Australia Day (January 26th) is one of the biggest holidays in Australia, their nation day. It has been widely observed since 1888, though it was not widely called Australia Day till 1935.
Also known as: Straya Day, Foundation Day, Anniversary Day, Invasion Day, Survival Day.
Like the Fourth of July in the US, it takes place in the summer and features fireworks, picnics, barbecues, flag waving, speeches, parades, pride in one’s country, going to the beach or the park, being with family and friends, etc.
But unlike the Fourth of July, it does not mark independence from British rule (January 1st 1901) but the beginning of British rule!
On January 26th 1788, the First Fleet, made up of 11 British ships carrying convicts, arrived in what is now Sydney harbour. Captain Arthur Phillip planted the British flag. Thus began White Australia.
Grand Theft Australia: In addition to genocide and land theft, there was the Stolen Generation: from 1909 to 1969 the so-called Aborigines’ Protection Board took Aboriginal children away from their parents. Aboriginal Australians were not citizens till 1967.
Aboriginals today:
- die 10 years sooner on average than non-Aboriginals,
- are 15 times more likely to be in prison
- and 2 times more likely to be out of work
The corresponding numbers for US Blacks are 4, 6 and 2.
So, in addition to the fireworks, there are protests and, on Twitter, #ChangeTheDate.
Those who want to change the date are told stuff like:
“It’s time to move on.”
“I didn’t do it, it was previous generations.”
In 2007 the Labor Party promised to change the date as part of the Roadmap For Reconciliation.
In 2009, once in power, Labor broke its promise. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said:
“To our Indigenous leaders, and those who call for a change to our national day, let me say a simple, respectful, but straightforward no.”
Enter Google Doodle: On holidays in Australia, like in other countries, Google shows a Google Doodle, a special logo on its home page. In the past on Australia Day, it showed kangaroos, fireworks, sand castles, etc.
For 2016, Google showed “Stolen Dreamtime” by 16-year-old Ineka Voigt. It was the winning entry of its doodle contest among Australian schoolchildren. The theme was “If I could travel back in time I would …”. They received 26,000 entries.
Voigt said if she could go back in time she would have “reunited mother and child.” How she describes her picture:
“A weeping mother sits in an ochre desert, dreaming of her children and a life that never was … all that remains is red sand, tears and the whispers of her stolen dreamtime.”
Google:
“Ineka’s tremendous art work deserved pride of place on the Google homepage”.
Sam Watson, an Indigenous activist:
“The fact that we have an Aboriginal woman there with her breasts exposed is unacceptable, so they’re using Aboriginal people as very plastic caricatures, showing enormous disrespect to our people and to our culture.”
Google also used tribal markings for commercial purposes without permission.
Voigt is White. She says her father grew up among Aboriginals, that she has “the culture within me.”
– Abagond, 2016.
Sources: Especially New Matilda, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post Australia, NAACP.
Sea also:
- Black Pete
- representation matters
- Australia
- Seeing Melbourne, Day 2 – our tour guide was part of the Stolen Generation
- Tasmanian genocide
- Australian Aboriginals according to National Geographic
- Violence against Indian students in Australia
- Iggy Azalea
- Teflon History
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Abagond, I just read this John Pilger piece and thought it appropriate for this post: http://johnpilger.com/articles/australias-day-for-secrets-flags-and-cowards
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — I don’t know who you are, but you f*ckin’rock! I’ve learned more from this blog than I have, for the entire 59 years of my living. Keep writing and informing us uninformed — PLEASE!
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Oh! And I must add, thinking about my fellow chocolate brothers and sisters, I immediately thought about Oprah Winfrey’s show done in Australia which was more a, “I know famous white Australians n look at the beauty of the place ” than, there are folk here — who look like me who are struggling and dying!
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A passionate call for a better Australia from an Aboriginal (mixed race I should say) man:
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/25/asia/australia-stan-grant-indigenous-speech/index.html
Food for thought!
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I like the picture myself.
The picture of the women is meant to be ambiguous of all native people. Her embiblical cord is made up of white people holding hands and that is the razor wire that seperates indigenous people from their traditions and their families. It’s the white people in the picture who are shown “as plastic” or in this case razor wire and natives who have characteristics of happy people.
Sam Watson didn’t like it because his people were not consulted. Thats a valid complaint but the original contest had nothing to do with making a politicale statement against Australia’s aparthied and genocide. The winning picture just turned out that way.
I’m surprised Google chose it because of the controversy exposing white genocidal history. Somehow I don’t see that happening on American Google.
One of the judges who choose the illustration is Bronwyn Bancroft, a famous white artist who specializes in Abariginal art. I see Bancroft work as cultural appropriation for a profit.
I see Ineka work as more politically pointed at the Australian government for their crimes and was meant to expose the hypocrisy behind Australia Day.
