Waiting For A Voice — A Reblog by rawgod

Posted on by under education, Global Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

For the past several years, I have been so focused on domestic issues here in the U.S. that I haven’t paid as much attention as I once did to what’s happening around the globe. So it was that I was not aware of the upcoming referendum in Australia or what it was about (human rights). Our friend rawgod, however, did learn of the upcoming vote in Australia that would give representation and a voice at long last to the Indigenous Peoples of that nation. He explains it in his latest post …

UMM, AUSTRALIA? THIS IS 2023, NOT 1759!

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50 thoughts on “Waiting For A Voice — A Reblog by rawgod”

  1. And “eh” makes Canadians and Kiwis similar as we both have the propensity to end sentences with it, although here it’s also spelt “ay” and “aye” which is closer to how it’s pronounced here (with the emphasis on the “y”)

    Liked by 4 people

    • Aye is pronounced eye in Canada, Don’t you love the English language and all its variations. Regional and national accents are just the best. And one has to k ow how to spell homonyms based on the surrounding words. If I lie down in lye I am luable to lie about the burns on my skin.

      Liked by 3 people

      • “aye” is pronounced “I” or “eye” when used as as an affirmation such as “ayes to the left, nos to the right”, but otherwise “eh”, “ay” and “aye” has the same vowel sound as “hey” and “gay”.

        Which reminds me of a Canadian cousin who, when visiting NZ was highly offended when she thought a barista had told her that she had a “sweet ass”. I had ordered some flat whites, and she had told the barista that we’d be sitting at a table outside the front of the cafe, to which he had actually replied “sweet as”. It’s an expression that has multiple uses – on this occasion it indicated he acknowledged what the cousin said and was happy to bring the coffees to us.

        She wasn’t fully convinced of the innocence of the remark until I reminded her that if the barista had really intended to refer to her rear end then he would have referred to it as an “arse”. I like you, I find variations in English dialects fascinating.

        Liked by 2 people

  2. There was a movie “Quigley Down Under”. Not only are they not citizens in their own land but it was legal to hunt them up to 1920. Same rights as kangaroos.

    Liked by 2 people

    • That is not factually correct. The treatment of Aboriginals has been appalling but they have been citizens (of sorts) for some time. According to Bing Chat AI:

      Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were granted Australian citizenship along with all other Australians in 1948. However, citizenship did not give voting rights to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples until 1962 for federal elections and 1965 for state elections. On 27 May 1967, a constitutional referendum was held to improve indigenous rights and count Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the census. More than 90 per cent of Australian voters chose yes to the referendum. This was a significant milestone in the recognition of Australia’s Indigenous people.

      Regarding the hunting/massacre of Aboriginals, this Guardian series is harrowing reading: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/the-killing-times. The most recent alleged massacre took place in 1946 at Bedford Downs Station in the Kimberley region, where about 30 people were poisoned by flour laced with strychnine.

      As a side note, one of the reasons New Zealand did not join the Australian Federation 1901 was because of the difference in how the indigenous peoples of the two countries were treated. According to a report by the Centre for Independent Studies, New Zealand’s Māori had better outcomes than Australia’s Aboriginal people because of the different ways the two governments treated their indigenous people. The report states that:

      New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi (1840) recognised Māori as the indigenous people of New Zealand and gave them equal rights as British subjects, while also allowing them to retain their land, forests, fisheries and treasures. In contrast, Australia’s indigenous people were dispossessed of their land and denied citizenship and basic human rights until well into the 20th century.

      The report also notes that New Zealand’s Māori had more political representation and participation than Australia’s Aboriginal people, and that New Zealand had more policies and programs to support Māori culture, language and education.

      Therefore, some Māori in New Zealand feared that joining the Australian federation would mean losing their rights and status as guaranteed by the Treaty of Waitangi. They also worried that they would share the fate of Australian Aborigines under British rule, who faced discrimination, violence and dispossession. As a result, New Zealand decided not to become a state of the new Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.

      That’s not to say everything was rosy in New Zealand. Far from it, as the spirit of the Treaty of Waitangi was frequently ignored/disregarded by successive New Zealand governments for over a century. It’s improving now but there’s still a long way to go. But that’s another story for another time.

      Liked by 4 people

      • We still have a long way to go in Canada and the United States before we Indigenous peoples are truly accepted as equals, if we ever are. Racism runs rampant. But we certainly have it better than our Australian cousins. Most people treat us well, but the 40% who don’t DON’T!

