A Citizens Referendum Part One: No More Junk Mail Please

First Published on Facebook October 13th 2023

NO MORE JUNK MAIL PLEASE

WARNING THIS CONTAINS REFERENCES TO POLITICS WHICH MIGHT BE LEGITIMATELY UPSETTING

Dear friends,

If you are in a comfortable place to think about politics please read forward, otherwise, I would suggest you simply ignore this.

I’m a fairly private person. I don’t normally discuss politics, my belief system or world view with others in any public forum. However, having said that I did feel compelled to change my profile picture in response to the referendum. Therefore, I do feel obliged to at least try to articulate my personal and, normally, private point of view to support that. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to make it interesting so words will have to suffice.

I also realize that these experiences of mine or expression of them is probably overly repetitive and irritating, as well probably more eloquently related in a variety of opinion pieces. So feel free to block, pause, swipe or otherwise skip this one of very few rants I will post…hopefully! I also fully respect everyone's right as citizens to vote how they please in general.

I was born in 1979 and had entered our state school system in Victoria therefore mid-eighties. It was here that I had my first experience of racism and also, perhaps forgivably, learnt to be racist. In grade one I have a strong recollection of needing to find someone safe to run to when I was told I was a “jew”, and fortunately for me I received a lovely cuddle from a teacher.

Words are strange, but they are imbued with history and Jew, just as Aborigine the contemporary vernacular of the time (for first nations people) or Abo more strongly, in context and tone was obviously not meant to be a compliment. It was fucking upsetting. I’m not sure if the Fb algorithm permits swearing?

I also had a really cool but bit “naughty” friend or classmate who was undisguisable as a first person person (english is very confusing!). I really enjoyed his birthday party in the backyard around a campfire and gumtrees, but I did feel a little bit of an outsider, I felt a little bit of tension in the air when my Dad picked me up (he was just in a rush I think but it did feel odd). Even then I was really lucky to have some of my interests supported. My dads mum, and my mum as well, provided me with great books in some cases written by first peoples, not just curated, when I expressed an interest. I loved these stories and narratives. One of my books was hard cover so i could do a sort bronze rubbing which was awesome. I also received a whole lot of other stories from across the world, I loved for example, tales from the punjab among others, and my grandmother proudly related how she rode on a horse and cart with some neighboring Indian farmers, and when harangued by others she stood up for herself and said, “I’d rather be on here with them than with you”. This was in the rural Mallee South Victoria approximately in 1910. I think it was a good lesson for her, it certainly felt like something important when she related this story to me or others. At the same time, say perhaps by grade three, I heard my first racist joke which I then related to other kids. I prefer to relate it than censor it because I don’t think it was of a child's design but certainly still understandable on level to kids, it went as follows:

Q. What do you call an inside out Aborigine?

A. A Jaffa, they're red on the inside and black on the outside?

This joke fortunately for me didn’t go down too well with my parents. I don’t actually feel guilt expressing this to illustrate the flavors of a 1980 primary school playground in a reasonably well- to-do eastern melbourne suburb. Nor is this in any way a white-guilt confessional (how boring). However, I do feel some honesty is required to engage with things fully. Interpret the fact as you will. The other side of my family were here in the goldrush from Poland/via England; running stores amongst others including chinese laborers. Interestingly, as a side note, there was a degree of tension when later in the 30s and 40s a wave of less anglicized and far more obvious Jews arrived mainly from Europe escaping that current wave of racism and atrocity. It freaked people out. Fortunately for me I have always been able to maintain my privacy - I’m a mixed race, half-caste of sorts, so I been privileged to see two sides of some stories, but not at first glance - at first glance I’m safe, one of the majority, generally in Australia thank G-d.

Later in life, unsure of what to study, I decided the best place to go would be the furthest away - in some senses. This was the late 90s. My course deviated a little in humanity departments from archaeology, to history, anthropology, literature, philosophy and so on. I actually left that degree, and fortunately later, given my learning style managed to skip getting an undergraduate degree all together, which was a huge relief. Nonetheless I did have some interesting experiences there in a social sense amongst the audience. One of my favorite lectures, among many, was really quite simply constructed. It was simply a series of images of those lovely green signs (councils put up) on a historical trail near Sisters Rocks in the Grampians. The lecturer, simply presented the signs and the images of what they were in front of and illustrated any disparities if there were any. The historical walk and the lecture led us to one main point which I believe became newsworthy 21 years later. It was of the >100 year old tradition of graffitiing the rock. There were no historical markers there nor any signage. We can interpret that in many ways, but for any younger readers, it was clear that there was no acknowledged history of the sites use pre-colonisation. There was however a recent local cultural tradition of erasure and ownership by spraying ones name there. This is not the most interesting point. The point was the audience's reaction was quite, among many in shock or at least, very fervent and that was the sense I had of many of the audience. Generally white, middle-class and above, quite often private schooled, young adults coming to grips with the world. I liked that subject but found the audience a little intolerable compared to the indigenous literature classes where things felt a little safer for me to exist. I don’t recall exactly which department I first encountered Bruce Pascoe's writings, possibly history or literature, but it was somewhat troubling to me. The work itself seemed really credible, interesting and well-researched. What was troubling moreover was his treatment, which I believe, still continues in some ways again 20 or so more years later. In summary his personal identity and integrity was attacked. Not his ideas, his work or writing. It was his identity and credibility to write anything at all. That was a shock. How can university management, departments, scholars, the media and so forth be so cruel to someone who showed a genuine interest in scholarship. I don’t think he was hurting himself or others in that scholarship but nonetheless he was vilified. At this time, people were only really getting into the internet on a small scale still (Second Life for example was all the rage), and the idea of prehensive strikes were being proliferated along with new ways of displaying images of wars (birds eye views of miraculously precise missiles and so forth). We had also only recently had a new discussion as a nation of “multiculturalism” in some effort to curb the firmly entrenched perceived monocultural perspectives we identified with as a nation. I believe it was re-positioned quite well by the Prime Minister of my youth, including in his famous speech of 1992,

This is a fundamental test of our social goals and our national will: our ability to say to ourselves and the rest of the world that Australia is a first rate social democracy, that we are what we should be truly the land of the fair go and the better chance.

