Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / BONUS: "Indigenous Land Acknowledgement Furore" with Tyson Yunkaporta

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BONUS: "Indigenous Land Acknowledgement Furore" with Tyson Yunkaporta · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Good day, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas.
• 0:06
  Well, well, well. Land acknowledgments.
• 0:09
  Or, as we call them here in Australia, the welcome to country.
• 0:13
  Or an acknowledgment of country if it's being performed by someone who is not themselves indigenous.
• 0:17
  These have been...
• 0:18
  ...roiling Australian culture and media for the past week.
• 0:22
  Because last Friday was Anzac Day, which is one of the, I suppose, holiest days on the Australian calendar.
• 0:28
  It's a public holiday. And it's a sort of a combination between remembrance day and a national day.
• 0:34
  Technically, it commemorates the Gallipoli campaign in World War I, where Australian soldiers for the first time were sent in vast numbers to support Britain's effort.
• 0:46
  It was in Turkey, long story short. We got the shit kicked out of us.
• 0:50
  And it was the first time that Australia really forged a national consciousness, a common national imperative after having become a country in only 1901, just a decade or so beforehand.
• 1:02
  And this has subsequently become a way of not just honoring all Australian servicemen and women, but really honoring the country itself.
• 1:10
  Because our national day, our official sort of 4th of July equivalent, happens to fall on the date when Europeans, the British Empire, first landed on the soil of Australia and declared it to be terror-nullious and uninhabited land, despite the fact that there were hundreds of civilizations here who'd been living here for tens of thousands of years.
• 1:31
  So it's a little bit to impolite, a little bit impolitic, to celebrate on January 26th, which is the anniversary of that in Auspicious Day.
• 1:40
  So Anzac Day has kind of become a de facto national day. And it starts every year with a dawn service in every city and every town where people gather in a park or a communal square.
• 1:53
  And they pay homage to the remembrance of people who've given their lives for this country and sort of pay tribute to want a great country this is.
• 2:04
  They spend the second half of the day getting shit-faced drunk and gambling in pubs, but we don't need to go there, that's irrelevant.
• 2:11
  In recent years, the dawn services on Anzac Day have been opened as our all official events in Australia and many unofficial events these days with land acknowledgments are welcome to country.
• 2:22
  We're an Indigenous Australian, we'll get up and talk about his mob and the various other mobs and the people, that's what we call a clan, I guess a family, a large tribe of Indigenous Australians and their relationship to the land and how they welcome everybody to the land and it clears the air and creates sort of a...
• 2:40
  a spirit of communal common will or at least it's supposed to because on Friday morning at the main event in Melbourne the main dawn service which was attended by 50,000 people in the pre-dawn light the Indigenous elder got up and began to speak.
• 3:01
  And some people in the audience who turned out to be neo nazis or neo nazi adjacent at least one of whom has since been charged began to heckle and shout things like this is our country we don't need to be welcomed to it.
• 3:20
  This has set off a fire storm in Australia largely because these kinds of welcomes and in an even greater number what's called an acknowledgment of country where there is no Indigenous person present but the white person goes through the motions of saying to the other white people at the HR meeting or in an office or zoom call you know acknowledge the traditional elders of the land past present and future and I respect their custodian ship of the
• 3:50
  country's ancient lands and blah blah blah. I don't mean to diminish the intent of these things but I do mean to diminish how pro forma and formulaic and insincere they become the way they've become a currency for white people to demonstrate to each other they're on the right side of history without having to make any real sacrifices towards Indigenous Australians.
• 4:09
  I think it's worth before we get it into this listening to a few minutes of the speech itself because I suspect that a lot of the people who were bloating about it haven't actually heard how disruptive the interjections were have a listen or a look if you're on YouTube at this.
• 4:39
  I'm going to dig your mind on my mother's side and I'm going to the wrong man on my father's side and this morning I'm here to welcome everybody to my father's country.
• 4:51
  Beautiful country but before we do that we pay our acknowledgments and we pay our respects.
• 5:03
  We pay our respects to all of my ancestors. We pay our respects to all of my elders and we pay respects to all of my community members, past, present and emerging.
• 5:21
  And we acknowledge the continuous and unbroken connection to country for the boomerang people. We also pay our acknowledgments and respects to all traditional custodians of Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander who work, rest, live or play on boomerang country.
• 5:43
  We acknowledge their continuous and unbroken connection to country for all of their people and we thank each and every single one of them being here with us.
• 5:53
  But today on the sacred lands of the boomerang people we all gather in the spirit of respect and unity.
• 6:04
  These are the traditional lands and territories of the boomerang people that are welcome everybody to today.
• 6:11
  And as I said, we have a deep spiritual connection to our lands.
• 6:18
  And we have a strong cultural identity tied to our ancestral plains, all of our stories, our traditions, our language, our culture.
• 6:31
  And Bunch was law. We're into woven with the very fabrics of the soils that surround us, reflecting my people's profound knowledge, wisdoms and ongoing custodianships to all of our ancient lands.
• 6:50
  Now my first reaction to hearing or seeing that, I think like most peoples, is horror.
• 6:59
  It's incredibly disrespectful and rude. This guy is doing what he was hired to do.
• 7:06
  The indigenous elder didn't appoint himself, you know, didn't parachute in against the will of the organizers of this event.
• 7:12
  It's massively disrespectful. And in general, I have a no heckling and no disrupting of things policy.
• 7:21
  But what struck me in the subsequent days and what many of you have written in and emailed asking for my thoughts about is the subsequent pivot that was made in much of the national conversation on the left and the center left in mainstream outlets like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Guardian and the City Morning Herald on the age,
• 7:37
  which was to equate any subsequent conversations about the authenticity or utility or ubiquity of acknowledgments of country with racism.
• 7:51
  To say the only reason why anyone on the radio or in print or on television or in the quiet of their own home would raise questions or roll their eyes about a bunch of middle-aged white women sitting around Zoom call doing acknowledgments of country is because they are basically on the same spectrum as the neo-nazis.
• 8:08
  They really just don't think that indigenous people should exist.
• 8:12
  And that to me is the kind of obviously fatuous and glib move that has gone us into so much trouble over the past 10 years on the left that has tried to dodge having real conversations about real things and instead used sort of pro forma formulaic behavior and obedience to dogmas and social justice orthodoxies as substitutes for fair income conversations.
• 8:37
  Let me give you an example in case you are thinking but hang on Josh all I saw was a nasty person on a right wing radio station saying that you know we should we shouldn't be we're doing welcomes to country too much well I saw that.
• 8:49
  And then I heard a podcast from some of the most well credentialed Australian journalists saying that for a radio announcer to say that we do acknowledgements of country welcomes a country too much is itself just racism pure racism.
• 9:07
  I mean which is the more unthinking and knee jerk response the one that tries to pass out the utility of the thing all the one that says that any attempt to do so is primafacy evidence of a crime of bigotry.
