We often hear from Yes supporters that they despair at the thought of waking up in an Australia where the No vote has been successful. These so-called progressives are desperate to ignore the inconvenient truth of both No campaigns, which is that they reflect the reality of the Australian colony far more than the Yes campaign could ever hope to.
The “racist” No campaign embodies the reality of this settler colony and reflects the ideological foundation and spirit of the Australian nation. It highlights the deeply vicious, anti-Indigenous sentiment that resides at the core of the Australian national identity. To be Australian is to accept the narrative about us as a dispossessed and defeated people, as boongs, petrol-sniffers and dole-bludgers in need of care and control by the white man who knows best. It is to want to eradicate us, whether that be by extermination or assimilation.
This is the reality that Yes campaigners refuse to reckon with, the reality too many mob live with every day. A colony that kills us, that steals our children, that destroys our land, that poisons our water, blows up our sacred sites, throws us in prison and then tells us that we are the problem. It is a nation that tells us we do not belong on our own land.
The “progressive” No campaign embodies the spirit of revolutionary justice by demanding we confront the history of the Australian nation. The Yes campaigners will do well to remember that this is a history that has never been reckoned with in any meaningful way. We do not want to be recognised by the colonial constitution. We do not want to be part of it at all. Those who say that this inclusion would be a meaningful step do not speak for us. We do not want reconciliation. We want a reckoning.
Sovereignty was never ceded
When we say that First Nations sovereignty was never ceded, we do not simply mean that our spiritual sovereignty remains intact regardless of the colony’s existence. We mean that we maintain our legitimate claim to the lands and resources of this continent and the right to determine our own lives and future and we do not recognise the sovereignty of the illegal invader. We view the colonial federation as an occupying force whose existence to this day is predicated on the ongoing theft of our lands and the genocide of our people. Sovereignty is both our right to our lands and resources and our own self-determinate governance structures, and First Nations peoples have not ceded our sovereignty.
The Yes campaign is living in an illusion, where Australia is a progressive nation, where unity can be found through democratic participation and racism can be addressed through voting. Some of the Yes campaigners attempt to justify a reluctant or coerced position by claiming that they are seeking to avoid future harm and promote inclusion. All too often it is those who are not at risk of harm preaching harm reduction, those who aren’t starving telling us to take the scraps we are offered.
Struggles are not fought over symbols
This idea being promoted today that First Nations peoples have been calling for constitutional recognition since back then is not accurate. We know that, because we know the history of the political movement was always about land rights, treaty and self-determination. Political struggles are not fought over symbolic gestures.
Our people did not fight and struggle so long for constitutional recognition, and certainly not for a form of it that confers us no authority over our own lives or our land. What is on offer today is not the culmination of our ancestors’ struggles. Our people called for land rights, treaty and enshrined political, social and economic rights — we did not call for recognition alone, and when we did call for recognition it was purely to enshrine substantive enforceable rights. This entire aspect of our struggle has been ignored and swept under the rug.
None of these demands have ever been implemented. Instead, we have been offered symbolism, and a powerless advisory body.
Constitutional recognition
Constitutional recognition is not a First Nations idea — just like native title and reconciliation are not First Nations ideas. These are three hugely significant instances of non-Indigenous ideas taking up the entire room of Indigenous political struggle, supplanting the land rights movement and diverting energy into the native title claims process. Reconciliation softens the strength and potency of the land rights and sovereignty claims by diverting attention to vague notions of unity and incrementalism. Constitutional recognition may not have made any traction until 2007, but its genesis was in the conservative reaction against the land rights movement and in that context its ultimate goal can be seen — it is not a vehicle for progressing First Nations rights, it is a vehicle for halting them.
The constitution is not a progressive document, and this state is not a progressive nation that we can be proud to be included in.
What a No vote will mean
Yes campaigners are out of touch with reality if they think a No vote is going to embolden racism. We are already “given too much”, according to racists, so we’re sure you can imagine the outrage that awaits us if First Nations peoples are given our very own constitutional Voice in modern-day colonial Australia, a nation where Nazis can openly Sieg Heil on the steps of Parliament under police protection and where First Nations children are run down in cars driven by grown men.
