have been knocked out in Melbourne/Naarm.” “I've lived in nipaluna/Hobart, Tasmania, for large sections of my adult life.” “Inside Dunstan Playhouse by the River Torrens in Tarndanya/Adelaide” “It was an average Thursday night in Naarm/Melbourne” I’m sure that’s how people speak in Melbourne, right? “Maggie Zhou is a Naarm/Melbourne based writer who makes friends online.” Good for Maggie. Actually, the ABC inadvertently wrote what I was thinking: “ABC Everyday (DO NOT USE)”. “Chris lives in inner-city Naarm with one of his two partners” – Isn’t that illegal?

Anyway, you get the idea. You never requested this, they just started doing it.

But I know why the Government and others are forcing this on us, and I think you probably do too. If they put this up to a vote, we already know the result. Australians would vote No. Their only option is to force it upon us. So we either just accept it and let the government do whatever they want, or we speak up. I guess, that’s what I’m doing now.

MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn