Last week the bodies of 33 Australians were repatriated from overseas burial. The remains included service personnel interred in Malaysia, and an Australian who died during the Vietnam War who had been interred in Singapore.
Reactions to the solemn ceremony of repatriation make it obvious that many are deeply affected by the death of soldiers — military personnel, politicians, family, and the general public.
As a society, we continue to feel a deep and solemn connection to those who have died on foreign soil, and a strong desire to bring them home.
But it is not only the bodies of deceased Australian military personnel that remain overseas. Last month, remains of Aboriginal people, centuries old, were returned to their home in the Western Goldfields of WA from various overseas institutions. The repatriation of six sets of remains is part of a project organised by the WA Museum.
Until the 1940s, bodies of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were sent to museum, scientific, and private collections around the world. Collectors were not satisfied with grave robbing and there are also terrible stories of humans being killed for the purposes of adding to collections.
Many such remains still form part of overseas exhibits, some of which are mislabelled as animal bones. Indeed the remains of more than 1000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians continue to be held overseas in collections.
Holding human remains of colonised peoples, and their cultural belongings, as exhibits, whether scientific or cultural, is deeply offensive to the descendants of those taken, and to Indigenous Australians more widely. It should be offensive to all Australians.
The practice is a remnant of colonial attitudes that treated indigenous peoples worldwide as curiosities. That human remains and cultural belongings continue to be held overseas represents the ongoing effects of global colonialism.
"Traditional beliefs hold that for the spirit to be at peace, the remains must return to their country. This is not very different from the beliefs that cause us to expend so much effort to repatriate military personnel."
In addition, failing to repatriate the remains is hurtful to the spiritual beliefs of the descendants of those taken. Traditional beliefs hold that for the spirit of a deceased person to be at peace, the remains must return to their country. This is not very different from the beliefs that cause us to expend so much effort to repatriate Australian military personnel, or to compensate for non-repatriation through the solemn