On the international stage, agitated these days by wars and economical crisisthere is also room for remote voting, a referendum that divides the soul of a nation.
This weekend, Australia faces a historic opportunity to change the emotional course of the country that may remain a failed occasion. The country of the Antipodes has problems typical of post-colonization, with an aboriginal community, the first settlers, who were first decimated and then mistreated. The path for the recognition of their rights and the protection of their culture, their sacred places, has not been easy and is based on too recent progress, such as the Mabo case, the first to recognize Aboriginal land rights in a disputed area in Queensland in 1992, the east of the country.
Curfews for Aboriginal people were still in force in many towns in the 70s. The unemployment rate, literacy rate, and health rate draw an immense gap between Aboriginal people and the rest of Australians. More than 100,000 Aboriginal children were separated from their families over decades, throughout the 20th century, and this stolen generation still lives in modern Australia with its memories and its wounds.
Having arrived here, the recognition of the opinion of the Australian indigenous peoples through ‘The Voice’, a new consulting entity, It shouldn’t even cause debate. The constitution requires a reform to integrate it. A referendum.
Exactly what is voted on, what nuances the question has, what the electorate understands, what strategies rivals use to win the vote are key. Does it sound familiar to you? We see that every referendum holds up a mirror to the society that faces it every time the melon of a vote like this is opened, whatever the nature, whatever the country.
The wounds of a country
In Australia, the mere existence of the question has made the country’s wounds visible. Wounds that on the liberal front are denied with the strength of an Aboriginal voice, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. There is no inequality in the law in access to aid, he alleges. Theft of children is exaggerated and thanks to colonization they have water in their homes. ‘Trumpism’ and misinformation have been rampant in an Australia that does not leave colonial tics behindin an explosive cocktail with the fear of Chinese influence, which has encouraged speeches such as that communism and Russia are behind the yes campaign, which seeks to destabilize the country, they point out.
“Kindness costs nothing”
Always the fear. The no options grew like foam during the campaign, spurred by ‘fake news’. The country’s Prime Minister himself, Anthony Albanese, intensified his calls for the proposal to go ahead that seeks to dignify the voice of the aborigines and integrate it into the Constitution with its uniqueness, a symbolic gesture but of great value to heal the broken heart of the nation. Today’s Australia has 26 million citizens, and only 3.8 percent are aboriginal. “Kindness costs nothing,” Albanese appealed in an emotional speech this Friday, before the vote.
Related news
The debate that has openedThe voice’ It is, in any case, more important than the result itself if it manages to make a society look at its neighbors and ask why some have wealth that others do not, why children do not mix in schools, what weight does the past have in the present. With honesty.
The urns will count the souls one by one, with their fears and their prejudices, their pain and their hopes.. Voting is mandatory, there is no room for the unmotivated. And whatever the result, ‘The Voice’ has strongly shaken consciences on a path that can be long and difficult, but that has to go far.