THE Fremantle Herald reported last week that the City of Fremantle is “coy” on 2029 which is the year of the bicentenary of our city and state. 

Fremantle council does have a Towards 2029 working group, chaired by deputy mayor Jenny Archibald, but it’s seemingly an internal one with councillors and City management. 

Where are the community representatives, the creative people, on that group? 

The CEO can “invite” community members onto the group but there’s nothing to indicate that’s happened; meanwhile they’ve decided to create a “Manjaree Hub” on Arthur Head near the roundhouse and work towards making sure Whadjuk Noongars get something out of the bicentenary celebrations.

• Fremantle and WA’s bicentenary is an important commemoration for all, so why aren’t we hearing more about what the City of Fremantle is planning?

They’re not necessarily bad ideas, but why isn’t the broader community being invited along on the journey?

Why is Fremantle council not communicating how they are planning to commemorate 200 years of shared history and amazing achievements?

We need to be very sensitive about how we do this, because for our First Nations people the arrival of Captain Stirling and Captain Fremantle at Bathers Bay is considered to be invasion day, where foreigners forced them off their land and racism raised its very ugly head.

But all history matters, and we cannot ignore that the modern history of Fremantle started in 1829. 

We have achieved so much together since, and worked so hard toward Aboriginal reconciliation here in the port city. 

We cannot reverse history, but we need to learn from the mistakes of the past. 

There is still a long way to go though toward real reconciliation and end racism.

I have long advocated for more accurate historic displays in the Roundhouse, WA’s oldest public building. 

We also need to tell the stories of our indigenous people in the old jail.

I do not support to make Arthur’s Head into a Manjaree Hub, if all the premises are to be leased for Indigenous interests. 

The Manjaree Trail can be improved and the Walyalup Aboriginal Cultural Centre should also become more significant and open its doors on weekends. 

Arthur’s Head/Manjaree is the place of the first port, where international trade and immigration started, and where the limestone quarry and whaling station were. 

It was home to the first courthouse and first police station. 

The Roundhouse, the oldest public building in WA, is still there, as is the Whalers Tunnel.

I have the greatest respect for our Aboriginal history and culture and for the resilience of our First Nations people, but I do not agree with Whadjuk elder Joe Collard, who told the Chook that “Fremantle continues to maintain a colonial appearance that is uninviting”.

Fremantle’s heritage buildings are a beautiful display of our progress and part of our shared history. 

They are one of the reasons our city is so popular with tourists.

There is no remaining built form from before colonisation, so we should also have prominent visual displays of our indigenous history. 

We should not ever ignore the many awful parts of our history, and how the displacement, massacres, Stolen Generations, etc. impacted our local indigenous people.

They are terrible, unforgivable parts of our history. All history matters!

To avoid unnecessary diversity and negativity, I believe we should make the bicentenary a reflection on both pre and post colonisation. 

Like a timeline, we could have a big week-long Aboriginal festival all over Fremantle in early 2029, with art exhibitions, truth telling, music, dance, culture, historic displays, projections onto the Roundhouse and elsewhere, celebrating 50,000 years of continuous occupation by our First Nations people, and follow that a few months later with commemorating the 200 years of modern Fremantle and our multiculturalism.  

Imagine, if that culminated in The Long Walk, a kind of pilgrimage, where thousands of us walk from all over Fremantle with torches, that represent the millions of campfires of history, to the Nyoongar Nation art installation by Sharon Egan and Simon Gilby at Walyalup Koort. 

As thousands of us gather we listen to the sounds of didgeridoos, cellos and double bases, that resonate deep within our souls, as we contemplate that we belong, that this is our home. 

Roel Loopers/FREOVIEW