The reality is that a No vote won’t change the way things are but it will force the Yes campaign and its supporters to reckon with the reality that Australia isn’t ready for this kind of change and that serious steps need to be taken before any kind of legal action concerning the political future of First Nations peoples is attempted again.
What should we do in an Australia that has voted No?
We should continue to voice our demands for self-determination, and we should continue building a mass movement to help us enforce them. The reality is that First Nations peoples can never place our liberation into the hands of our oppressors, the colonial government. We will never be given an option to vote our way to freedom. The very survival of the colony depends on the continued exploitation and oppression of our people and lands.
As a start, we need to demand truth-telling across this continent. We need an end to the theft of our babies and the locking away of our children. We need to stop the murder of our people at the hands of police and lynch mobs, and we need to take police guns out of communities. We need to eradicate poverty, illiteracy, and poor health from our reality. We need to demand reparations for slavery and stolen wages, and ultimately, we need to take back the land and natural resources that are rightfully ours.
These are things that can only be achieved through a Pan-Aboriginal movement with our allies by our side where we have enough strength as a united political force to effect real change. The government bodies, NGOs and corporations that have been working to “reduce the gap” in statistical outcomes for First Nations peoples have a lot to answer for, as that gap has only widened each year while their pockets have grown fatter. We must call this betrayal out for what it is. We cannot place our faith or our future in the hands of a neoliberal colony whose every aspect and function reproduce the conditions for our oppression and destruction.
As for the rest of Australia, there is a reckoning with the truth that needs to occur before First Nations peoples are ever asked to risk our sovereignty again. There is a sickness and a trauma that lies at the heart of the Australian nation. This wound needs to be addressed, and reparations need to be made. To those who consider voting Yes to be a progressive stance, we hope that you consider our analysis in good faith and come to see the Voice as the meaningless, regressive consolation prize that it is. Because our bottom line is this: we will no longer accept poisonous scraps and feel-good platitudes from the colony, and we will no longer tolerate fear of the truth.
Australians must reckon with the reality that this continent is our sovereign land, and it has not been ceded.
The doctrine of fait accompli is where you start with this issue. Short of the collapse of the Australian state most of what is aspired to here, will never happen. No amount of wishful thinking can change the basic power structure of post 1788 Australia. Any treaty will always be a symbolic gesture. Truth and Voice are completely different and are a living process that given the circumstances can logically be the only way forward. The White No campaign leadership cannot believe their luck that the Blak No campaign is doing so much damage to the Yes vote and will be crucial to the Voice going down.
PNG you mean ?
In terms of power shifts and a rapidly changing world order and status quo – seems agency is about ownership of resources … greed and power and who possess the capability and capacity to hold that monopoly ; democracy sold off and sadly most marginalised and sidelined people are the target for exploitation and systemic gaslighting via propaganda, ignorance and scapegoating
The wishful thinking of the Blak No campaign dovetails entirely with the wishful thinking of anyone who longs for a sustainable future. The future which actually faces us is short, and ever bleaker, as we cling to a doomed raft of lies.
The only hope for any of us is for another way of organising ourselves to somehow present itself. Do many of us spend any time wondering what that might look like? In spare moments of the daily grind working for the Man, do any of us seriously look for a way out?
I’ve been doing that for years. And I actually had the only idea I know of which has even the slightest chance of working. Anybody interested?
If you are against the vote for reasons of inadequacy that’s fine by me. I don’t think the voice is any kind of end. I know that you won’t get much of what you suggest through in any way, but my hope is that the voice is a step and that people will then be willing to embrace more meaningful change.
Perfectly put thanks ol grey dude
Agree, and one forgot to mention in comment above, that in UK social media (astroturfing) campaigns, supposed Labour voters demand absolute and purist perfection of UK Labour and Starmer on single issues, then threaten to ‘throw the toys out of the pram’ or ‘spit the dummy’ if they are not catered to; ‘collective narcissism’ with much ‘pensioner populism’ (Howard’s recent comment ‘maintain the rage’?).
Yep. We take one step in the right direction, we take take another.
The “progressive” no vote is a pointless rebellion, which, by aligning with the rest of no vote, will take us nowhere. Why not leverage the passionate support of the yes voters to take us forward on the path to a reckoning and a confrontation with the appalling history of colonisation?
