The invitation of the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice Referendum
written by Maeve Colombo
As we approach the upcoming referendum and the growing opposing discussions and division we’re seeing across the nation, I share with you my perspective. This comes from an Irish visitor to this land who is extremely grateful to call Australia her home, an Irish lass who was raised most of her childhood in a sectarian torn part of Ireland where the traditional culture has been utterly destroyed by colonialization and a woman who has seen first-hand how marginalised and controlled First Nations people of this beautiful country we call Australia are.
I am not going to wade into detail, facts and figures of what this upcoming referendum means, as quite frankly, I’m not qualified to do so and that isn’t where my interests lie. I’ll leave that to the lawyers. Instead, I am going to give you my perspective through lived experience and through story.
As a now health intuitive, my interests always lie with healing. The simple fact is that every single decision we make is one towards healing or one further away.
Losing a huge chunk of my childhood to the pain and turmoil that was unfolding in so called Northern Ireland at the time (just google The Troubles), I will never forget hearing an emergency broadcast come on the radio sharing the recent ceasefire was over. I sobbed. I was just 12 years old. I sobbed because I just wanted the fighting, the pain and the blood shed to end. I sobbed because I just couldn’t see a way out of this pain alive because as a child I was trapped in the frightening and, life-threatening at times, brutality of what division can create.
Fast forward 28 years to having spent the last 5 years walking along side First Nations people of Australia and living with our beloved Yolngu family in North East Arnhem land, I once again see the brutality division can cause. Marginalised out of society, controlled within every inch of their lives, and disempowered beyond belief. It has caused so much pain.
What changed the trajectory of the blood-shed on the doorstep of where I called home, was an agreement called The Good Friday Agreement which was signed in 1998 when I was just 15 years old. It was through public vote that this agreement was passed and was based on the idea of co-operation between opposing communities that had respect for people's rights, whichever part of the community they come from. It would set up a new government for Northern Ireland, ensuring representation from both sides of the community. It is also what stopped 30 years of severe violence and loss of life.
I am not saying the Good Friday Agreement fixed everything overnight, it certainly didn’t and we can still, 26 years on, further improve. However, what it definitely did provide was the first and significant step towards healing that we so desperately needed. It allowed the generation after me to grow up without fearing for their life.
Now living in Australia, we too as a nation have an invitation to heal. Change is deeply scary for those that have found themselves on the marginalised side of society, change is deeply fearful for people that have lost so much because of decisions that have been made on their behalf and without their consent. However, change has to happen for the current living situation to get better and for the healing to start.
I understand just how loud pain speaks. It is so crippling that we can forget what it even feels like to feel safe and wakes you up in the middle of the night in a lather of sweat fearing for our lives. On my homeland, if those that pushed the opportunity to have a blended government away because they wanted to do it themselves or alone, goodness knows how many more lives would have been lost in the process. It simply isn’t worth thinking about.
I believe, the invitation and step towards healing in Australia is called The 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice Referendum. In my opinion, this is one of the biggest invitations of healing we’ve had in this country since the first pale footed man stepped on to the rich soil of this continent.
The important statement that sits behind this referendum is the Uluru Statement of the Heart which has been written and crafted by the largest consensus of First Nations people, elders and knowledge keepers of the land we all call home. This is their invitation to ask us to listen to the heartbeat of this country. This referendum is the opportunity to sit quietly and softly with ourselves to reconcile a part of us that is so eagerly waiting to be reconciled.
Our heart wants us to feel love first, not the pain. Our heart wants us to feel safe, not scared. Our heart wants us to respect each other, not hate one another. Our heart wants to find other hearts that together empower each other to make a HUGE difference to the place we all call home. Our heart wants us to unite with the heart of this country so country and nation can live as one.
Australia is and always will be Aboriginal land. That doesn’t mean non-Indigenous can’t live here, we can and what an honour. However, as welcomed guests, the least we can do is listen and quietly and humbly act upon the invitation that the custodians of this country have so courageously asked of us. The heart of this country wants to feel our heart like we’ve never shown it before.
Fellow Australians, I ask of us all one important question. Are we willing to have the courage to take a big scary step towards healing or delay it even further?
Just as what happened in my home country, the two opposing parties had to work together. It wasn’t going to happen any other way. 26 years on from the signing of The Good Friday Agreement, we are closer now to a united Ireland than we have ever been and I have hope it will happen in my lifetime. That’s what taking the first step can achieve.
With that I leave you with a quote from someone who very successfully and through non-violence lead his entire country to independence from British rule.
““Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.” ”
Photos by Getty Images.