(Image: Zennie/Private Media)

We often hear from Yes supporters that they despair at the thought of waking up in an Australia where the No vote has been successful. These so-called progressives are desperate to ignore the inconvenient truth of both No campaigns, which is that they reflect the reality of the Australian colony far more than the Yes campaign could ever hope to. 

The “racist” No campaign embodies the reality of this settler colony and reflects the ideological foundation and spirit of the Australian nation. It highlights the deeply vicious, anti-Indigenous sentiment that resides at the core of the Australian national identity. To be Australian is to accept the narrative about us as a dispossessed and defeated people, as boongs, petrol-sniffers and dole-bludgers in need of care and control by the white man who knows best. It is to want to eradicate us, whether that be by extermination or assimilation.

This is the reality that Yes campaigners refuse to reckon with, the reality too many mob live with every day. A colony that kills us, that steals our children, that destroys our land, that poisons our water, blows up our sacred sites, throws us in prison and then tells us that we are the problem. It is a nation that tells us we do not belong on our own land. 

The “progressive” No campaign embodies the spirit of revolutionary justice by demanding we confront the history of the Australian nation. The Yes campaigners will do well to remember that this is a history that has never been reckoned with in any meaningful way. We do not want to be recognised by the colonial constitution. We do not want to be part of it at all. Those who say that this inclusion would be a meaningful step do not speak for us. We do not want reconciliation. We want a reckoning.

Sovereignty was never ceded

When we say that First Nations sovereignty was never ceded, we do not simply mean that our spiritual sovereignty remains intact regardless of the colony’s existence. We mean that we maintain our legitimate claim to the lands and resources of this continent and the right to determine our own lives and future and we do not recognise the sovereignty of the illegal invader. We view the colonial federation as an occupying force whose existence to this day is predicated on the ongoing theft of our lands and the genocide of our people. Sovereignty is both our right to our lands and resources and our own self-determinate governance structures, and First Nations peoples have not ceded our sovereignty. 

The Yes campaign is living in an illusion, where Australia is a progressive nation, where unity can be found through democratic participation and racism can be addressed through voting. Some of the Yes campaigners attempt to justify a reluctant or coerced position by claiming that they are seeking to avoid future harm and promote inclusion. All too often it is those who are not at risk of harm preaching harm reduction, those who aren’t starving telling us to take the scraps we are offered.

Struggles are not fought over symbols

This idea being promoted today that First Nations peoples have been calling for constitutional recognition since back then is not accurate. We know that, because we know the history of the political movement was always about land rights, treaty and self-determination. Political struggles are not fought over symbolic gestures.

Our people did not fight and struggle so long for constitutional recognition, and certainly not for a form of it that confers us no authority over our own lives or our land. What is on offer today is not the culmination of our ancestors’ struggles. Our people called for land rights, treaty and enshrined political, social and economic rights — we did not call for recognition alone, and when we did call for recognition it was purely to enshrine substantive enforceable rights. This entire aspect of our struggle has been ignored and swept under the rug. 

None of these demands have ever been implemented. Instead, we have been offered symbolism, and a powerless advisory body. 

Constitutional recognition

Constitutional recognition is not a First Nations idea — just like native title and reconciliation are not First Nations ideas. These are three hugely significant instances of non-Indigenous ideas taking up the entire room of Indigenous political struggle, supplanting the land rights movement and diverting energy into the native title claims process. Reconciliation softens the strength and potency of the land rights and sovereignty claims by diverting attention to vague notions of unity and incrementalism. Constitutional recognition may not have made any traction until 2007, but its genesis was in the conservative reaction against the land rights movement and in that context its ultimate goal can be seen — it is not a vehicle for progressing First Nations rights, it is a vehicle for halting them.

The constitution is not a progressive document, and this state is not a progressive nation that we can be proud to be included in. 

What a No vote will mean

Yes campaigners are out of touch with reality if they think a No vote is going to embolden racism. We are already “given too much”, according to racists, so we’re sure you can imagine the outrage that awaits us if First Nations peoples are given our very own constitutional Voice in modern-day colonial Australia, a nation where Nazis can openly Sieg Heil on the steps of Parliament under police protection and where First Nations children are run down in cars driven by grown men.

The reality is that a No vote won’t change the way things are but it will force the Yes campaign and its supporters to reckon with the reality that Australia isn’t ready for this kind of change and that serious steps need to be taken before any kind of legal action concerning the political future of First Nations peoples is attempted again. 

What should we do in an Australia that has voted No? 

We should continue to voice our demands for self-determination, and we should continue building a mass movement to help us enforce them. The reality is that First Nations peoples can never place our liberation into the hands of our oppressors, the colonial government. We will never be given an option to vote our way to freedom. The very survival of the colony depends on the continued exploitation and oppression of our people and lands.

As a start, we need to demand truth-telling across this continent. We need an end to the theft of our babies and the locking away of our children. We need to stop the murder of our people at the hands of police and lynch mobs, and we need to take police guns out of communities. We need to eradicate poverty, illiteracy, and poor health from our reality. We need to demand reparations for slavery and stolen wages, and ultimately, we need to take back the land and natural resources that are rightfully ours. 

These are things that can only be achieved through a Pan-Aboriginal movement with our allies by our side where we have enough strength as a united political force to effect real change. The government bodies, NGOs and corporations that have been working to “reduce the gap” in statistical outcomes for First Nations peoples have a lot to answer for, as that gap has only widened each year while their pockets have grown fatter. We must call this betrayal out for what it is. We cannot place our faith or our future in the hands of a neoliberal colony whose every aspect and function reproduce the conditions for our oppression and destruction. 

As for the rest of Australia, there is a reckoning with the truth that needs to occur before First Nations peoples are ever asked to risk our sovereignty again. There is a sickness and a trauma that lies at the heart of the Australian nation. This wound needs to be addressed, and reparations need to be made. To those who consider voting Yes to be a progressive stance, we hope that you consider our analysis in good faith and come to see the Voice as the meaningless, regressive consolation prize that it is. Because our bottom line is this: we will no longer accept poisonous scraps and feel-good platitudes from the colony, and we will no longer tolerate fear of the truth.

Australians must reckon with the reality that this continent is our sovereign land, and it has not been ceded.