Pemulwuy#TruthTreatyVoice #SovereigntyNeverCeded
"The whole idea of having a referendum on an Aboriginal issue in the year 2023, the nicest thing I could say about it is that it was ill-conceived in the first place. Because this is not Australia, 1967, anymore. This is Australia that has been subjected to forty years of history and culture wars, Pauline Hanson and One Nation, Sky After Dark, the Murdoch tabloids, all of which has contributed to this being a far more polarised nation at this point in its history.
And for anyone to think that a question on something to do with Aborigines in a Federal Referendum had a snowballs chance in hell of getting up at this point in history, knows nothing about History. It was a stupid idea, ill-conceived and not an idea that emerged from the grassroots of Aboriginal Australia."
- Gary Foley, Professor of History at Victoria University, and a Gumbaynggiirr man who played a key role in the Aboriginal rights movement from the late 1960s.
"The use and abuse of History in the Voice referendum debate: an interview with Professor Gary Foley" - https://overland.org.au/2023/10/the-use-and-abuse-of-history-in-the-voice-referendum-debate-an-interview-with-professor-gary-foley/
The use and abuse of History in the Voice referendum debate: an interview with Professor Gary Foley - Overland literary journal
I can see the failure of the referendum making a whole lot of Blackfellas sit up and think and realise again, what we realised back in β67, that our best efforts to achieve our aims are always at our own behest, under our own control. A whole new generation of Black activists deciding hang on, to hell with the rest of them, letβs just focus on our own communities and start building up the strength of our own communities.
Sir Dr Rusty o the Isle π€πβ€οΈ
