Not exactly the Gettysburg address

I wonder - how many people have bothered reading the "Uluru Statement from the Heart", which is the basis for the whole Voice referendum.  I mean, lots of "Yes" vote advocacy refers to its importance and the number of aboriginal groups who backed it.  

The link to it is here.

It is very short.

And - to be frank - I am pretty surprised at its low quality as rhetoric.  

What's more, I kind of suspect that the "Yes" advocates don't really want it widely read, because it goes on about indigenous sovereignty, "that co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown".   And how the Voice is only the start of a process, as they also want treaties and "truth telling".   

While it is true that I have heard some "Yes" politicians talk about the need for the Voice before the treaty process can begin, the larger impression I think the "Yes" side wants to give is that the Voice is a small change that will more or less "settle things down" in terms of aboriginal activism.  "They just want this modest change" type of message.   The statement undercuts that.

The statement also spends a lot of time on the issue of incarceration:

Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately
criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This
cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.

These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the
torment of our powerlessness.

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own
country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.

Hmmm.   At a time when we want indigenous youth to respect property law, and find more meaning in life than via joy riding stolen cars or following their parent's abusive use of alcohol or other drugs, I'm not at all convinced that the messaging that the entire community are powerless is the right one to be promoting.   

Having said that, I don't doubt that historic institutional disadvantage has long term consequences.   So it's not like I am against (relatively) generous funding for aboriginal support.  (Subject to the proviso that I wish aboriginal leadership would accept that communities - black or white - with no connection to economic activity in their region are ever likely to be thriving.)

But at the end of the day, for the leadership to be messaging to their own communities all the time that they are still "powerless" is not helpful.