The Emptiness Within and Its Tremendous Potential

Over the last couple of days I’ve been listening to podcasts of Nora Bateson and Esther Perel And I’ve listened in relation to the questions I’ve been pondering personally and collectively to see what leans it can bring to bear on the emptiness that follows the referendum, because we cannot help asking the question, If not ‘Yes’ does that mean more of the same. If not here then where does the shift in Australian consciousness begin and if not out there in society does it mean that it must begin within? One of my favourite jokes comes to mind, ”What’s the difference between a jokn and a rhetorical question? … What’s the difference between a joke and a rhetorical question?…”

Ahh, there’s that empiness again.

Relationship Building: Beyond Policies and Politics

But within that empy space there’s an enormous buzzing of something trying to happen. The aftermath of the ‘No’ vote has left the ‘Yes’ campaigner and voters in collective trauma. A small part of us that had invested so much energy in generating new life, for some a large part, is in shock, arrested by shock. For some it will be to much and they will drift away and look for ways to survive the break identity visited upon them, others will come out of the shockened quickened, looking for th eplace to begin whatever comes next. What is felt most deeply by both is the need for self care and self development to go beyond and if possible live a larger life than the one before the referendum defeat. That self care and self development is about building and rebuilding relationationships. For the things we thought a “Yes” vote would instigate in fact do not happen by a government policy, or even a n article in the constitution, but by the quality of the relationship between those moved to vote “yes“ and those moved to vote “no”. We know that referendums in Australia only succeed if they have bipartisan support. In this context, we should see bipartisanship not so much as a temporary political alliance but as an identity relationship. It requires the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to be together in this undertaking. Rather than relationship building we saw more than a whiff of cancel culture that has such a grip on Australia’s throat.

Embracing Change and Vulnerability

So where do we begin? While there is the temptation to jump quickly to action first there must be self care, and honestly and with integrity allow ourselves to be changed by what has just happened. What terror has the shock of failing in the referendum unearthed? Allowing ourselves to touch that terror will bring us to a sense of our powerlessness, and with the sense of powerlessness the vulnerability of our collective masculinity will be exposed. ’No’ voters will become ever more defensive and resistant to change. It is not the proposition that is being put forward that is so threatening, but the change itself and how that alone threatens the current power equilibrium. The show of conservative force has to be absorbed, perhaps redirected not resisted. Resisting it head on will only make it grow stronger. It must be redirected through another route, and the only other route is through building relationships.

So what does this look like in terms of where we begin and where we go from here? Well, we know what not to do, we know not to try to convince “no” voters they were wrong. In fact they will for a time enjoy an increase in their power and influence for a time as we see now a move against acknowledging country. That trend is still heating up. The only way out of this situation is to grow out of it. So we need to develop those relationships and systems tht help us grow, and grow together. It means to grow our experience of being storng and manly in society for noth men and women. The polarity enforced especially on men but also on women on how men can be needs to grow.

Growing Together: Reimagining Masculinity and Power Dynamics

Trump America and those political players that would emulate his methods in Australia demonstrate the bleakness of the polarity of masculine identity. His is a extreme example, in both power and fragility. But its polar opposite is equally untenable, a kind of meek, power relinquishing, empathy, that still leaves all the heavy lifting to women.

In the subjugation of First Nations People by colonial invaders, them men are suppressed first, disrupting their power is central to the success of their enterprise. Women are seen to have their usefulness, whether powerful or not. If women’s power gets out of hand it can always be dealt with by violence until it is suppressed. Masculine power cannot be suppressed by violence, violence only increases it until it is extinguished, though it capacity for springing up from the ashes has to be continually guarded against. We may have though that the frontier wars were over. It turns out that they have merely moved to another level. It turns out that the australian electorate does not trust the pathway from voice to makarrata to treaty. At some deeper level they feel too vulnerable.

Unveiling Vulnerability: First Nations People and Their Struggles

And it is this sense of vulnerability that we need to counter. Only a small minority would not like to see quality of life improved for first nations people. But that vulnerability is an issue altogether on another level and will continue to be a stumbling block. There is a double bind here. Australians want first nations people to have a better quality of life and to become more empowered to determine their own future. But in giving them more power, they are concerned that that power may be used to disrupt our current way of life because they desire changes that are incompatible with the status quo, that unresolved questions of dispossession and dislocation, and accountability for the atrocities in the frontier wars may need to be accounted for.

If makarrata comes first, is then followed by treaty, the question of voice will become a administrative one. In the question of constitutional recognition, had a treaty been in place, the 1967 referendum would not have been necessary. The fact that human right had to be suspended for the NT Intervention to take place really tells the story. On a personal level to build capacity for connection and relationship, perhaps the same sequence applies, story telling, empowered empathetic communication, creativity.

The question of where shall we begin is really, here, within, together.

Tags: #IndigenousRights, #MasculinityAndPower, #RelationshipDynamics