• 9:22
  And if you're not an Australia it's probably important to give you an impression of just how widespread acknowledgements of country have become here it is not like any other country really.
• 9:33
  In the past 10 years maybe 20 years at the most they have become so normalized so do rigour that it's almost like if you went to a very religious country where everybody says grace before a meal you know it would be something that you would immediately notice and that foreigners do immediately notice every time they come to any conference or any kind of a speech or any kind of a formal event or even informal event in a corporate event in Australia when your airplane lands on a normal domestic flight.
• 10:02
  The plane lands and the first thing that the person says over the intercom is you know we welcome you to the lands of the traditional owners of the land and etc etc you know it happens it's all over the place I got to the airport not long ago and the departure's board which lists all of the cities which are destinations for the flights.
• 10:21
  It looks up and I couldn't recognize a single name except for one name which was the indigenous name for Melbourne which happened to no norm and then all of those names changed to the actual I say actual to the English you know Australian names and then they went back and they were cycling through this indeed the indigenous name of the regular name.
• 10:42
  Now is the purpose of the departure's board to assist passengers in finding out what gate their flight is departing from and whether it's delayed or is it to signal to them that the airline and the airport are on the right side of history and that their hearts are in the right place when it comes to reconciliation with First Nations Australians.
• 11:01
  All of which is simply to say there is an actual conversation to be had here because this latest furore is occurring in a particular climate that is particular to this nation recently Sydney's number one radio announcer Ben Fordham who hosts the breakfast show on to GP and who is a sometime guest on this show as well.
• 11:25
  Was discussing these course curricula which required for undergraduate students at Australia's most illustrious Ivy League universities where in addition to their coursework they need to undertake sort of social justice mandated training programs one of which is an indigenous training module I'll hand it over to Ben to tell you what the module says.
• 11:53
  Let me read some material from the Macquarie University module by the way this is not available on the uni's website when students are forced to learn about Aboriginal culture the compulsory module states and I quote if you are living in Australia and you are not an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander you are a settler and therefore a guest.
• 12:18
  Seriously can these people just off we are done with you we're sick of people trying to divide us.
• 12:28
  These students just want to expand their learning and broaden their horizons and they cannot start their study until they sign up to this twisted notion of owners versus guests or settlers I'm not a guest I'm sorry I'm not a guest I know that as a fact I've been here 48 years.
• 12:56
  And let's go back to the woke Macquarie University rule book and listen to all the talk about guests they say many guests are also concerned about getting it wrong or causing offense it is important that guests also take the time to ensure they have a deeper understanding of colonialism.
• 13:15
  Guests I'm sorry speak for yourself I'm not a settler I'm not a guest and I don't care if you only become an Aussie last week this is your country to you are not a guest.
• 13:28
  Now for Ben for them to say that on the air heralds are kind of a shift in the national temperament about these things I don't think he could have all would have said that two years ago.
• 13:40
  There is a bubbling up of frustration about the tokenism and the mandatory nature of these rituals and that atmosphere is what is completely lacking in so much of the mainstream center left media's coverage of what happened on Anzac Day let me give you a few examples.
• 13:58
  The co-chairs of the first people assembly of Victoria Rubenberg and Nara Murray called the incident on Anzac Day a racist attack the leader of the Greens party Adam Bant said there's no room for hate division or racism on this day or any day.
• 14:18
  Jesser Rogers writing in the Sydney Morning Herald wrote to Marco reject a welcome to country is to deny the enduring sovereignty of Aboriginal peoples and the profound connection we hold to our country it's to misunderstand what is being offered a generous gesture of cultural welcoming.
• 14:37
  The Camilla Roy veteran Dean Duncan was at the service and he's quoted as saying after the referendum this was the referendum to amend the Australian Constitution to create an advisory body of First Nations Australians it failed.
• 14:50
  He says it's it's emboldened people so much they've got this backup to be blatantly racist and they're protected by it by saying Australia voted and we don't want to recognize you.
• 15:00
  We don't want to recognize you can Wyatt whose former Liberal Minister and the First Indigenous Minister for Indigenous Australians says I'm disappointed with anybody who doesn't take the time to understand the importance of friendship welcoming and acknowledging that you are part of the community and you're being welcomed into somebody's home country home region and to politicize it just adds to the division.
• 15:28
  These are all nice words and I'm sure they make sense to the people who are saying them but they fail I think to connect with the concerns of the people who feel like the welcome to country itself is a source of division.
• 15:43
  They don't actually get us any closer to understanding what unity might look like and it's not only left wing media folks who are bamboozled by this reporters on the center right are as well one of the most mainstream news organizations in Australia the nine network.
• 16:00
  This was a youngish guy by the looks of him probably a veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan or the campaign against ISIS not a Vietnam or two veteran.
• 16:14
  And this guy was sympathetic with opposition to the welcome to country even though he opposed the heckling he said that many of his friends who are veterans stay home from dawn services on an exact day these days because they can't be bothered sitting through five minutes of an Indigenous elder telling them that they should be grateful to be welcomed onto the land that they fought and some of them died to protect so here's this interview and I think what's interesting about this is fairly short but what's interesting is just listen to the reporter who is a channel nine reporter a basic
• 16:44
  clear center right if anything news organization who really either can't understand or pretend not to be able to understand that it might be possible that both sides are in the wrong here.
• 17:14
  That was a veteran speaking with the channel nine reporter on nine news at the dawn service after the heckling and one response by people who think that welcomes to country are not too overdone is to say well,
• 17:36
  Anzac Day if any day is particularly apt for a welcome to country because Indigenous Australians serve in the military as well and they did serve at Gallipoli too.
• 17:46
  This is a point that was raised on the channel 10 television show the project by an Indigenous elder who was asked whether or not Anzac Day should be free from welcomes to country here's what he had to say.
• 17:58
  This division should not exist because when we talk about Anzac the machine gun bullets didn't just rain on the Aboriginal people and the bombs didn't just fall on the non Aboriginal people it fell on everyone and so it took everyone to fight back and that meant that they fought together they died together but they emerged victorious together and this should be the spirit of Anzac it should be inclusion not exclusion.
• 18:26
  Inclusion not exclusion says the Indigenous elder who was interviewed on channel 10 but it's not obvious to many Australians why dividing each other up by race is inclusive and not exclusive.
• 18:45
  The veterans who oppose the welcome to country at the dawn service think that they are acting in favor of inclusivity by treating everybody as included instead of divvying up the population into people who belong here and those who are merely guests.
• 19:05
  And yes we can talk all day about the fact that Indigenous people have served honorably in the armed forces but I mean there were 50 to 70 Indigenous Australians who fought at Gallipoli.
• 19:18
  The campaign itself had more than a half a million allied fighters of whom 50,000 odd were Australian.
