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Showing posts from November, 2023

The 'No' Vote and the Call of History

There have been, and will be, plenty of post-mortems on the recent referendum, from people on all sides of the political fence, black and white.  A lot of those people will be more qualified than me to comment.  This statement from the First Nations leaders behind the 'yes' campaign is a 'must read'.  By comparison my thoughts carry little weight, but here goes anyway.... I come at this as a partisan.  I was active in the 'yes' campaign although far from central to it.  I went in the big march, joined with others to make a human 'yes' on a local football field, put up a 'yes' sign on the tree in front of my house, handed out flyers at the local train station, shared stuff on social media.  Most of this was done despite knowing it looked like a losing cause.  I didn't want to contribute to that loss with my own defeatist apathy.   There are lots of nuances to the explanation for the 'no' vote, and I think they all have some truth to t