Close Encounters

XIV

 

Paul F Walsh

 

Ignorance was walking down the street when he met Knowledge.

‘This whole VOICE thing is unfair,’ Ignorance declared. ‘It’s like Apartheid, mate. They’re trying to divide us by making the Aborigines more special than the rest of us. I’m not in the constitution, so why should they be?’

‘Well, Ignorance rarely appears in a constitution, but where’s your sense of the Fair Go?’ Knowledge asked. ‘The Aboriginal people are among the most disadvantaged people on earth. They die younger than us, many live under the poverty line and far too many are in our prison system for unjust reasons.’

‘I never done nothing to them personally,’ Ignorance declared, ‘and I’m not responsible for what my ancestors did.’

‘But you’ve gained from what your ancestors did,’ Knowledge argued. ‘You’re surely complicit after the fact. And you are responsible for how you vote.’

‘Now that’s bullshit, mate,’ Ignorance responded. ‘My friends on Bumbook call that the black armband view of history.’

‘You do realise that a lot of the misinformation and disinformation on Bumbook is coming from the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Iranians and any other nation or local political party or local idiot or mining billionaire that wants to divide us in this referendum.’

‘Are you a conspiracy theorist, mate?’ Ignorance asked.

Knowledge quietly groaned and pondered the futility of entering into a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                    Copyright Paul F Walsh 2023