• 19:25
  So yeah you don't want to overlook the 50 Indigenous Australians who were there and I'm sure fought valiantly but it's not a great argument for why they should get special unique consideration versus the remaining 49,950 who were non Indigenous.
• 19:46
  This whole thing frankly exhausts me I'd rather be talking about other things but I do think it's symptomatic of a problem that we're getting wrong on the left.
• 19:56
  The problem is bigger than land acknowledgments and welcome to country it's bigger than First Nations rights it's bigger than race.
• 20:04
  It's really a question of Identitarianism versus Universalism. I often have conversations with other people on the left who say look sure the social justice movements of the past 10 years just went a little bit too far.
• 20:17
  You know when it comes to the racial reckoning or the George Floyd rights or you know the things that you could say about women's rights versus transgender rights.
• 20:25
  Yes we went a little bit too far now it's pulling back no I don't think we went too far.
• 20:31
  What happened was that the instinct for progressive universalism split off into two and on one strand those of us who remain committed to a universalist ideal where all human beings are treated equally continued to maintain our fidelity to that aspiration.
• 20:49
  While another branch branched off that in a strange way had more in common with Identitarian movements like white supremacy in terms of the complexion of the way that it saw the world although maybe not in terms of its moral violence.
• 21:01
  Then it did with we who remained on the traditional universalist left this new branch said there's no point in being aspirational about your naive delusions of all people being treated equally.
• 21:13
  We live in a fundamentally and irredeemably racist sexist patriarchal society transphobic and bigoted and all we can really do is try to fight for historically disadvantaged communities to get a bigger slice of a finite pie.
• 21:29
  That to me is not just a matter of going too far. It's not that they took a good idea and the idea just went a little bit overboard now we have to pull that good idea back.
• 21:39
  Now if it was a good idea there would be no excess of having a good idea.
• 21:43
  The problem is that a vision originally articulated by the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela and most recently articulated by Barack Obama has been perverted into a much cruder and more hostile form of ideas.
• 21:58
  And I suspect that what's going on in Australia over the past week is feeding into some of the resentments and antagonisms that have flared up as a result of that.
• 22:09
  I think it might be worth just listening to the words of the man himself Martin Luther King from his famous I have a dream speech which is probably the most important and unciation articulation of civil rights of the past century and just hear a little bit of how he wanted to frame this question.
• 22:28
  So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow I still have a dream it is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
• 22:43
  I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.
• 22:56
  We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created each other.
• 23:02
  I have a dream that one day on the Red Hills of George the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
• 23:27
  I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi a state sweltering with the heat of injustice sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
• 23:49
  I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of that character.
• 24:04
  I have a dream today.
• 24:14
  I have a dream that one day in Alabama with its vicious racist with its governor having his lips tripping with the words of interposition and nullification.
• 24:31
  One day right now in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
• 24:45
  I defy anyone to listen to that and not get a little bit of a chill up their spine. It's probably the clearest articulation of the vision towards which we should all aspire.
• 24:56
  And that vision is one in which little black boys and girls stand hand in hand with little white boys and girls.
• 25:03
  It's not clear to me that constantly insisting that we frame ourselves as colonized versus colonizer as occupied versus occupier as black versus white is the best way of achieving that vision.
• 25:20
  On the other hand I don't want to be a reactionary white colonizer asshole so rather than just talk at you I wanted to inform myself by speaking to one of the wisest First Nations Australians I know of Tyson Yomka Porter.
• 25:34
  He's an Aboriginal scholar. He's the founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deacon University in Melbourne. He's written fantastic books like Sand Talk and Right Story, Wrong Story.
• 25:46
  He focuses on applying Indigenous methods of knowledge to modern complex issues and to global crises.
• 25:54
  I started by asking him about the social justice reckoning of the past 10 years and what exactly he thought had happened. I hope you enjoy as much as I do the one the only Tyson Yomka Porter.
• 26:06
  I think there was a spectacular flourishing over a couple of years of you know how to powerless or the marginalized or you know people that perceive themselves to be marginalized to suddenly have some you know some social capital.
• 26:30
  They could leverage to I don't know disempower your traditional bullies you know see this if you look at Gen Z and let's a couple of interesting studies coming out now about this split in Gen Z.
• 26:48
  We're half of them are moving like drastically towards the right you know and when they analyzed the data they saw that it was you know anyone anyone at Gen Z who hadn't graduated before the pandemic before COVID you know they just all like stampeding towards the right now you know.
• 27:17
  Why do you think well the analysis was that you know where the kind of what they call cancel culture where that that kind of unsettled a lot of your traditional bullies you know in a school which is a good microcosm for the world in this case you know when they're unsettled all the traditional bullies you suddenly found themselves not holding the power and then you had sort of.
• 27:45
  You know people who were more weak or marginal before that they suddenly had the jack boots on you know yeah so they were able to kick back at the police with something and you know to.
• 28:00
  You know little structures and processes of how you would sort of beat someone in just a mission you know with your you know with your rhetoric about wrong speech or whatever.
• 28:15
  Tangled them up in HR complaints rather yeah actually.
