The Labor government just won the federal election, and the new Prime Minister has announced his full support of the Uluru Statement.
I have not blogged about the Uluru Statement for a while now, so it’s a good time for an update. I’m not going to write about the Uluru Statement in any detail here, but the goal of this post is to place it in a context.
The decolonisation era
The constitutional convention at Yulara was held in 2017, coinciding with the 50th year anniversary of the 27 May 1967 referendum. This May 2017 date seemed to be a soft-target date for getting “something” done in the years leading up to the convention. The date – 27 May – is still being floated now as a candidate for a future Voice referendum.
The 1967 Referendum was in one way – very successful, as it had a high “Yes” vote. In another way, it was an absolute failure.
7 years beforehand in 1960, the members of the United Nations in the General Assembly passed a landmark resolution to rid the world of colonialism. They set a plan into action.
Franchise colonies were to be decolonised in a transparent process overseen by the “Special committee”/C24 committee. Settler colonies were to be decolonised in domestic processes led by settler-colonial states themselves. The result is there are two different, but parallel decolonisation processes are running side-by-side.
The action of C24 committee decolonising franchise colonial states ironed out a lot of the technical details as to how decolonisation happens. These details then fed back into the processes run behind domestic walls in settler-colonial states.
In Australia, the first attempt at decolonisation was during the 60’s. It was an attempt at “Integration” of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by granting them “equal citizen rights”. Integration is one of the three main pathways established by the UN as a valid form of decolonisation. In Australia, this included a lot of different sub-projects – the biggest being the 1967 referendum itself. The 1967 Referendum succeeded, Aboriginal people got “equal citizen rights”, and according to the UN rules, Australia was temporarily decolonised.
Temporarily. The 1967 referendum was ultimately a failure, because it’s goal was to decolonise Australia. But a spanner was thrown in the works from Africa.
Spanner in the works
After 1967, all seemed well and good. The Australian Federal Government had a new, reformed races power that it didn’t even use for several years. It didn’t need to use it – the 1967 referendum was to simply change the constitution to make it appear from the outside that all people of the Australian territory are equal in terms of citizen rights.
But something happened in Africa. In 1965, a white, settler minority, in a franchise colonial state went rogue from their European Crown, and declared independence. The UN rules were changed in response. The change in rules closed a loophole that Australia had relied on, and undid all of the work done in the 60’s including the 1967 Referendum. This is why 1967 was ultimately a failure.
1970 was the 25th year anniversary of the United Nations Charter. In commemoration, the Friendly Relations declaration was made. The African “spanner” was embedded inside of this declaration in a section on colonialism. The new rules meant that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now have to decide themselves that they want to integrate. Affirmative consent is now needed.
1970 to the Uluru Statement
From 1970 onwards, there has been a continual conga-line of committees, reports, panels, rep bodies, proposals – all working towards the goal of decolonising Australia. It has taken many different forms, and has also been continually shaped by the ongoing and parallel decolonisation of franchise colonial states by the C24 committee, and also by contemporary international Human Rights law.
The Uluru Statement is simply the end of a long conga-line of expensive fails. But after so many failures, this current proposal is fully optimised.
Firstly – the basic political solution was engineered. Next – the proposal was optimised for the benefit of corporations, of “Australians”, and to minimise Aboriginal claims for reparatory justice. On top of that, experts in risk management have identified and put in place strategies to minimise risks of failure.
The marketing of the proposal to different groups is also very well thought-out. It is a bit like a slimy used-car sales tactics. It is not based on outright lies – that would legally be fraud and risk invalidating it. But there is plenty of creative use of language, exploitation of common misunderstandings and exploiting a general apathy for politics. Smoke and mirrors. There is a lot of appeal to emotion, especially to white-guilt. Aboriginal dissent to the proposal is being carefully neutralised by re-framing and re-direction. Often, dissent is redirected in a way where it still looks like dissent, but it actually supports the proposal.
How do I know this? I have been watching very closely. I have reverse-engineered the proposal in a technical sense. I can see what is happening. It’s genius what they are doing. Every time I think I see they made a ‘mistake’ – I bite my tounge/keyboard, I wait a few months, a few years… I wait, and watch. Then the ‘mistake’ is fixed. As far as I can tell, the ‘mistakes’ are now all ironed out. It’s show time.
As Australia has such a complicated foundational problem, the Uluru Statement solution is a complicated solution. If I try to simplify it – it ends up sounding ridiculous because I am fighting through a sea of misunderstandings. I’m scared my efforts won’t be enough. I’m scared that it’s too late to stop.
I try my best to explain what I have found in my blog. I write in lengthy detail, it might be boring to read. The historical stuff is also important because it all fits together. Maybe I sound pretentious, I am not really – I am just an INTP. I am not a wanna-be academic, I am expressing myself. Normally I don’t bother sharing my ideas because by the time I put my theories together I have gotten bored and already moved onto the next “thing”. But this time is different because it is so important for our people.
I know my target “audience” of my work will be very small. I’m not doing this for clicks.
My goal is that our people know what they are entitled to as colonised peoples, and they can use that information to make their own choices. The Uluru Statement will limit choices, and will set our people up for permanent failure.
They have stolen an entire continent. This is NOT a “gammon advisory-only body”, it is far more complicated. No expense is too high to spend securing their Stolenwealth. Do not underestimate this proposal.