So, in the sake of time and brevity, as I have chosen to go out on a bit of limb by expressing a political perspective in a public way, where does this leave me. Well to be honest, I actually always find the present somewhat difficult to understand. I prefer, normally, to think about things for a while and see how things simmer. I still have not really come to terms with images of rivers filled with bodies in the Sudan still in 2011, although I believe it has repeated itself somewhat again. Only recently I have tried to re-engage with social media for a variety of different goals and I must say I have found it challenging.

Fortunately I do live in a country where I can put up a sign on my mail box, expressing my right not to receive advertising material, and although the organizations that govern this don’t appear to be well-funded, and the laws are self-policing, I can put a sign up and expect not to receive correspondence of this nature.

My sign is slightly different as pictured above but it still counts. Recently I had to call real estates or visit those near my local “Milk Bar” when I continued to receive advertising of this kind. There is also a form of advertorial work-arounds that both councils and private companies can employ to work around it. My point is that I could go in and yell at people. Someone relayed to me that a gentleman came into one practice and simply dumped thousands of pamphlets on the floor. Personally, I found that, given I also did letterbox dropping a few times myself, expressing to the businesses concerned that it was happening it seems to have abated.

How does this relate to the previous topic. I will try to explain with seven minutes left of my time for this monologue. I haven’t really read too much on the referendum deliberately, apart from the wording itself. I did recently have a look at the previous referendum history as a commonwealth available on the AEC website, and purely based on that, it does seem a very unlikely proposition for any referendum to pass in this country - apart from those specifically related to financial matters between state and government. Now I’m certainly not a political scholar or have any deep understanding of politics or our legal system at all, but it does seem to me that following the money is always a useful idea of understanding peoples' motivations. I also don’t really fully appreciate how society should be organized, with respect to the individual and the state. I do have an amateur interest in observation of the “natural world” so I can’t help but feel somewhat inspired by organizational structures of micro and macro organisms. On a biological and social level we have a range of examples of behavior which is mutually beneficial. I think it’s somewhat likely that peoples' rights will need to resolved within a judicial system (not shame courts by the way), which although flawed and available in some respects to the wealthy, is theoretically not aligned to any political party. On one level, I have tended to think of the referendum question as a wedge, a wedge to provide some voice to people who may be quite naturally suspicious of institutions, even individuals and their motivations where their rights as humans can be so openly discussed in this country by others in a position of power. On another level I felt that having anything newsworthy and some minimum reflection of our attitudes as a country on our history is meaningful for individuals to undertake should they choose too. However, in the pejorative forums in which we globally engage with a range of topics and news I feel as though I am suffering from the same junk mail issue, but on a different scale again.

I have several facebook accounts in different countries. On most I have received a range of propaganda which might take various forms, on all I have received paid-for advertising, by groups of private companies, including media organizations, as well. I have also received, & possibly been guilty of myself in some forms, of sharing material which I don’t fully understand, recognise, can appropriately verify, or is unequivocally balanced by attempting to provide evidence in a non-inflammatory and balanced manner. It is not a new idea to think of ourselves as somewhat at the mercy of monopolies, or even invisible forces we may not fully understand and yes, in this case, I am referring to algorithms. For the same reason I have more than one Facebook account, I have multiple media streaming accounts, because it’s always interesting to see how the suggestions differ. This is not necessarily a problem with design or technology, but again, could possibly be traced to issues around regulation of new technologies and distribution of power, such that was witnessed when the Sherman Anti-Trust act was finally introduced at the fin de siècle (1890). Today we all live globally in “glass houses” both as groups and individuals, we are seen in some senses in ways we may not fully understood, our dopamine levels are potentially exploited by engaging media, as our time and data has value. All I ask is that we try not to throw stones amongst glass houses, so please No Advertising Material Please. In terms of this upcoming referendum, good luck to you, in however you choose to exercise your right as a citizen to vote. I know I personally made my decision, quite quickly, based on my own life experiences and I’m sure that you most likely did as well. Good luck to us all. One final note before I finish up. I was fortunate enough in my twenties to find myself at a animation festival that was created so the Ukrainian and Russian animation could continue to comingle and exchange knowledge with guests from around the world. It was called Krok and it was a wonderful experience, with few exceptions, but one. I was in an idyllic spot, away from screens for the day somewhere where boats on the Volga commonly visited. A non-festival goer came up to me, another Australian (I was with some German and Irish animators). It turned out this chap was there because he had a Russian wife, and he (fortunately somewhat quietly) said to me when discussing the wealth disparity, “(the russians)...they’re like white Abos”. What does the world think of us as a nation, all countries must reconcile some way with their history, how will we?

© 2023