• 28:19
  But then you know these little systems like schools and colonies they they they they require bullies and bullying you know so suddenly you see this ecological niche like just empty of you know the kids that like
• 28:42
  you know you mean those parade and and and beat you up and flush your head down the toilet like suddenly there was a void and in rust all these you know like the stereotypical purple hair people yeah kind of rushed in went well shit I guess we're the bullies now for about five minutes yeah
• 29:07
  why not sure they thought it was five minutes I mean I think they thought this was going to be a new and better order where right minded people would be able to be on top and the raises sexists would remain yeah
• 29:20
  on the bottom forever and you could just shame them in perpetuity into not I mean I've always you know me like for 10 years I've been shouting from the rooftops do not try to turn the volume up as far as you possibly can
• 29:35
  yeah identities and expect that forever young white males will agree not to assert their own identity because they're the most dangerous people in the history of the world and you don't want them identifying by their
• 29:51
  whiteness and their maleness bad shit goes down you young white males identify as white males and to me this is I mean I was been calling it I've been saying is what happened for years the chickens are going to come home to roost if you think that everyone gets to be proud of their identity except one group
• 30:12
  man I just I remember in high school like so when I was it when I was a kid like you know I I could like bash the fair bit you know with the whole part about thing
• 30:22
  but I did get more than that but what they used to call puff the bashing you know because you know the schools around mining camps and stuff like that though you know those barefoot schools if you someone reads books you're a puff the like yeah
• 30:37
  you know so I got I got quite a bit of proof that they should get a load of me Tyson if they want to putter yeah that's it that's it see how you go yeah I'm got a wedding ring on for Christ sake but yeah I did a couple of things like like I learned to fight like really really well and you know and then I also you know I
• 30:57
  um yeah also I like got a lead role in a musical yeah that'll that'll show me not a putter just got up with complete you know courage and saying my little heart out you know and that's me that's my moment of triumph for about five minutes but I got to tell you yeah backlash is a thing nobody likes to have their their power taken away so yeah the puff the bashings have followed were you know put a follow up
• 31:27
  in the hospital yeah the people trying to kill you you know even in high school you know yeah I guess you know there's always these extreme backlashes so if you got people sitting there like you know accepting welcome to country for about five years or a decade and they're sitting silently through it but it's annoying them or they're kind of stewing about it you know
• 31:55
  you know that sort of thing hey I'm not being racist just you know it's a little too much isn't it and you know well like if there's a day where they want to honor their grandfather it's just not on this day god damn it you don't get to annoy me on my birthday sorry my grandfathers yeah and I'm war day yeah so I guess that that just kind of bubbles up you know it also appeals to people
• 32:25
  yeah so yeah that always get these little wedges shoes you know they identify them and make sure they can sort of pivot any of the questions about you know economic policy or you know what the hell are we going to do about housing prices and just sort of pivot everyone's energy into this yes and you know and there has to be a and other has to be a you know a group that's being victimized and defended
• 32:53
  you know in that kind of little culture war and and then off we go and it's it's really boring I haven't even been following it I haven't even been following it just like you know I just learn more about it from you than I mean I'm you know I'm up I've been talking to me about it and rolling their eyes but yeah I just in the last five minutes just before I jumped on the thing I had a quick flick around Google to see what was being said out there and I'm like oh doesn't say doing this thing you know
• 33:21
  and yeah like I said that's that's the role of the few bad apples is to honestly in the door I find it exhausting that we waste our our attention on these kinds of culture war distractions and at the same time I have to push back against the narrative from my own cohort on the center left which says that it's all the fault of the fact that the half of the country that's conservative
• 33:51
  erasists and that that's the reason why these distractions are being raised these distractions that it wasn't the it wasn't the conservatives and it wasn't even the neo-nazis who started the question of
• 34:06
  acknowledgements of country and welcome to country being mandatory or not mandatory that was my side that was our side that turned it into a thing which could have been if we lived in a
• 34:19
  demos with a healthier ethos of communication which would have been a good gesture that then got hashed out through honest
• 34:28
  conversation where we go okay this is a good new thing it's nice that we do it at award ceremonies it's nice that we do it at the opening
• 34:36
  of parliament maybe we don't need to do it before every you know quick catch up meeting that we're having in the in the staff kitchen
• 34:44
  every Tuesday but you weren't able to say that because our conversation is broken because people with pitch walks and flaming torches
• 34:53
  would take you to the cleaners if you're an ordinary person i mean i do it and i get taken to the cleaners for it and that's fine that's my job but if you're an ordinary office work you don't stick your head
• 35:01
  above the power button have that argument so you do go along with it and you do you and it reaches up the point which because people haven't been able to have constructive
• 35:09
  conversations about it now you get this you know the eruption of you know when when you're gonna be called a neo-nazis for questioning the orthodoxy of
• 35:21
  outcomes to country then the only people who will question the orthodoxy of welcomes to country are actual neo-nazis
• 35:27
  and we yield the territory of having that conversation to neo-nazis and now they're having it on their terms instead of ours
• 35:34
  what does productive discussion even look like post-truth
• 35:38
  well i mean i think just i think it would be nothing there's just there's people bellowing monoblety monologue into space
• 35:46
  you know and recording and uploading and someone likes it or dislikes it and then bots comment etc
• 35:52
  you know or it's it's debatement bro you know and we've already had all these freaking debates
• 35:58
  we didn't just have debates there were massive advertising campaigns like
• 36:03
  you know demonizing bloody everything and anyone I want to do welcome to control those all these things
• 36:10
  you know well we already went through it and you know you end up with this like it is tokenistic
• 36:17
  and i don't know it's a species argument to go well i only oppose welcome to country because it's not going far enough
• 36:24
  you know let's like come on man
• 36:27
  there's just i don't know i don't see any discussions that aren't about 60% logical fallacies
• 36:38
  like deliberately weaponize logical fallacies who not just like an era in reasoning
• 36:45
  yeah i like i don't see any of it and i don't know it's i haven't seen all the arguments
• 36:51
  but i don't know if all of the argument from the left is just as simplistic as well racism
• 36:59
  you know i haven't heard anything better i haven't heard anything better than the
• 37:03
  than the only reason why you would object to an arrangement of country or welcome to country is because of racism
• 37:09
  and that's an attack on indigenous people and similarly on the right you're right that you know
• 37:15
  there's not a lot that's better than just it's our country we don't need to be welcomed here at all
• 37:21
  yeah but it's not a legal compelled speech is that what the what the country you know
• 37:27
  no it's not legally required to have have a welcome to country or anything like this so
• 37:33
  no but you know as well as i do that most of what's happened over the past 10 or 15 years in terms of the culture wars is not legally mandated
• 37:40
  it's not legally mandated that you know you have to show difference to a certain set of ideas or you know
• 37:46
  that you can't write in a certain way about pediatric transgender medical care or something and nonetheless
• 37:52
  people lose their jobs and people feel they can't say things you know
• 37:56
  Stalinism wasn't entirely legally mandated
• 38:00
  yeah i mean people lose jobs on both sides i don't definitely ever seen the movie The Hunt
• 38:06
  yeah is that about five years ago where they all get dropped into the wilderness and i rewatched it last night
• 38:14
  so it's like a whole heap of like uh you know what they call an America liberals
• 38:20
  yeah people who were like you know pretty pretty useless even though they were doing something incredibly violent and highly organized
• 38:29
  they were constantly you know just falling apart by you know
• 38:35
  policing each other's speech and all this sort of stuff and what do you mean those people and all that kind of thing
• 38:39
  yeah and they were you know they were accused of you know being elites who are hunting you know hunting deplorables
• 38:49
  you know hunting good simple conservative folk you know for sport you know
• 38:55
  you know it became managate because i was supposed to be doing it in a manner kind of thing
• 38:59
  and they all got the sack because
• 39:03
  so which is i don't know like the thing i don't know
• 39:07
  you fight on the left like we don't tend to win you about getting cancelled
• 39:11
  I've been cancelled like eight times from the left and
• 39:15
  but i'm more terrified as i've said to you before being cancelled on the right
• 39:19
  anyway yeah so in this movie there were it was the right that had cancelled them
• 39:23
  and so they all got fired from the earth powerful positions
• 39:27
  and but they had a lot of money so they they actually bought a
• 39:31
  a manner in like Serbia or something
• 39:35
  and they all got a license to take anybody else
• 39:39
  yeah like making up mean conspiracy theories about them online
• 39:43
  any right wing as they were they were rounding them up and then
• 39:47
  dropping them in the middle of that's right yes is the right wingers who get released
• 39:51
  and the lefties hunt them yeah so it's like a visual
• 39:55
  literal manifestation of the central story like you know as an
• 40:01
  Aboriginal person like i'm interested in the law of a thing and the law
• 40:05
  of this movie was the hair and the tortoise story
• 40:09
  but it was kind of like a you know those is kind of
• 40:13
  redneck girl from Mississippi or somewhere who was telling the story
• 40:17
  and how her mother told it was after the after the tortoise
• 40:21
  beat the hair the the story kept going
• 40:23
  and the hair actually went to the tortoises house
• 40:27
  with a hammer and smashed up the tortoises wife and kids
• 40:31
  and made him watch
• 40:33
  and then smashed up the tortoise and then sat down
• 40:37
  and ate their dinner while gloating over their death corpses
• 40:41
  you know so that's the story that she'd been told and i'm like oh that's pretty
• 40:45
  spot on actually um yeah and i don't know i see
• 40:49
  all this i see the distraction of the race between the hair and the tortoise and
• 40:53
  you know and the stalwart you know
• 40:57
  tortoise with values and a staunch work at the
• 41:01
  winning but then the head just uh yeah absolutely
• 41:05
  has his day i don't know you see this on the right like
• 41:09
  you know on the left when people gain ground i don't know what to do with it
• 41:13
  they just kind of mill around in a frenzy there until they get smashed right back
• 41:17
  further back from where they were before but the right every inch
• 41:21
  you know is planned with a whole raft of trigger laws
• 41:25
  and and um you know precedence in the culture
• 41:29
  and stuff like that the kind of kick in and that inches gained and then it's suddenly
• 41:33
  oh my god that's 10 inches and it never moves again
• 41:37
  but then the whole you know window has to move with them you know instead
• 41:41
  of shifting the whole spectrum um what do you mean by that?
