The older I get the less I know and understand. Oh, to be 16 again when you knew everything.
I don’t understand why Australians are so reactionary. I don’t understand the reverence for the Australian Constitution that the vast majority Australians have never read.
It’s a serviceable, extremely dull document in desperate need of change and updating.
I don’t understand why we can’t find it in our hearts to acknowledge and recognise Aboriginal people as the time-honoured, original inhabitants of our shared nation and give them the right to advise and be consulted on matters pertaining to them.
I don’t understand why this very simple and long overdue acknowledgement is now called divisive and racist.
Apparently, if you support the yes case in the referendum you are a racist. I don’t understand.
I don’t understand why people cannot grasp that an Aboriginal Voice to Parliament (which is legislated in SA) is subject to the unchanged laws of our country and parliamentary veto.
I don’t understand why our greatest constitutional legal minds are not believed when they say that there is no legal risk from the Voice.
Should this referendum fail, I don’t understand what we will tell Aboriginal people other than, as ever, we resent you, we want you to go away and you should be glad we agreed to give you citizenship, agreed to count you and that we are no longer killing you (except by neglect) and we no longer steal your children.
We will continue to tell Aboriginal people that their 65,000 year civilisation is meaningless and we refuse to acknowledge it in our constitution and we’ll tell Aboriginal people we don’t really like you, you are uppity and too needy and a drain on our much more important civilisation and just go away, be grateful for all that we give you and just do your dot paintings, play football and shut up.
I don’t understand why we can’t see that acknowledging and honouring Aboriginal people acknowledges and honours all of us.
Should this referendum fail I don’t understand how we deal with the way it continues to demean Aboriginal people and I don’t understand how our national deals with the international opprobrium it will bring.
I don’t understand why most Australians are happy to have a Constitution which tells us Australia is a “possession” of Queen Victoria’s heirs and successors and there is no law in Australia unless it’s approved by a foreign monarch or his representatives and yet we won’t allow constitutional recognition of First Nations people.
I don’t understand why the vast majority of Australians despair of Donald Trump yet we are happy to have the no campaign predicated on Trumpian lies, distortions, virulence and insult.
Can we ever change?
Are we white supremacists at heart?
Have we forgotten the fair go? Will we ever embrace truth telling? Can we ever truly love Aboriginal people or will we continue to resent them?
The only thing I do understand is that clearly I’m an ignorant, bleeding-heart, screaming elitist weeping for what our nation could be.
Poor fellow my country.
Originally published as Honouring Aboriginal people acknowledges and honours all of us | Peter Goers