Lacking Fire

A Disheartening Analysis of a Flaccid Campaign

In the wake of the recent referendum, which concluded with a resounding "No" vote, there has been a sense of reticence to delve too quickly into the aftermath. It appears to me that this referendum provided little more than new data for First Nations People to work with. We now know and can identify how much of the country voted No - a powerful piece of information. The call for a week's silence from "Indigenous Australians Who Supported the Voice Referendum" was perceived by some as a cop-out, a silence that was promptly broken when they wanted to express their views.

A quick side note on the call for a week’s silence as pictured above: it was impossible to verify who had put this out and whether it was an official request.

My hesitation to address the referendum stems from a lack of passion for the outcomes it promised and failed to deliver. A fervent political fire, it seemed, was conspicuously absent in response to the proposition put forward during the referendum. Many within the First Nations community, myself included, found themselves disengaged with the process and further when we tried to engage from an intellectual point of view, we were shut down. Why would we want something that was so watered down?