• 41:45
  i can't think of an example of left wing backlash
• 41:49
  you know like you have to go to like
• 41:53
  you know another cultural revolution in china or something like that
• 41:57
  well yeah they use different tools right because the yeah i mean
• 42:01
  they had the struggle sessions which is pretty similar to what we saw in the whole
• 42:05
  uh you know yeah
• 42:07
  pandemic of of pink
• 42:09
  i mean it's not a traditional left wing
• 42:13
  well with the exception of Stalinism i suppose it's not a traditional left wing
• 42:17
  tactic to uh no that's actually that's not true i was going to say to force people to
• 42:23
  claim that they believe things they don't believe under threat of implied
• 42:27
  violence but that's actually pretty that was normal that's normal in Cuba it's normal
• 42:31
  in in Venezuela it's normal it was normal in Stalinism it was normal under vow
• 42:37
  it's not a um it's not unusual i don't think it's just a different kind of
• 42:42
  wielding of power right it's a it's a soft power of
• 42:45
  totalitarian ideology really and uh you know
• 42:49
  mouthing platitudes and reading pro forma scripts to pledge your
• 42:54
  allegiance to things or your fidelity to a set of ideas rather than
• 43:00
  the kind of crude unaditorian uh bigotry that the far right exhibits let me ask you this
• 43:08
  just went like when if someone says that they've been hurt by something you say
• 43:14
  like what's your first thought is your first thought
• 43:20
  like concern for yourself like oh my god oh what are people going to think
• 43:24
  or as you first thought uh man shit i'm sorry you okay
• 43:29
  you know like is your first thought concerned for the person uh that you may
• 43:33
  may have hurt or is it is it concerned for your own well-being and has that shifted over the last
• 43:38
  decade to be honest it's it's neither if i'm honest it's to quickly do an inventory about whether
• 43:44
  or not i believe that the thing that i said was wrong or needlessly harmful or antagonistic and
• 43:52
  so it's to check whether or not i give credence to the claim of offendedness
• 43:57
  because i don't regard all all forms of offenses being equally wrong and i think sometimes
• 44:03
  getting offended is a useful part of the rough and tumble of well you're not married to a woman
• 44:08
  about you no i'm married to a guy well yeah see that there there it is like you've got you've got
• 44:14
  room to do that you know the privilege is a position always saying about sexism and uh
• 44:22
  you know it's um you know i don't know so if you're married to a woman like
• 44:28
  well even i guess if you got a sister or something you know it doesn't matter if it's valid
• 44:34
  if you if what you've said is right or wrong or okay but if they've feelings are hurt like
• 44:41
  you have to it's yeah i thought we were talking about in public that position
• 44:46
  no i'm just saying so so we i get this training like is a heterosexual person who doesn't do
• 44:53
  domestic violence i get you know i'm not the part of familiar with this fricking house so i've
• 44:58
  got that kind of training my first instinct is concerned for the other person and i usually feel
• 45:03
  that when i get when i get canceled like first of all i need to find out you know um what their
• 45:09
  experience is and how how i've like contributed to their feeling of pain about that and
• 45:14
  um and then then i look at well what can i do to redress that uh like realistically
• 45:20
  and then what can i do to make sure that that person and the people they identify as you know
• 45:26
  their community um how can i you know in future just make sure that i'm not uh i'm not
• 45:33
  causing people pain right what can i don't believe i don't believe that what can i what can i
• 45:38
  include at the start to to help out so i i do do that but i don't you know i i don't shift my
• 45:45
  whole fricking world view you know like i said i'm in cancel like eight times and i don't give a
• 45:50
  shit i like i really don't care um i've been pulled up before as well for not doing acknowledgement
• 45:58
  um which i deliberately didn't do at the start of this acknowledge where i am which i usually do
• 46:04
  um but just so that i could use it as an example um do you want to do it comments
• 46:10
  yeah but first i just want to like just i don't know i won't data i want you to have data so like
• 46:16
  you comment section you know then you can have some data look at that no i don't know why don't you
• 46:23
  do it why don't you do one at dollars but then we can talk about it well for me it's got a weave in
• 46:27
  you know i find it awkward to pronounce it you know it's where you are as relevant
• 46:34
  as a as a human being you don't exist unless you're located so to be able to locate
• 46:40
  you know myself on a vaneron country and you know under the auspices and welcome of
• 46:46
  vaneron elders and being in that relation you know i can it's relevant to me if i'm talking about
• 46:55
  like this this this dish this kula man that i made like a couple of days ago you know it's relevant
• 47:02
  for me to know that this is the time in the wombats and moving around and so the sap is flowing
• 47:07
  in that you clip this tree you know there's plenty of things that are you know relevant to me
• 47:13
  about country here you know what the weather's gonna do if it's gonna rain where that water's
• 47:19
  gonna flow if there's blockages in the infrastructure that are gonna cause a flood you know all
• 47:23
  of these things about being located um and you know you you have to be in a place so you know
• 47:30
  you acknowledge where you are if it's relevant it's it's relevant to me you know if i'm talking
• 47:35
  about you know these things and it has to weave in you know so i haven't said the words i acknowledge
• 47:42
  and sometimes i've been pulled up for that because i weave it try and weave it into the conversation
• 47:47
  so that it becomes part of people's consciousness and part of people's own identity you know um
• 47:54
  do you remember when you were pulled up for not doing it?
