‘it’s just a date’ then changing it wouldn’t matter, right? we don’t need to celebrate a date that marks the beginning of a genocide on an entire generation and entire group of people.
‘australia day’ has been changed many times and been on many dates with the first ever australia day being july 30th in 1915 as a fundraising event to support australian soldiers throughout world war 1. the states unofficially have been using jan 26th since 1930’s area but it wasn’t considered an official national public holiday until 1994
jan 26th has been protested and marked as invasion day by the aboriginal communities since 1938
january 26th 1788 marks the raising of the british flag signalling the start of british colonisation and the start of a genocide against the aboriginal populations - people that were already here, already had established communities, languages, trading networks not just within australia but surrounding countries and islands
genocidal acts spanned from 1788 to well into the 1970’s - over two centuries. this isn’t something that can be ‘ignored’ just to suit white australian’s. it’s part of australia’s history (let’s not forget white australia policy that lasted from 1901 - the 1970’s to exclude non-european migrants and to maintain an anglo-celtic population and everything that was done to aboriginals to ‘turn’ them white)
1967 - when aboriginal people were included in the census and recognised as part of australia’s population
1976 - aboriginals land rights act: mabo case; signalling the first time first nations people could claim land based on traditional connection
1984 - full political equality for aboriginal and torres straight islanders
these all represent major steps in a long journey for recognition and rights. and yet we are still celebrating invasion day, a day that should be a national day of mourning. the stolen generation is still alive today, they are still suffering.
respecting genocide survivors is a normal human thing to do 🤍
images below are from: the koori curriculum on fb
