The Roast Dinner - A play in one act

Stu Pocknee

22 Jan 2024

indigenous affairs

TL;DR: It's become fashionable for the high minded and good willed¹ to parrot "Acknowledgement of Country" incantations at every occasion. They annoy me. The terms "performative wankery", "token gesture", "empty rhetoric", and "virtue signaling" all come to mind. Long term effects of the implied historical revisionism seem ill-considered and socially divisive. It's a complex subject, and deserving of more time than I currently want to invest. Instead, I wrote a little play 🎭. Make of it what you will.

🎭 Act One

🎭 Scene 1

A small farmhouse on the Western Downs.

Two couples are present, one hosting the other for dinner. The meal is laid out. DAN & TESS SMITH welcome JOHN & REBECCA BROWN.

TESS SMITH

Thanks for coming guys, Dan has cooked this awesome roast. You're gonna love it. Dig in!

REBECCA BROWN

We're so glad to be here, it looks great. Well done the Jones family!

DAN SMITH

laughs

You're going dotty Rebecca. You know we're the Smiths!

REBECCA BROWN

Of course, but I meant the Jones's.

DAN SMITH

blank look

Wut? Who are the Jones's?

REBECCA BROWN

You know, they used to live here, ages ago. The original owners.

DAN SMITH

Jones? You mean way, way back?

JOHN BROWN

nodding

Uh-huh. In the day they were a big deal. Owned most of this country before things went south for them.

Seem to have been royally shafted in some deals with newcomers to the district. Lost everything.

REBECCA BROWN

Supposedly all on the up-and-up. Legally, anyway...

Poor buggers never could let it go. Even now, if you talk to one of the descendants, they'll tell you they were robbed.

DAN SMITH

Wow...

REBECCA BROWN

Your place was one of the first auctioned off. Passed though a few different hands. Now you have it.

Our place is the same.

In a way, we all owe our current fortune to their misfortune.

TESS SMITH

thinking

I guess you could look at it that way. Although, I think there might be a few other reasons we're doing ok...

pauses

But, why were you thanking them?

REBECCA BROWN

Well, where we are was all theirs. In those days it's what people would have done.

TESS SMITH

?? ...but it's not theirs now. They're gone.

REBECCA BROWN

Sure, if you want to go all technical. But they loved this district, so in a sense all of it is still theirs.

DAN SMITH

Sounds like a stretch...

JOHN BROWN

C'mon, show some respect. Jeez bloke, you'd have to be devoid of human empathy for this not to make sense.

DAN SMITH

thinks for a minute

If you really feel badly for the descendants, why don't you personally pitch in to help them out?

REBECCA BROWN

REBECCA and JOHN exchange looks

Mate, whaddaya think we just did?

TESS SMITH

What, when you thanked them?

JOHN BROWN

Precisely. 👍

mood brightens

Now, let's eat!

Blackout.

🎭 Scene 2

In which I provide some random links to people who try (unconvincingly, in my view) to explain why the "A of C" practice is a good idea.

• Welcome to Country or Acknowledgement of Country - indigenous.gov.au
• Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners - firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au
• Acknowledgement of Country and Welcome to Country - indigenous.unsw.edu.au

🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