• 47:57
  oh heaps times well lots uh yeah conferences you know things like that um often interviews where people
• 48:06
  people launch into the question so it's not there and then i try and loop it back around to it later
• 48:11
  but there'll always be like you know a couple of people and then i sort of a growing mob later
• 48:18
  and like in the car park sounds almost us yeah yeah although it's kind of side the car parks where
• 48:26
  these rumbles happen now you know um yeah i'll have a deeply offended that you didn't do a phone
• 48:31
  like knowledge in the country and it's just like you know shit well i need to do the welcome and
• 48:37
  then there were three talks before me and everyone acknowledged country and you know it's like
• 48:42
  i don't know the protocol is that you know after the welcome or after the acknowledgement by the
• 48:49
  bloody people who run the thing the protocol is that it's implied after that you know but i
• 48:55
  like to weave it in because i'm not you know anything i'm sharing with you is just nothing if it's
• 49:00
  not coming from place you know and this like i don't know it like i showed you the this one
• 49:05
  and most people are listening to this and they can't see it but you're holding up your own
• 49:09
  cover so people are you're showing up beautiful um it's elongated ball that you carved
• 49:16
  and it's made out of it's made out of park but it's hard as rock now but like you know i got the tools
• 49:21
  in here i'll show you that are made for these and and that's sort of something you do for
• 49:27
  you know a couple of seasons before the set starts running you're making the tools to do that so
• 49:31
  the stone axe here and the stone knife you know that's that meant that i had to be in relation
• 49:38
  with people on judge hour on country and i had to do uh like different law stuff coming into
• 49:43
  the stories and uh and the rules of of country and of working with stone there and they had to be
• 49:49
  calling out for their old people and putting their smell on me so that the old people recognize
• 49:54
  you scent and that's like in my family that's the welcome to country is you just walk up to the
• 50:00
  person who's new and you you rub your armpits wet on them outside of the land recognizes scent
• 50:07
  can i opt out of the being wiped with armpit sweat when we normally get only if you want to get bit
• 50:13
  by the dogs i don't see is that the option is that there's the two options the dogs i recognize
• 50:18
  you smell and i come at you so you want that armpit smell on you it's good uh good you know
• 50:24
  ceremonial kind of thing it doesn't stink it's not good it's still via violent it's the
• 50:30
  fellow's been drinking it's not good because you just getting like you know 90% proof sweat
• 50:37
  not there but look so judge hour on people there for that one and then i didn't you know i didn't
• 50:42
  have to have permissions for the jugong bone on this pick because that's just from my country i
• 50:47
  just finished eating jugong and then i keep on at a ribs and and cut that up you know it's
• 50:53
  but all these things need but the handle of it you know that was i had to i had never
• 50:57
  relationships with uh were injury people that's you know like a decade old um so you know you have
• 51:03
  these things and you don't have to do like this uh um you know welcome welcome welcome
• 51:09
  ceremony at the start in english or anything like that um because you get brought in in all these
• 51:15
  other ways and there are ceremonies for people who are coming in fresh in order to establish those
• 51:20
  relationships make kinship because for us our boundaries our borders our sights have increased
• 51:27
  not sites of exclusion you know um yeah they're not there to block people but they're there to
• 51:32
  increase relationships and and the welcome to country you know was modified you know from
• 51:39
  these kinds of ceremonies that are often done at borders um it was modified you know as a gift
• 51:46
  for Australian people for settlers um to help them be located and therefore exist
• 51:55
  you know in an awareness of what's around them you know and it's it's very simple kindergarten
• 52:00
  one-on-one stuff and that's as far as the bar moved you know it's not like we're finished up with
• 52:07
  bloody land rights or anything like that's ever ever gonna you're not getting my hands tied
• 52:13
  real estate is not gonna be land again but there's this kind of there's this kind of you know
• 52:18
  well what we will give you is you know we'll we'll say it's your land at the start but we'll keep
• 52:24
  in the real estate um you know and so it's not much in terms of a concession to us but it's a massive
• 52:31
  gift from us to the rest of Australia that we've got you know this invading force here and you know
• 52:38
  at every event where we're welcoming you here to keep stealing stuff you know um and allowing you
• 52:49
  to be you know located beings in existence which for us is everything you know so it's a kind of
• 52:55
  a it's a gift the way our elders do it they don't do it in an angry way or you know they're doing
• 53:01
  it like you know loving way and and making that gift and it's coming out and anyone is sitting
• 53:07
  on audience like simmering about that as a bit of a prick really what you just said about the weaving
• 53:13
  in of the spirit of acknowledgement into your conversation grounded in a sense of place is
• 53:23
  precisely what I think is missing from the modern versions of this practice where I frequently
• 53:32
  white person usually white person just by numbers will go to a website which will instruct them
• 53:38
  about the precise catechism or your slogan that they're supposed to recite and then they will be
• 53:43
  judged by their fellow white people are about their purity in being on the right side of history
• 53:50
  by how well they can recite or at least how accurately they can recite that and frequently any
• 53:56
  attempt to modify it or turn it into something more whimsical or playful or grounded in the reality
• 54:03
  of the community community that they're in um is frowned upon because that's uh trampling over
• 54:13
  uh you know a tradition that is not their own yeah um and so it becomes this sort of power move
• 54:20
  essentially among mostly white people and the when you say I mean I don't want to at the risk of being
• 54:27
  more provocative or controversial or racist sounding when you say it's an allowing in from the
• 54:34
  indigenous person to the invaders that's also kind of bullshit isn't it because on what power
• 54:42
  base does the indigenous person have the ability to welcome the invader in when the invader has
• 54:50
  so thoroughly steamroll over everything and asserted his dominance over the country it's like so
• 54:58
  there's a so it feels like it's more about like you're not you know it's I am located
• 55:08
  therefore I am you know you have to be in the place where you are and you call out the name of the
• 55:13
  language or people which is also the name of the land you know and when you say that word you
• 55:19
  know you're saying that language word which is the name of the people on the land or the language
• 55:24
  when you're saying it that's um that's that's calling out to the place the place recognizes that
• 55:30
  that word and they recognize you you know it's about being safe in our land our land is a dangerous
• 55:37
  place and not just because there's some snakes that might bite you it's um you know I mean for us
• 55:42
  there are entities in the landscape that if you move in the wrong way against them
• 55:47
  then you're not flowing with the energies of the land and you're you're going to have difficulty
• 55:52
  you're going to get sick you know it's uh I don't know it's it's it's supposed to be kind of helpful
• 55:58