It seems to me to be naive in the extreme to think that a no result will advance the cause of First Nations people. It will not. It will set it back decades.
I understand and empathise with his view, but I tend to agree with you, Graham. It seems a bit like siding with the devil.
Less “Progressive” than “Howling at the Moon”…………….
……..and about as effective.
Much false logic, reminiscent of not just related tactics of Brexit & Trump vs. ‘elites’, but social media campaigns in UK to denigrate Labour’s Starmer as Tory etc., hence, not worth voting for, then benefits the Tories; Steve Bannon form of voter suppression targeting younger & more centrist.
On the latter, it’s essential to get youth and the undecided engaged, motivated and voting, not giving them excuses…..to retain the status quo of many above median age ‘skip’ voters…..
No it won’t because it will perhaps give the nation pause to think and develop an audit of the expenditures and refocus on real help for the disadvantaged -mainly in remote areas. I can’t see any difference will be made in urban areas.
There will be no more informed audit of programs after a No vote, since governments will not be forced to listen to those people on the ground who know where the skeletons are.
Decades, eh? You think this alleged civilisation has more than a few decades in it?
First Nations folks will have their country back this century, as a toxic cinder.
I also note it’s not the Yes rallies which attract the N4zis.
I despair at the plight of our first nations people, one doesn’t need to travel far from the major metropolitan areas to see how two tiered our society is. Whilst I don’t disagree with a lot of what the author says, he seems to ignore how far things have come in the recognition journey. He also ignores that the recommendation to establish a voice was overwhelmingly agreed upon by the first nations regional dialogues whose role was to identify what constitutional recognition involves from their perspectives. I assume as member of the Yuin Nation the author would have had input to the dialogues though the NSW Aboriginal Land Council.
By having a constitutional enshrined voice, the body can no longer be disbanded when it does not align with the ideology of the incumbent government the way ATSIC was disbanded. The Voice to Parliament won’t immediately close the gap or correct injustices to the First Nations people. It will however be the next step in healing of the past wrongs. The Voice will enable First Nations people to advocate directly to the Parliament and monitor the Commonwealth’s use of s51 (xxvi) and s122 of the Constitution.
And just maybe, when a government introduces legislation that breaches human rights the way that the Northern Territory Intervention did, there is an opportunity to guide the government to a legislation that is sympathetic to the rights of the first nations people rather that coming in heavy with a paternalistic big wad.
I think Keiran is speaking for the progressive No position. Progressives are always in a minority, and need not consider a majority view – in this instance the oft-quoted 82% or the first nation regional dialogues. We speak our own view. If I oppose Australian terrorism in foreign lands, can you oppose my position with `the majority voted for it’. The same goes for a position on climate change, cruelty to animals, a perpetual growth economic system, etc. In my opinion, Keiran ignored nothing.
The problem with what you say is that the progressive No view is powerful.
If the No vote gets up then the progressive No are part of the Majority that voted No and they and the Yes supporters do not get anything of what they want.
It doesn’t matter, because we’re all COMPREHENSIVELY FCKED if capitalism prevails. Who’s going to stop it? I’m in an even smaller minority then the Blak No camp, apparently, so we can forget the future because it isn’t there.
We’re arguing over the arrangement of deckchairs.
You don’t have to leave the city at all to see how broken things are; the opulence of the top end of town is perfectly juxtaposed against the squalor of an ever-growing cohort of homeless people.
No substantive problems will ever be solved while this order prevails. Far too few notice how allowing this order to persist has sealed our doom.
I can understand the rage – it’s what I would feel in that position.
I can understand why “Yes” looks like tokenism – after all even if passed a future government can legislate that the Voice will consist of a cardboard cut out of Ernie Dingo with a recorded voice saying “yes Boss” on command.
But your problem is the 24 million or so of us non-indigenous who are not leaving – we have nowhere to go.
If you start a war you will lose and extermination will be complete.
So somehow you have to negotiate a deal with the rest of us that we all can all live with. I can’t see that “no” does that better than “yes”.
And we only have a few years to do it – the time is fast approaching when about 1 billion South Asians will need to find a new home because theirs is too hot for human existence and then we will all find out about the next colonisation.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about the depth and breadth of people’s denial of the shape of the future…