As Israel’s latest brutal war against the people of Gaza drags on, the need to challenge the Zionist state and all those who facilitate its genocidal campaign couldn’t be clearer.
If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution
For left-wing people in Australia, support for Aboriginal rights is almost axiomatic—rightfully so in a country where Indigenous people are plagued by over-policing, racist politicians and endemic poverty. But horror at the racism Indigenous people in Australia face shouldn’t stop at the national border, and nor should solidarity.
After waging a campaign of racist lies for the last six months, the No campaign has achieved its goal.
In a recent National Press Club address, prominent No campaigner Warren Mundine very clearly explained what the campaign against the Voice is all about: a racist pushback against Indigenous people. Mundine wants to convince people that “most Indigenous Australians are doing fine”. He thinks that Indigenous people need to stop being “angry and aggrieved” and “trapped in the past”. Instead, they need to ignore racism and “draw a line in history and move on from a clean slate”.
As the referendum approaches, the key dynamic in the debate is clear. The conservative right views a defeat for the Voice as a chance to strike a devastating blow against support for Indigenous rights among the Australian population. In the process, it is reviving every racist myth in the play book: Indigenous people shouldn’t get “special privileges”; opposing anti-Aboriginal racism is actually “dividing the nation”; and the colonisation of Australia had only a “positive impact”, in the words of Jacinta Price.