  it's it's like you know inviting people to be human in the place that they're occupying you know
• 56:05
  I the goal the goal of the elders is that eventually you know um people will be like dingos so you
• 56:13
  know after a century or so uh when dingos first came here from Asia they um you know that
• 56:21
  they made a mess initially because they didn't belong here you know but they were welcomed into place
• 56:27
  and they were given story they were given dreaming uh people took on the dingo as they told them
• 56:33
  there was a relationship that was established and after a while the dingoes became autoxinous
• 56:39
  you know uh another word for that is naturalized but that has other connotations but it's
• 56:44
  basically when something that's not native to a place uh develop symbiosis and relationships where
• 56:50
  they're in balance with the place and the places adjusted also uh to accommodate them and they have a
• 56:56
  niche you know so after a while they're autoxinous another I don't know a few hundred years then the
• 57:02
  dingo is not autoxinous anymore it's indigenous it's native even though it doesn't have a pouch
• 57:08
  and it's like one of two species here that has a womb you know everything else with
• 57:14
  fair entities has got a pouch except for humans and dogs and dingoes you know um yeah like we are
• 57:22
  yeah so I guess the the goal is that is that um you know all visitors here all newcomers here will
• 57:29
  become autoxinous and we'll actually settle into a balance with the land where they can't
• 57:34
  understand a land without spirit and without story you know and um this tiny little tiny little
• 57:42
  millimeter of of um sitting through a welcome you know um that's that's your induction that's
• 57:50
  your induction and I know there's virtue signaling by stupid white people about that but you tell me
• 57:56
  one thing in all of creation that isn't used as a virtue signal by some idiot he's there
• 58:05
  is there an issue or a thing in existence that doesn't get you get sued around into somebody
• 58:10
  bloody going oh well I value this so I'm pretty freaking good oh do you not value this do you not
• 58:16
  value this that's true but it's a question of scale and whether or not the idiot who's doing the
• 58:19
  virtue signaling has a monopoly on cultural power and yeah uh whether people fear the consequences
• 58:26
  of questioning the idiot um I mean I think this I love what you just said about the autoxinous
• 58:32
  sort of aspiration for me it bumps into a question of whether or not the practical reality that
• 58:41
  Australia white Australians are living through with regard to acknowledgments of country and
• 58:45
  welcomes to country is um progressing towards that or detracting away from it I think it's
• 58:54
  clearly progressing towards it if a person is on Aboriginal land and is engaged in something to
• 58:59
  do with indigenous culture then it's totally appropriate it's probably appropriate in parliament
• 59:04
  it's appropriate at major you know events the trivialization of it the tokenization of it
• 59:13
  makes me just keenly aware of the sort of semiotic question of the different ways that symbols
• 59:19
  occur differently to different people from different places so it reminds me a bit of when
• 59:25
  the US invaded Iraq and they wanted to put a big American flag at that main square in Baghdad
• 59:31
  to help the Iraqis celebrate their freedom and I thought well the US flag means freedom to you
• 59:37
  America the US flag doesn't mean freedom to Iraqis and similarly Israel and Gaza the
• 59:44
  kefir is an innocent gesture and the Israeli flag might be an innocent gesture to an Israeli
• 59:49
  but it doesn't mean Israeli flag is not innocent to Palestinians and the kefir is not innocent to
• 59:54
  Jews and to me the bridging of the kind of unity and universalism that will lead to
• 1:00:04
  this country moving towards a greater sense of its own destiny as a coherent destination with
• 1:00:11
  its past and genuine reconciliation is unlikely to be achieved by imposing symbolic behaviors
• 1:00:22
  that land for the recipient well they don't scale because those things are in denial of context
• 1:00:29
  right that's why you have welcomed a country and that's why you have 500 plus different territories
• 1:00:34
  because there's all these different local everything is a different local context different
• 1:00:40
  fire region different climate different everything you know different culture and yeah you
• 1:00:46
  you have to know your context and there aren't very many things that scale too well
• 1:00:52
  and when you do try to scale something you're going to lose meaning you know it has to be simplified
• 1:00:59
  you know it has to be jingoistic and I guess the um yeah the the the work in the country is
• 1:01:06
  is quite a fragile thing because it's it's not very jingoistic and stirring and it doesn't
• 1:01:12
  compel people towards a simple and and very overwhelming feeling very much well it can sometimes
• 1:01:21
  also if I'm honest feel like a bit of a flex like the way it can sometimes be done will be will
• 1:01:27
  talk a lot about and I'm not saying it's not true but it will talk a lot about the the timeless
• 1:01:32
  power and you know tens of thousands of years of custodian shape and true deep knowledge in a way
• 1:01:39
  can make it feel a little bit like I mean okay we could all get up and boast but
• 1:01:45
  reflects on that it's just our souls who flex on everything anyway right but it's not intended
• 1:01:51
  as a thing so I think it's intent but I think it's intended as a flex I mean I just mean I think
• 1:01:55
  for the for the indigenous person who's giving us yeah for the when I'm talking about a welcome
• 1:01:59
  to country not necessarily an arrangement like the indigenous person will get up and we'll talk
• 1:02:02
  with some pride for five minutes about the incredible deep timeless knowledge and there can be
• 1:02:09
  and that can land again for a certain type of perhaps not sufficiently informed new migrant to
• 1:02:18
  Australia in particular I don't want to say white because I'm sure this is true of Arabs and
• 1:02:22
  Asians as well as like okay bro good that's nice do I have to hear this every day
• 1:02:28
  pride is like it's the consolation prize you know from the powerful like you know your mob has been
• 1:02:36
  awarded that I don't know that consolation prize as well you know gay pride it's usually given
• 1:02:46
  to people who who up until that point have been shamed and who live with shame ongoing right
• 1:02:53
  and that's so you know basically you just think if you can you know change your language and
• 1:02:59
  you change the world you know with our thoughts we make the world so let's just say pride and let's
• 1:03:05
  like perform pride oh you can read my newspaper columns against we can somehow lose our shame but
• 1:03:13
  man I have lost a shame of shame every day um yeah I don't feel ashamed of being
• 1:03:20
  pride in the number of millennia that that I've been around uh longer than others um you know
• 1:03:28
  in my tradition either because I mean you know what's that that's not exactly something that we
• 1:03:34
  used to count uh millennia either so you know I don't be sure you don't feel pride though I
• 1:03:41
  I get the sense that you feel pride in your heritage and you you don't feel shame you're not
• 1:03:45
  you're not ashamed of being black I think I think most of my pride stuff that I were feeling that
• 1:03:51
  I would identify as pride is inauthentic it's it's more of a pushback you know a protective
• 1:03:58
  emotional pushback against the shame which I feel you know all the time like especially with
• 1:04:05
  these Nazis all lubed up you know um and Lubin things up um like I think I told you before that
• 1:04:12
  after the referendum you know like I mean I got boot off the stage with not just booze like they
