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'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

reuters.com

61–70 of 73 posts

Re: 'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn’t a country on earth that’s wasn’t taken by force by the current majority people.

[flagged]

"Use your real account" has never been said by a person who did not understand exactly what would happen.

Re: 'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

#62
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Willingly moving into apartheid is a terrible idea.

> apartheid It is autonomy, not apartheid. There are many ethnic/religious communities around the world who have fought for autonomy to varying degrees of success.

I don't understand how autonomy and apartheid are anything other than positive and negative spin on the same concept.

Re: 'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> apartheid It is autonomy, not apartheid. There are many ethnic/religious communities around the world who have fought for autonomy to varying degrees of success.

I don't understand how autonomy and apartheid are anything other than positive and negative spin on the same concept.

To use a marriage analogy, autonomy (bounded) is consensual separation where the injured party has initiative and control over their actions. Apartheid would be the husband restricting the wife to a certain area of the house and beating her everyday.

Autonomy is the best way to preserve culture. A tiny minority living among people who do not share their values will eventually lose any connection to their past due to assimilation unless they adopt extreme orthodoxy like the Amish/Mennonites/Haredim (who too have to form ghettos to achieve their goals).

Re: 'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is misplaced compassion. Giving people who happen to have a specific genetic heritage a privileged position in the law because you feel sorry for them is not compassionate - it's racist and demeaning. And exactly how much genetic heritage does someone need to qualify? One drop? Is it really healthy for society to even start having that conversation and categorizing people by their genetic characteristics? If "co…

No part of what you said is rooted in anything even barely resembling what the Voice was actually about. Christ, it was a glorified advisory body to the government. Basically harmless except it could've guaranteed Indigenous Australians would have a say in the future of the country violently stolen from them, instead of continuing to be disenfranchised. It has nothing to do with proving genetic heritage to get specia…

> Basically harmless except it could've guaranteed Indigenous Australians would have a say in the future of the country violently stolen from them, instead of continuing to be disenfranchised.

Are Indigenous Australians denied the right to vote in modern-day Australian elections? Are there special constraints on their political activity that do not apply to other Australians (like being unable to serve in Parliament or being forbidden to contact their MP about issues that concern them)?

If they aren't denied those rights, do other groups in Australia already have special representative bodies that "guarantee... [their group has] a say in the future of the country"?

> It has nothing to do with proving genetic heritage to get special treatment.

What would the qualifications for someone to sit on the proposed "Voice"? Would all Australians eligible, or just certain ones?

Re: 'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

#65
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No part of what you said is rooted in anything even barely resembling what the Voice was actually about. Christ, it was a glorified advisory body to the government. Basically harmless except it could've guaranteed Indigenous Australians would have a say in the future of the country violently stolen from them, instead of continuing to be disenfranchised. It has nothing to do with proving genetic heritage to get specia…

> Basically harmless except it could've guaranteed Indigenous Australians would have a say in the future of the country violently stolen from them, instead of continuing to be disenfranchised. Are Indigenous Australians denied the right to vote in modern-day Australian elections? Are there special constraints on their political activity that do not apply to other Australians (like being unable to serve in Parliament…

Hey friend, the answers to your questions are immediately accessible via the world wide web, but seeing as how I actually live in this country and have endured damn near a year of this dogwhistling quasi-rhetorical inquiry that you mistakenly believe was novel enough to chip in, I'm gonna let you find your own way to it. Or not. But this "debate", which never should've been a debate in the first place, has lost its charm. I hope one day you fix your heart.

Re: 'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

#66
post #12

Ex-pat Australian who didn’t/was not allowed to vote in the referendum: Watching this play out, was reminded of the Australian Republic Referendum from a while ago now. The feeling I had then was that the population was broadly in favor of Australia becoming a republic, but differed on the structure of that republic (popularly elected President, President appointed by parliament etc). In the end, the question put to…

As an Australian who did vote in this referendum, this is more or less my take as well. To me personally this one felt like it came out of nowhere, had very poor communication about what anyone was actually voting for. The Yes camp initially seemed to take it as some kind of forgone conclusion that everyone would be for it and if not you were a racist and there was no need to explain it further. When they later did start trying to explain it, they really didn't do any better and the best they seemed to come up with was, vote yes then we'll figure out what the solution looks like afterward.

Essentially this made the 'Yes' vote a vote for uncertainty and the 'No' vote a vote for certainty, which made the no vote an easy sell compared the yes vote.

I think if they had better figured out what the voice to parliament would actually be in practice then it would have been a lot easier to sell or at least deflect some of the criticism and frankly scare tactics from the no side.

Re: 'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

#67

Reconciliation is a concept that I've not been able to wrap my head around, and I'm interested whether anyone here has read books that have swayed them one way or the other that they could recommend, especially with what's happening in Israel and Palestine at the moment. In my eyes, it seems unreasonable for anyone in today's day and age to expect something from someone else based on the actions of their ancestors, o…

> In my eyes, it seems unreasonable for anyone in today's day and age to expect something from someone else based on the actions of their ancestors,

So you say, but in finance there exist hundreds of years old loans and annuities.

Inheritance is real. If your grandpa robbed my grandpa and passed the wealth down to you, what to make of that?

Re: 'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

#68
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically harmless except it could've guaranteed Indigenous Australians would have a say in the future of the country violently stolen from them, instead of continuing to be disenfranchised. Are Indigenous Australians denied the right to vote in modern-day Australian elections? Are there special constraints on their political activity that do not apply to other Australians (like being unable to serve in Parliament…

Hey friend, the answers to your questions are immediately accessible via the world wide web, but seeing as how I actually live in this country and have endured damn near a year of this dogwhistling quasi-rhetorical inquiry that you mistakenly believe was novel enough to chip in, I'm gonna let you find your own way to it. Or not. But this "debate", which never should've been a debate in the first place, has lost its c…

"Friend," your non-answer answered all my questions.

Basically, it sounds like Indigenous Australians aren't actually disenfranchised (or you've counter-intuitively re-defined "disenfranchised" to mean "not extra-enfranchised"), and this body would have unequally granted certain racial groups extra power and influence in the government based on race alone.

Re: 'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

#69
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That which you describe was called roughly "dictatorial majority" when I learned about these things in school, and the difference between it and democracy was that in a democracy, the majority behaves considerately and tries to keep the minority happy. Happy enough to want to participate in the next election, and happy enough to be considerate if the next election ends differently.

There is a better way than depending on the majority to be "considerate". I prefer constitutional limits on what the majority can do.

Why?

This is a serious question. I'm familiar with a couple of countries that have a considerate tradition that's working well. I'm not familiar with any that achieve the same effect with constitutional limits, and would like to learn.

Re: 'Reconciliation is dead': Indigenous Australians vow silence as referendum fails

#70

Reconciliation is a concept that I've not been able to wrap my head around, and I'm interested whether anyone here has read books that have swayed them one way or the other that they could recommend, especially with what's happening in Israel and Palestine at the moment. In my eyes, it seems unreasonable for anyone in today's day and age to expect something from someone else based on the actions of their ancestors, o…

Say in WWII, the nazi's stole some valuable art from a jewish family and it ended up the position of some german family who passed it down to their kids and their kids. Now descendants of the family that were robbed find about who now has that art and wants it returned. Do they have rights to it seeing as how they were not the ones who were robbed?

This appears to be the logic here. Current law says it has to be returned. But how many generations have to pass before it becomes like the land taken from indigenous populations?

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