MELBOURNE, Australia – Those celebrating Australian Day, the national holiday, associate it with barbecues and pool parties. But for those who protest against it, it is a reminder of the cruel colonization of the continent.
Tens of thousands of people marched through Australia’s largest cities on Tuesday against the holiday, calling them rather than Invasion Day. It is a blunt version of the legacy of the arrival of the British 233 years ago, which set in motion centuries of oppression of indigenous peoples.
Year after year, these protests grew and gained political traction, and on Tuesday it was bolstered by the global Black Lives Matter movement. Here’s a look at this controversial day.
What is Australian Day?
Australia Day, 26 January, is the date on which a British navy entered Sydney Harbor in 1788 to start a penal colony. The seafarers hoisted a flag on land that the British described as “Terra Nullius” (nobody’s land), even though the indigenous people lived on the mainland for at least 65,000 years.
The public holiday was first formally recognized in 1818, and it has been commemorated nationally since 1994. It takes place during the summer of the Southern Hemisphere, so many Australians spend the day on the beach or with family and friends.
Since the holiday began, however, indigenous Australians have been excluded from celebrations. In 1888, when Sir Henry Parkes, the father of the Australian Federation, was asked how the people of the First Nations could be involved, he remarked that it would only serve to ‘remind them that we have robbed them’.
What are protesters asking for?
Australians protesting the public holiday argue that it not only excludes the inhabitants of Aboriginal and Torres Island, but also actively celebrates the day their country was taken.
Since 1938, protesters have regularly commemorated the national holiday with a day of mourning. (In the same year, several Aboriginal men had to be forced to take part in the re-enactment of the British landing.)
Two Aboriginal activists, Jack Patten and William Ferguson, wrote at the time: ‘We, who represent the Aborigines, now ask you, the reader of this profession, to stand still in the midst of your sesqui centenary joy and your honesty. to ask whether your ‘conscience’ is clear regarding the treatment of the Australian blacks by the Australian whites during the period of 150 years you celebrate? ‘
Since then, the protests have involved protests, marches and marches on the Parliament building in Canberra. Protesters called for a series of changes, from the recognition of indigenous Australians in the country’s constitution and the creation of a treaty between them and the Commonwealth, to the reduction of high indigenous detention and deaths in detention.
Previously, activists called for a change in the date of Australia Day – proposals included 1 January (the date Australia was born), the fourth Friday in January (because it would make for a good long weekend) or 8 May (because the abbreviation M8 sounds like ‘mate’).
But this year, the messages moved more toward the abolition of the day.
“There is a growing awareness and growing solidarity around the world among indigenous peoples everywhere,” said Lidia Thorpe, the first Aboriginal senator elected in the state of Victoria. “There’s an uprising.”
What happened today?
On Tuesday, thousands of people took to the streets in protest in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Darwin and Perth. They carried Aboriginal flags over their shoulders, and rumbled and held signs titled ‘Pay the Rent’, ‘Abolition of the Date’ and ‘No Pride to Genocide’.
Before dawn on Tuesday, the Sydney Opera House light his sails featuring the artwork of Frances Belle-Parker, a native artist, while a native flag was hoisted alongside the Australian flag on the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
“Solidarity is the key”, said Frankie Saliba, an activist, as he marched through Melbourne city center with a painted sign with ‘Landback’, referring to the movement to return land to its original indigenous owners .
Another protester, Emily Hart, 11, said she hoped more of her peers would get involved in the protests. “We have to admit that this is not our country,” she said.
Although protests were largely peaceful – with masked activists marching in groups of 100 in Melbourne to comply with the social distance rules, some protesters clashed with police and was arrested in Sydney after violating coronavirus regulations, which led to organizers canceling the rest of the event.
Organizers in Perth and Hobert said the turnout was the biggest they had experienced.
Why not change the date?
Support for the Invasion Day movement gradually increased, and even mainstream organizations such as Cricket Australia removed the name “Australia Day” from their promotional material.
According to a recent poll conducted by Ipsos, even less than a third of Australians say Australia Day should be moved from 26 January. Australia’s conservative political leaders have expressed the same view and sometimes kept abuses of Aboriginal people to a minimum.
“When the twelve ships arrived in Sydney years ago, it was also not a special day for the people on the ships,” Scott Morrison, the country’s prime minister, told reporters last week. Mr. Morrison added during a ceremony in Canberra on Tuesday that Australians had risen to their “brutal start”.
Australian Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has angered the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for including the term “Invasion Day” in an article heading, along with the formal name of the holiday, and urging the national broadcaster to remove the words .
Marcia Langton, an anthropologist and professor of indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne, cites the remarks of Mr. Morrison ‘critical’ and an insult to the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Australians who, according to her and others, lost their lives in the decades following the European settlement.
“The arguments for Australia Day are now morally and intellectually flawed,” she said. ‘It is no longer a national day; it is a day of division. ”
Yan Zhuang reported from Sydney, Australia.