“We are not a racist country.” Michaela Cash, Peter Dutton and their followers are shouting this mantra from their guarded rooftops, believing, and dearly hoping that the Yes campaign will fail. They want us to know that they hold to a tradition that they see, cannot and must not be changed. They will go to any means to see that that tradition stays as it is.
Obfuscation, lies, fears and hysterical statements are all that are needed for the Voice to fail in the referendum. This is the weaponry used by the opponents to the Voice- sinking to any level with the end justifying any of the means that they can pull out of their box of tricks.
So very sad. In fact, we are a racist nation, and that racism comes in a multiplicity of forms. If we were to examine the history of our country from the initial wording of the constitution in 1901, it all starts there.
The constitution was initially designed to promote a system of racial discrimination. This was very apparent in the formulation of the white Australia Policy. Yes, we have moved on from there, but the constitutionality remains basically unchanged in Australia to this very day. It would be beneficial to define some of the subtlety involved in the word and concept of racism.
We need to dig deep to understand something about ourselves. We need to walk in the shoes of a First Nation person and see what they see and what we don’t see and are unable to comprehend in its fullness, what it is not to be white.
John Hill
16th September 2033
To be continued…..
