The premier, “Advance Australia Fair”, has been adapted to recognize the country’s indigenous history and communities, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced late Thursday, hours before 2021.
The first line, ‘Australians, let us all be happy, because we are young and free’, will now end with ‘one and free’.
“Australia as a modern nation may be relatively young, but the story of our country is old, as are the stories of the many peoples of the first nations whose stewardship we rightly recognize and respect,” Morrison said in an opinion piece in wrote the Sydney Morning Herald.
“In the spirit of unity, it is only right that we also now acknowledge this and ensure that our national anthem reflects this truth and reflects appreciation. To change ‘young and free’ to ‘one and free’ takes nothing away, but I believe it’s adding to a lot. “
The government has a history of changing the song more inclusively – when Peter Dodds McCormick’s original composition of 1878 was declared the official national anthem in 1984, instead of ‘God Save the Queen’, there are two instances of ‘boys ‘with gender converted. neutral phrasing.
The national anthem has become controversial in recent years amid growing debates over indigenous representation, systemic inequality and racial injustice. In particular, many pushed back against the phrase “because we are young and free” – a wink when Britain’s First Fleet landed in Australia in 1788 – as Australia is home to one of the oldest known civilizations in the world.
In 2018, a 9-year-old girl was attacked by leading politicians, who asked that she be kicked out of school because she did not want to stand during the national anthem out of respect for the indigenous people. In 2019, athletes made headlines because they did not want to sing the national anthem during football matches. And in 2020, national rugby players sang the national anthem in the language of the Eora Nation – the first time it was sung in an indigenous language during a major sporting event.
Peter Vickery, the founder and chairman of the non-profit representation in Anthem, has been campaigning for a more inclusive anthem since 2016. Fair ‘,’ Vickery said Friday. “We simply can not have a national anthem that hurts its own people.”
Vickery worked with other indigenous leaders and singers to create alternative, more inclusive lyrics – one change is the phrase “one and free” that Morrison adopted. Their campaign gained more visibility and momentum last year when Gladys Berejiklian, Prime Minister of the State of New South Wales, expressed her support.
“Honestly, I’m overjoyed,” Vickery said. “It does achieve a main goal of our work, namely to turn words of hurt or exclusion into words of inclusion, and embrace a multicultural society of the 21st century.”
Other prominent Australian Australian figures, including Australian Indigenous Minister Ken Wyatt and Olympic gold medalist sprinter
Cathy Freeman, also celebrated the change.
But there is also skepticism from some who call it insignificant, and more symbolic than bringing about any real change.
“Changing the national anthem of one word is not good enough!” Indigenous former world champion tweeted in boxing
Anthony Mundine Friday and added that the country “had to scrape down the song and start fresh with a bit of black history and a white history.”
Vickery openly acknowledged such criticism, saying the symbolic power of the campaign could never be a substitute for substance. But, he added, the national anthem was still “a critically important first step”.
Other critics have argued that the message of unity, and the inclusion of ‘free’ in the lyrics, is
undermine through controversial policies for asylum seekers and refugees held in Australia’s infamous foreign immigration centers, as well as the systemic barriers that the indigenous population still faces.
While the country’s indigenous population makes up 3.3% of its 25 million people, they make up more than a quarter of its 41,000 prisoners. Native Australians are also almost twice as likely to die by suicide, have a life expectancy that is almost nine years lower and have higher infant mortality rates than non-Native Australians.
The unemployment rate for Native Australians is more than 4 times the national average.
Ian Hamm, chairman of the indigenous organization First Nations Foundation, praised the changed lyrics – but also highlighted other, more concrete actions to be taken.
Australia, for example, still has no treaty between its government and its indigenous people – unlike other Commonwealth countries such as New Zealand and Canada. The Australian Constitution also does not explicitly mention the country’s indigenous people.
“I think it’s a good step, but it’s just one step, one thing, after all,” Hamm said. “And the national anthem itself is just that – it’s a song. There are a whole bunch of other initiatives and changes and efforts to make to create indigenous opportunities for Aboriginal people, and a fair life outcome for Aboriginal people.”
