ECHOES OF 1999 On the night of November 6th 1999, I was a young man whose spirits and hopes were crushed. My dream to see the next step in my countrys evolution realised, turning our unofficial republic into a reality, was rejected by a majority of Australians. There were many reasons for the rejection, some valid, but largely the result of an arch-conservative prime minister with aristocratic Anglo pretensions who manipulated his opportunity to have the least popular republican model put before the Australian people. I knew this, and deep down like other republicans I had already suspected the outcome would not be good but I found it incomprehensible at the time that my compatriots did not feel that one of our own could ever be worthy to represent the nation as our head of state. I remember driving home from the Yes campaign party in Melbourne feeling completely worn out by months of volunteering and years of hoping to be part of an historic birth of an Australian republic. Over the previous decade all of the national momentum had been surging towards that worthy goal on the cusp of a new Millennium. Australias star was rising and this seemed to be the last piece of nation-building that started with our federation and independence on January 1st 1901. But it wasnt to be and it may be another decade before we have a chance to revisit it. But we will revisit it. So this is why I have taken such an interest in the Scottish campaign for independence. Scotland is a much older country than federated Australia but it may have the chance to become the worlds newest nation-state depending on the result this afternoon. It is different though in the sense Australia is already independent and our republican push was more about fully completing the structures and symbols of our independence. However, a newly independent Scottish nation might just be the impetus for Australians to have another think about our own national identity and destiny. I wish the Scottish people well, I hope they dont make the same mistake we did in Australia in 1999.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 00:03:08 +0000
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