• 1:04:19
  were shouting you know F and Koon and stuff like that and you know and within a very short time
• 1:04:25
  of that happening you know my daughter comes home from school and asks me dad what's it filthy
• 1:04:30
  about and then I get explained that I'm like Jesus I haven't been called these things since the 80s
• 1:04:36
  80s was the last time I heard that you know um not because people got woke or politically correct
• 1:04:42
  what they were calling it in the 90s you know as because people sort of thought about it from
• 1:04:46
  in and that's that would feel like shit if someone said that to me I think I might not say that
• 1:04:52
  you know but um now it's it's weaponized again and it's out there you know people are
• 1:04:58
  painting swastikers on on Aboriginal murals around Melbourne like as we speak you know and these are
• 1:05:04
  just everyone can condemn that but then at the same time then the discussions that come out of
• 1:05:09
  that moved more towards the well you know while we're here you know what is it with all these
• 1:05:15
  Aboriginal murals it's like you know what about a Dutch mural this plenty of Dutch people in
• 1:05:21
  Australia how come they're not allowed to have murals you know it's like oh yes yeah you know
• 1:05:29
  so I don't know I you know and I do I that's sat with me you know like when they were shouting
• 1:05:37
  like multiple slurs I mean from the audience um you know um and this was in the forum in Melbourne
• 1:05:44
  it's a very high brow establishment you know these weren't Nazis who were like you know strategically
• 1:05:51
  placed it was more than half of the audience booing and at least a dozen of them like
• 1:05:56
  shouting explicitly racist slurs you know um you didn't hear about it because I didn't
• 1:06:02
  immediately go on a social media or a fricking you know like when do better um but my cousin Eric he
• 1:06:10
  was he was in one of these flash in the pan culture wars a while back because he was the FaceTime
• 1:06:16
  prank guy um they were they were using this you know this this this dark skinned weird look and
• 1:06:23
  fella um and using it on the FaceTime to make it look like he was calling from a relative's phone
• 1:06:30
  you know it's so you know people were answering the phone and seeing this black guy's face just
• 1:06:34
  sitting looking at the screen and you know and so you know the person that was pranking them
• 1:06:40
  a record them going what have you done with my daughter you look faster you know and um anyway it
• 1:06:46
  was a prank and win viral and anyway this uh so cousin Eric's face became like a mean for
• 1:06:53
  tens of millions of people they even made a made a mean coin out of it they made a mean coin out of
• 1:06:58
  his name so young reporter for a while was a trending mean coin um you know you and you and Donald
• 1:07:06
  mate but there was there was a whole thing you know that that came up about that and the family got
• 1:07:12
  hounded by the media for a couple of weeks you know looking for interviews and you know we had
• 1:07:18
  things to say about mean coin because that was exactly the same I was like the week after Donald
• 1:07:22
  Trump's mean coin launched and so you know we saw the start of the Trump presidency and then
• 1:07:28
  this mean coin thing and there's a lot of really big problems with that and I know we had a lot
• 1:07:34
  of things to say about you know the problem of online privacy and data sovereignty and all this
• 1:07:39
  sort of stuff and they weren't interested in that they just wanted to get some sound but sound
• 1:07:45
  bites of us saying how offensive and racist it was um so they didn't use any of mine but they
• 1:07:51
  used my nieces stuff quite a bit because yeah smart for them angry words yeah but um so anyway these
• 1:07:59
  things these things happen but and and they're kind of nobody remembers that you know in two weeks
• 1:08:04
  no one's going to remember this shit either no you know but but the field will have moved a little
• 1:08:10
  it will have moved more towards well you know yeah we do have to you know consider these um
• 1:08:17
  you know uh people who love the Tristus of Anzac that you know we have to respect that they uh you
• 1:08:23
  know uh think that welcome the country is like fascist that's it won't be that we do want to be
• 1:08:31
  that you know not in any that's what not in any mainstream way you know at the left and
• 1:08:36
  center at the left and center you know we're always like you know very reasonable you know uh
• 1:08:41
  because we we still think discussions mean something I do I have to believe in productive discussions
• 1:08:47
  and so but that always just means you know um applying more lube for the extreme right no that's
• 1:08:54
  not true and that's not true sliding inevitably towards that was the slippery slope fallacy I just
• 1:09:00
  used the weapon eyes fallacy yes no mate if if the if there had been mature rational left-wing
• 1:09:07
  conversations about this uh four years ago then then the right wouldn't be lubed up the Nazis
• 1:09:14
  wouldn't be lubed up the Nazis will be sideline people had heard any of the mature rational
• 1:09:18
  conversations then yes um but you know these are boring and very long things yeah but a lot of
• 1:09:24
  people listen to my boring conversations no yours yours no you're you're good
• 1:09:31
  I nearly given up on decoding the gurus because I was just bored like three weeks in a row and
• 1:09:36
  then you come and and and it just uh and it just enlivened that little space up again oh good thank
• 1:09:42
  you yeah you do good you do good long for well thanks mate we've got like two minutes before
• 1:09:47
  I lose you do you want to do you want to do you want to just give some advice I mean I don't know
• 1:09:51
  if you if you're in a position to give advice but to the 95% of left-wing white people who are not
• 1:09:57
  calling out and shouting you shouting at you and calling you if I can count and um heckling people
• 1:10:02
  uh and Zacta services like what's the best what should we be thinking we're doing um well just
• 1:10:10
  the same advice that I give you for um um all of the people who are going to be at you now uh for
• 1:10:18
  saying fucking they're going to clip that they'll be a lame there's going to be a meme coin
• 1:10:24
  of me just like that we're going to be back and forth and yeah now it's not even racist because
• 1:10:28
  he doesn't emphasize nothing you know it's dark dark skin he's not even a proper every new person
• 1:10:33
  is he how did he say that you can't tell someone's like Danny it'll go away well there's no advice
• 1:10:37
  we're in a post-truth world it's like you know just wait a couple of weeks if it's hurting yeah
• 1:10:44
  and then have another look and see if see if it's all gone um but I don't know like just
• 1:10:51
  you know there's a whole economy around work on the countries now and that's just that's just
• 1:10:55
  part of the economy um all the elders who advise you know people like because we get over consulted
• 1:11:03
  you know they do free consultations all the time uh they get paid sometimes big amounts for
• 1:11:09
  weapons of country and this is what keeps them alive so they can keep doing their role of being
• 1:11:13
  elders and providing safety nets for free um yeah so I don't know it's just it's all right I don't
• 1:11:23
  I don't personally get into it a lot but I can see the need for it that it serves a purpose and
• 1:11:28
  I don't know I think there's bigger things to worry about yeah I think they could just
• 1:11:32
  say now so I don't know yeah Tyson great to talk to you I'm going to let you go I don't know
• 1:11:37
  whether that's a nihilistic way to end or like a philosophical tranquil uh human humanistic way
• 1:11:43
  to end I'll take it as the latter you know let's just my shame man thanks mate say