A public statement in support of Professor Stan Grant
We at Yindyamarra Nguluway stand in unbreakable solidarity with our founding Director, Professor Stan Grant in his recent decision to step aside indefinitely as the host of Q+A.
With Stan, we too, are hurting.
Consistent with the Statement released by our Vice-Chancellor yesterday, Professor Renée Leon, we condemn in the strongest possible terms the racist and hateful abuse launched against Stan and his family on various forms of media following his participation as an invited guest on the ABC’s coronation coverage.
This abuse is utterly unacceptable in modern Australia – a society that aspires to be inclusive and committed to principled self-criticism. This abuse is malignant in the personal nature of its attack and poisons our public debate. This abuse reduces us all.
A Message from Stan Grant | Q+A
In his final words on Monday night’s episode of Q+A, Stan made it very clear that the Australian media no longer have the “love or the language” for respectfully discussing matters of vital interest to the Australian public – including how best to achieve justice for First Nations peoples.
Stan has called for love in the heat of a hateful public debate. It is to meet Stan’s call with open hearts and to promote a higher standard of public debate in Australia that Yindyamarra Nguluway exists.
We are a values-based community of thinkers rooted in the Wiradjuri philosophy of Yindyamarra.
Yindyamarra is a Wiradjuri word preserved by Stan’s father, Uncle Stan Grant Jnr. – the man who saved a language. Yindyamarra means respect. But it means a certain kind of respect. Yindyamarra. To do things slowly, with restraint and humility. Yindyamarra. To live with grace and sit with the sadness.
Yindyamarra is not weakness. Stan reminded us of that on Monday night. Yindyamarra is a warrior’s code. Yindyamarra is the courage to show magnanimity and grace to one’s enemies in the hope we may yet transform their hatred into love.
With his final words on Q+A, Stan invoked a phrase sacred to the Wiradjuri people, a phrase precious to Charles Sturt University, entrusted with its care:
“Yindyamarra Winhanganha means to live with respect in a world worth living in.”
We must build and honour a world worth living in for all.
Under the leadership of Stan Grant, Yindyamarra Nguluway will continue to be a source of this transformative love in Australia’s cultural and political landscape. This is crucial work in an age ever more in need of evidence-based and imaginative thought leadership. This is our first task in reimagining a new Australia, freed from the constraints of injustice and history.
An Australia, not assured, but an Australia we all want so desperately to be able to believe in.
We are proud of our Founding Director, Professor Stan Grant, who has shown us through his love that we should still believe in the possibility of a new Australia.
We stand in solidarity with him and his family, and to Stan, say:
“Mandaang guwu, brother.
“Yindyamarra.”