        Liked by 5 people

      • Are you practising becoming a Canadian, eh, Jill? I’m told it’s the “eh”that makes Canadians and Americans different, eh. The real way to spell Canada is C-eh?-N-eh?-D-eh!
        (Just trying to throw in some Canadian humour after an amazing tale of our inhunanity to each other!

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        • I disagree. If they were armed, they would be considered a more dangerous threat, and would have been “dealt with” even more harshly. The settlers outnumbered the indigenous folk by quite a considerable margin. If the Aboriginal population was considerably larger, then perhaps you could argue a pro gun stance.

          However, one only needs look at the devastating effect of the New Zealand musket wars to see the fallacy of guns providing protection. Traditional Māori inter-tribal warfare using hand held and thrown weapons was replaced by muskets and eventually more advanced weapons. Over the course of the musket wars, the Māori population declined by between 20% and 40%. Warfare against the European settlers occurred several decades latter where Māori casualties were numbered in the thousands instead of the tens of thousands of the Musket wars. More guns simply means more deaths.

          Liked by 3 people

          • Would you dispute me if I pointed out that the aboriginals were armed? Did they not invent the boomerang? IMO the Zulu knobkerrie is the best close combat weapon. A firearm, like a bow with arrow, puts distance into the equation. The deaths are the same. That distance does seem to allow for some diminishment of the moral injury.

            Liked by 1 person

  3. “I have been so focused on domestic issues here in the U.S. that I haven’t paid as much attention as I once did to what’s happening around the globe.”
    LOL. It shows in your misguided, uninformed views of the conflict in eastern Europe, hun. 😐
    /me drops mic

    Liked by 2 people

                  • Wrong. And … wrong again.
                    1) Jews didn’t throw themselves in the oven, their dead bodies were thrown in after they were carried out of the gas chambers. So the Nuremberg defense never existed. Nazis were evil beaurocrats but not that stupid.
                    2) I didn’t lie, only educated. Nobody died from my post. But y’all are a bit wiser now and hopefully have learned not to bully the planet any longer. Ukraine was already overstepping the border of all that’s good and fair, China will be your last stand! After that: Baibai America! Baibai NATO! Baibai EU! Not too sorry to see you go *plopp.

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                    • In retrospect it was probably best that I did not pursue a professional comedic career.
                      The man at the fair that taught me to juggle began by throwing the bag to the ground. He told me when I got tired of picking it up we could juggle. I’m not tired yet. 🙂

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                  • “In retrospect it was probably best that I did not pursue a professional comedic career.”
                    Probably?

                    “The man at the fair that taught me to juggle began by throwing the bag to the ground. He told me when I got tired of picking it up we could juggle. I’m not tired yet.”
                    Man at the fair was giving you good advice … for juggling.
                    Political humour is a completely different field, the audience is only fascinated when your funny puns are based on facts! Political audience won’t laugh about made-up shit. So when I stated it wasn’t my intention to hurt anybody reading my comment, least of all Jill, I was dead-serious. But when I witness so many wrongs I can’t laugh anymore but have to put my foot down (same as when hubby told me to stop impersonating a flamingo).

                    Liked by 1 person

    • No offense to my white friends or white ancestors, but some truths are not so obvious when they get in the way of land ownership and economics. Some of them seem to think they have a Divine Right to rule, to be rich, and to go to heaven. They are the elite of humanity, and everyone elae should be on their knees, kowtowing as they drive by.

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  6. Having grown up in Australia, I have been watching this, though not very closely. There seems to be a lot of opposition, but not for any good reason that I can see. I guess it’s the same old racism story.

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    • Is there much pressure to change from outside Australia, do you know, Neil? I asked Silver Cord Adventures a similar questiom earlier today, but she hasn’t got back yo me yet. She must be sleeping. 😴😴😴

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      • I really don’t know the answer to that. As best I can tell, most of the pressure is coming from white Australians.

        I saw one person complaining the the indigenous Australians already own 16% of the land. While that may be true, you can bet that what they own is mostly relatively barren parts of the land, such as deserts.

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        • Like most of the Indigenous lands in Canada. We were put on the land no one else wanted. My own family was actually given fertile land on the Red River. We owned it for less than 24 hours before we were swindled out of of it by a white government-approved agent. He got my great-great-grandfather drunk, then talked him into selling the land for a joke. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police wouldn’t even look into it. The officer said it didn’t matter that he was drunk, that the agent had filled him with free booze — his sgnature was on the land deed, therefore it was legal. And people wonder why we don’t trust Mounties!

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