Mobutu, Authenticité and the Dark Heart of the Uluru Statement
“History is calling”, or so the leaders of the Uluru campaign to enshrine a First Nations Voice in the Constitution tell us. The slogan is calculated to exploit the ignorance of Australian history so diligently cultivated by our schools and universities in recent decades. Ironically, in drafting the “Statement from the Heart” in 2017, the Uluru delegates fell victim to their own ignorance of history, in ways that fatally undermine the document’s moral force.
The Statement quotes or paraphrases four men the Uluru delegates considered to have made a significant contribution to the Aboriginal rights movement: anthropologist Bill Stanner, Labor Party leader Gough Whitlam, Yolngu activist Galarrwuy Yunupingu and Lebanese jurist Fouad Ammoun. The references are not provided in the text, appearing instead in the Final Report of the Referendum Council. Whatever one may think of their politics, all four have or had a certain way with words. The delegates’ original work is a…
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