AUSTRALIA DAY | REFLECT. RESPECT. CELEBRATE.
It seems bizarre that Australia celebrates the coming together of a nation, on the day our most sadistic event occurred. The creed reflect, respect and celebrate, seems at odds with what and how we are supposed to be celebrating, in an Australia that is still divisive and racist. A nation in which refuge children are imprisoned and Aboriginal people and other cultures are treated disrespectfully. The idea we are coming together as one nation, does not seem the least bit authentic to me.
FROM Simon Young
A tentative Happy Australia Day to friends and family in Australia.
Tentative because:
- It's a public holiday, it's a celebration of Australia's nationhood but/and
- it's a commemoration of an invasion of a people by a hostile foreign power.
In case anyone misses "the good old days" when things were simple, those days were simple because thousands of indigenous voices were silenced.
We're in a new time now where, as people, we have to grapple with multiple points of view. It's complicated and it doesn't feel nice. But it is right to give people a voice, particularly those who have been oppressed and denied their rights.
So... if you're in Australia, no matter what you do with the holiday, I wish you a very happy day!
From me:
LET'S REFLECT
26 January 1838 | The Waterloo Creek massacre, also known as the Australia Day massacre.
A New South Wales Mounted Police detachment, despatched by acting Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales Colonel Kenneth Snodgrass, attacked an encampment of Kamilaroi people at a place called Waterloo Creek in remote bushland. Official reports spoke of between 8 and 50 killed. The missionary Lancelot Threlkeld set the number at 120 as part of his campaign to garner support for his Mission. Threlkeld later claimed Major Nunn boasted they had killed 200 to 300 black Australians, a statement endorsed by historian Roger Milliss. Other estimates range from 40 to 70.
LET'S RESPECT
Oh dear, observed very little reflect or respect today, and so I came to think, in terms of respect: this is AUSFAILURE DAY. As I drove to supermarket, I observed the throngs of crowds and celebrations. I saw the trappings of white Australia everywhere. Very few people of colour, anywhere near these celebrations. Not a single RESPECTFUL tribute or observance of Aboriginal culture on display anywhere near where I live, at least as I drove to observe the public recreation areas. Flottillas of boats in the estuary, picnics near the beach and beer.
It seemed bizarre to me as a New Zealander, born into a true multicultural society, to observe a day that has expunged it's founding by excluding it's own indigenous people. Oh I saw them alright, the original people, poor people on the streets, watching the whities, lost and forlorn in their lost sense of identity and belonging. No one cares for them. They are invisible. Crowds oblivious to how the public park fences and poverty have separated them. It is clear that no one bats an eyelid. The revelry goes on, with the displacement and exclusion of the first people, relegated to history, it is as if Australia days sings to them, "You belong to history."
Somewhere, someone is feeling subconsciously, due to their programming and conditioning through education and upbringing, but are not unconsciously aware, that their narrative is,
"Happy aboriginal cultural decimation day. long live colonialist white supremacy."
They are also unaware that their sense of entitlement, a result of their programming is that, Somewhere, someone is feeling consciously,
"Unhappy aboriginal cultural decimation day, I hope that whities trip over themselves and drown in their beer."
Both groups of people are being asked to ignore their education and their experiences, to come together and celebrate a unified, loving, and democratic Australia. Let's CELEBRATE? How about treating the immigrants with RESPECT first.
This folks is the very definition of COGNITIVE DISSONANCE.
And we wonder why, as the wealthy bask in sun and celebrate with picnics, and darkies languish poor on the streets, we have so much crime. I use the terminology whites and darkies to imbue you with a sense of how Australians speak about each other online. Many are openly racist on Facebook.
Those we make invisible to us, will break in.