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Yeah, MJB – I feel the same way. I liked the picture so much that I threw the movie ‘Australia’ in to watch while I was doing my ironing.
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@ michaeljonbarker
The doodle repeats the very same mistake as Australia Day itself: White people determine what “Australia” is. Aboriginal people, for the gazillionth time, once again get no say. They are erased. White people determine their representation.
Good intentions do not somehow make it less racist. White paternalism is full of good intentions.
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Thank you for sharing this. I knew Indigenous people in Australia got effed by Britain just like Natives and Africans in the US, but I still have a lot to learn about Australian history, so I found this informative.
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I’m generally suspicious of celebrating history (either events or persons). If anything I’m in favour of remembering history which should include a narrative of achievement and a narrative of failure (either morally or otherwise, which every nation has). I don”t think it is nessecary or advisable to just abolish the symbols of the positive narrative.but rather add symbols for the narrative of failure. In the case of Australia they could either introduce another date for the commemorating of the indigeneous genocide or commemorate it at Australia Day itself.
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I think I read somewhere that they have a Sorry Day to make up for the mistreatment of the indigenous people.
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White Australians like other whites around the world when it comes to apologizing for their oppression of non white people it’s business as usual.
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@munubantu…Thank you so much for that link!!! Mixed race though he may be, as James Baldwin said, he “knows from whence he came” — and he MORE than acknowledges that fact. I felt like someone was squeezing my heart as I listened to Mr. Grant because I recognize his story.
On my first trip to The Gambia in 2010, I met an Australian couple at the hotel bar. As we exchanged pleasantries (why we were there, where were from, etc.), I found they knew much about my hometown of Charleston, SC. Ign’ant me, knew nothing about Australia other than koala bears, kangaroos, eucalyptus and Ms. Winfrey’s over-the-top promotion of the beauty of the place — without ever mentioning the Black folk who looked like her.
As I told them how much, despite their description of its beauty, Charleston was no longer my home, because we’d been erased — I could see their eyes glaze over. It was like what I was saying didn’t matter. Their view of the “Holy City” was imprinted on their tourists’ mind. They bought me a drink. I said thanks and kept it moving, talking to the young African bartender and server to whom I felt a deeper connection.
I say all this to say how much I appreciate Abagond’s blog, as well as the commenters who always bring new knowledge to my otherwise ignorant, old bones. Thanks again…
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@abagond:
So if I’m getting this right, what’s really the problem is not necessarily the doodle specifically but rather the fact that very little Aboriginal stuff BY ABORIGINES is given such prominent display in such a fashion and the use of the doodle is just yet another example of that odious pattern?
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@ Deb
Oh, thanks Madame Deb, for your kind words!
You are not ignorant… everybody comes here with pieces of the TRUTH and shares with others. We are all a little bit ignorant and savant! We all…
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@ Kiwi
True. But public commemortion of history is not about historical truth. It is about creating an identity either on a glorious past or an overcome bad past. You can’t create an identiy on “we’re irredeamable bad”.
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@ Kiwi
I don’t think i understand what you are saying. How is the commemoration of evil/failure making it into an “unintended mistake”. For example I don’t think Germany’s commemoration of the Holocaust does anthing of the sort.
I am careful about it and used it deliberatly as identity rituals are about creating a “we”. And your right, if a crime constitutes that group identity, the vicitms (and the people who identify with them) are necessarily excluded from it.
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@ Abagond
Stan Grant, a very prominent Aboriginal Australian, gave a really terrific speech during an Australia Day debate last week. It’s being hailed as a watershed moment in our political history.
Here’s the speech: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEOssW1rw0I)
Here’s an article that gives you a view of the reception to it: (http://www.smh.com.au/national/how-stan-grant-delivered-australias-greatest-antiracism-speech-offthecuff-20160124-gmd885.html)
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@munubantu…You’re more than welcome! And I agree with you here:
“You are not ignorant… everybody comes here with pieces of the TRUTH and shares with others. We are all a little bit ignorant and savant! We all…”
That’s the beauty of finding blogs like this one!
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This obamacare fine is getting me down
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uh i think militias back in the us in the 1750s+ was like 20 dudes with guns that had a unit patch maybe and a little flag and the cavalry came around and semi-conscripted them? i don’t know that territorial government would have been that strong i think it was like pakistan’s northwest territory more or less some how it is portrayed as different than the ‘wild west’ which would be i think more post reconstruction
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@munubantu
So sorry – didn’t see that you’d already posted on this. Anyway, his speech is well worth watching.
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@ Kiwi
Ok, I think it was a simple misunderstanding then. Of course the “moral failure” would be constituted by the past not living up to the moral standards of the present, not those of the past.
One might argue though, that even that is hypocritical. For example, Germany commemorating the Holocaust and making it (or better: its overcoming) the center-piece of its identity is wrong, because it is still an anti-semetic country.
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