Virtue reality

 
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Virtue-signalling activists playfighting over symbolic issues are devaluing the Reconciliation cause. By Nick Cater.

The guidelines for movie casting recommend that the director begins with some searching questions. For example: “Can this role be played by a woman, someone who is trans or gender non-conforming, someone with a disability, a person of colour, an older person, etc?”

The National Australia Day Council’s “Reflect. Respect. Celebrate” campaign advertisement has followed the advice up to and including “etc”. And why not? As the ad says, “we are all part of the story”.

Sadly, however, this well-intentioned call for national unity has been pulled from the schedule at Nova Cinema in Carlton, Melbourne. Like everything that gets cancelled these days, the action took place on Twitter.

“Hey @cinemanova,” wrote a person by the name of unaustralian native © @MerikiKO.

“I love coming to your cinema to switch off and watch a good film at a great venue.

However, we were made uncomfortable by the Australia Day ads that you have screening. This is highly inappropriate for mob to have to pay to sit through. I hope you reconsider.”

Cinema Nova replied apologetically, claiming that “reduced in-office hours” meant the ad “may not have been vetted with our usual care”.

“We would never intentionally make our valued customers feel uncomfortable, so we will remove the associated propaganda from further sessions. We hope to welcome you back soon.”

That’s all it takes these days to get something that makes you “uncomfortable” pulled from the cinema. Just a single, ungrammatical Twitter message complaining that a 60-second ad is “inappropriate for mob to have to pay for”.

It would be a waste of time to ask at which meeting the Gunai/Gunditjmara people elected @MerikiKO as their spokesperson, since Twitter is indifferent to the popular vote. You may be the elected US President, for example, but don’t expect any favours.

It would be just as futile to ask what makes a Cinema Nova audience uncomfortable. Presumably not the currently screening R18+ movie Possessor, which portrays a man stabbing himself in his head before killing another bloke with a meat cleaver. Yet an innocuous message from a federal government-funded body is declared “propaganda” and pulled down.

The ease with which a single slacktivist from the fruitcake fringe can force commercial businesses to take the knee is one thing. The damage this does to the cause of reconciliation is another.

The National Australia Day Council is damned if it leaves Aboriginal faces out of its ad and damned if it puts them in. Popular support for an Aboriginal voice to parliament begins to crumble when the demands for inclusiveness reach the level of the absurd.

If Saputo Dairy thought it could settle the argument about Coon Cheese by simply changing the name, it was mistaken. The cheese is named after its inventor, Edward William Coon, not the common name of the butterfly Astictopterus jama or the Maine coon, an energetic breed of domestic cat that tends to pounce unexpectedly.

Saputo, however, was not prepared for an etymological fight, even with a lone activist who claims that a walk down the supermarket dairy aisle hurt his feelings. Saputo announced last week that the product will henceforth be known as Cheer.

“We trust our valued consumers and those who are new to our products will embrace this new name,” Saputo’s commercial director, Cam Bruce, cheerfully announced, bringing a new dimension to the word cheesy.

“Cheer Cheese … brings that extra little bit of happiness. Whether it’s a sliced snack, a part of your family’s dinner time favourite or a melty midnight toastie (sic).”

Anti-Coon campaigner Stephen Hagan was not satisfied. “I would have liked it to be something a bit more inclusive of First Nations people,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald. “We weren’t even consulted on names. We would like to have contributed.”

This is not what Indigenous leaders had in mind when they signed the Uluru Statement from the Heart in May 2017. They wanted a structural mechanism to give Indigenous Australians input on policy and legislation, not fatuous campaigns on the nomenclature of dairy products.

The Morrison government has committed to a constitutional referendum to put just such a mechanism in place. Like all such questions, it should be considered on its merits, unclouded by distractions.

The biggest risk to the “yes” vote will not come from conservatives. It comes from the activist fringe dwellers who have co-opted Indigenous interests as one of a suite of causes with which to attack the status quo.

These play-fights over symbolic issues devalue the seriousness of purpose behind the Uluru Statement in the public eye. These people are as unserious as the social media platforms they frequent. They could choose to campaign to end the welfare and alcohol dependency that is endemic in many rural and remote communities. They could take a stand against the vandalism and violence symbolised by the boarded-up shops of towns such as Walgett and Brewarrina in NSW.

These, however, are not things you can fix on Twitter. Perhaps an Indigenous voice to parliament can.

The yes campaign must filter out calls to make Australia Day a Day of Mourning, flying flags at half-mast or dressing in black, as Greens MP Lidia Thorpe proposed in The Age last week. A yes vote will only succeed if Australians can be convinced that this is a permanent step towards a better future, not just a stick of shame with which to beat the rest of us over the head.

The Greens are already saying the proposed Voice to Parliament does not go far enough. They are seeking a legally binding treaty under which the elected parliament would be bound to adopt Indigenous advice.

This kind of crazy talk will all but guarantee the referendum’s failure. It comes from people more concerned about projecting their own virtue than winning a popular vote. It is why supporters of the Voice must take on the radical voices in favour of a yes vote, not just those arguing no.

 
 
 
Nick CaterNick CaterNick Cater, Activism, Reconciliation