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RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Change National Day Say Indigenous People

Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Feb 5 2009 (IPS) - Australia’s national day is celebrated annually with much fanfare. But Jan.26, which marks the establishment of the colony of New South Wales more than 200 years ago, is viewed by many indigenous activists as the anniversary of the European invasion of their land.

“It has always puzzled aboriginal people as to why Australia should observe its national birthday on Jan.26,” says indigenous academic, writer and filmmaker Sam Watson.

“This was the beginning point of that long colonial invasion, that long process of mass murder, mass execution, dispossession of aboriginal land, the long policy of genocide that still carries through to this day. That’s when it all began, Jan.26, 1788,” Watson, who is also the deputy director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies unit at the University of Queensland, told IPS.

Jan.26, 1788 was the day that the ‘First Fleet’ arrived at Sydney Cove to found the colony of New South Wales, but the nation of Australia did not exist until the federation of colonies in 1901.

Led by New South Wales’ inaugural governor Capt. Arthur Philip, the fleet of 11 convict-laden ships, carrying less than 1,500 hundred people, had sailed from Britain more than eight months previously to establish the first European settlement in what is now Australia.

The pre-colonial population of the country’s first inhabitants has been estimated from a minimum of 315,000 to as high as 750,000, or even more than one million people. Disease, repressive brutality, dispossession, and social and cultural disruption and disintegration are all believed to be factors in the rapid decline of the indigenous population from 1788.

But since 1935, Australia Day has been observed on Jan.26 by all of the nation’s states and territories, with a public holiday enjoyed by most citizens from 1994. While authorities acknowledge that the national day has different meanings for different people – “this is especially true for the First Australians,” notes the government’s Australia Day website – it is still largely a day of celebration with parades, citizenship ceremonies, free concerts and barbeques staged around the country.

One of the more high-profile events is the awards ceremony held outside the nation’s parliament building on the eve of Australia Day. The ceremony is centred on the conferring of the Australian of the Year award, with the 2009 recipient being indigenous leader Prof. Mick Dodson.

A 58-year-old from the Yawuru people in Australia’s north-west, Dodson is a member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and director of the National Indigenous Studies Centre at the Australian National University, where he also works as a law professor.

The National Australia Day Council – the coordinating body for Australia Day celebrations and the Australian of the Year award – appears to be justified in saying that Dodson, the eighth aboriginal to be named Australian of the Year, “doesn’t shy away from difficult questions or issues”. ”

Dodson immediately called for a “conversation” on whether the date of the country’s national day should be changed. “To many indigenous Australians, in fact most indigenous Australians, it really reflects the day on which our world came crashing down,” he said.

While he noted that a dialogue would not necessarily result in a change of date, “we can’t come to any conclusions if we don’t talk about things,” said Dodson, who also revealed that he considered not accepting the Australian of the Year award because of the symbolism surrounding Jan.26.

But while holding such a “conversation” may appear reasonable to many Australians, the government has been quick to rule out the possibility that it will participate in any dialogue.

“To our indigenous leaders and those who call for a change to our national day, let me say a simple, respectful but straightforward ‘no’,” said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who presented Dodson with his award, in a speech at a citizenship ceremony on Australia Day.

A succinct statement a few days earlier from Indigenous Affairs minister Jenny Macklin had set the tone for Rudd’s dismissal of the possibility of change. “We have no plans to change either the date or the name of Australia Day,” said Macklin.

Although the call to acknowledge what many regard as “Invasion Day” is not a new one, it may carry more weight now than in the past due to Rudd’s apology, on behalf of the nation, early last year to those Aborigines forcibly taken from their families, the Stolen Generations.

The government could even be outflanked if it continues to refuse to discuss the possibility of changing the date.

A range of views on the issue were expressed by indigenous leaders on Jan.26. An aboriginal elder in Adelaide, Aunty Josie, described the date as “our survival day”, while prominent indigenous activist Michael Mansell from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre said naming Dodson as Australian of the Year enabled the government to easily deflect criticism over not changing the date of Australia Day.

Western Australian indigenous leader Peter Yu, who led a review of the government’s controversial intervention into indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, suggested a change of emphasis from celebration to reconciliation rather than a change of date.

Furthermore, former cricketer and current NADC chairman Adam Gilchrist showed his support for a dialogue when he said that “what we love at the Australia Day Council is that there is a discussion, [that] there will be a debate.”

Sam Watson, meanwhile, says that the contemporaneous celebrations and protests which occur on Jan.26 are indicative of the gap that still exists between black and white Australia.

The activist insists that reparations are needed to account for the devastation inflicted upon Aboriginal people and their environment and that treaties over land be signed before a national day can be celebrated by all Australians.

No formally binding treaties were ever negotiated with the country’s indigenous peoples.

“The only day that would be suitable and appropriate for such a birthday would be the day upon which white Australia signs a treaty with the 800 tribal nations of this land,” says Watson.