What a pity it is that the referendum in Australia about aboriginal rights has given a negative result. It should have signalled that Australia had at last come to grips with the huge injustices inflicted on aboriginal peoples during centuries. They had lived in Australia for millenia and over a short period were swept aside and decimated by the “white” people who arrived in that far off continent.
The proposal was for aborigines to be given constitutional recognition as the original inhabitants of the continent and that therefore they should have “consultation” rights whenever decisions that radically affected the Australian territory were being mooted. In the proposal, overall, there was a sense of repentance for the crimes, some of which were enormous, perpetrated on the ancient peoples of the continent.
Evidence about the atrocities that were committed is well established. The discrimination – legal and illegal – as well as the harsh treatment to which the aborigines were subjected remained common practice. The need for justice to be exercised about what happened in the past and in the present is clear. But if it were to be implemented, many problems and queries would have arisen, while many prejudices would have been stimulated. The Australian people preferred to postpone all this... for that is what their decision amounts to.
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SOAP OPERAS
In my view, democratic politics in today’s societies revolves around the successful implementation by a government of promises it has made to the electorate, and the skill with which it can counter the polemics that arise with regard to its ability or the integrity of its governance. The second challenge can become more of a game changer than the first one.
For various reasons, all governments inevitably encounter setbacks when carrying out their programme. Nevertheless, a huge mistake governments could make when this happens and they are in the wrong or the criticism being made happens to be justified is to allow the controversy to go on and on. That amounts to gifting the Opposition or the government’s critics with an excellent attack weapon.
What makes very good sense from the perspective of adversaries is to have a controversy morph into a soap opera. I am amazed as to how often, too often, the Labour administration has been falling into this trap. If something was done badly or if mistakes have been committed, would it not be better to immediately correct the mistakes and clean up one’s act, where it needs to be cleaned? ... rather than continue to face ongoing stories driven by people who on a day to day basis, are doing their best to spin them forward by releasing some new detail meant to keep the storyline moving?
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CONFLICT IN POLITICS
By its very competitive nature, politics reinforces the rhythms of personal antagonism in human behaviour: what one side loses, the other side wins, so everything has to be done to secure victory.
There were times when in Malta too, the militants of one side would use the word “enemy” to denote their adversaries – a way of putting things that, thank God, is no longer prevalent. There were times when one side or the other would deploy physical violence to contain the activities of its opponents. Those times are well in the past. However the element of violence is still in our midst and it comes from all points of the political compass.
It no longer is a question of physical violence. Rather it takes the shape of moral and social violence, indeed of economic pressure as well. Which leads many people to keep mum about what their real opinions are, or they express them anonymously.