Active Allyship Beyond January 26
In January of each year, we as Australians have an important decision to make - is it the day to celebrate or venerate First Nations voices?
The 26th of January has long been a date of contention, generating heated debate, fuelling racism, ignorance, and confusion. Fortunately, in 2022 the tide is beginning to turn with new force.
In May 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement was felt here in Australia as the US protests both renewed and gave new focus to a centuries-long campaign, here on our home soil. Sparked by the tragically unlawful murder of an innocent black man, George Floyd, by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, people in Australia and around the world began ‘woking up’ to the persisting inequalities marked by the skin of our bodies – an enduring colonial legacy that has never remained in the past.
The Aboriginal Lives Matter movement - or BLAK, lives matter movement - has gained more community support during the pandemic than previously seen, especially amongst young Australians. While young people took to social media to stay connected during lockdowns, they also used the opportunity to listen, hear, research, read and learn from First Nations Activists who have long been campaigning for justice and truth-telling. Of the many terrible and shocking things to develop from the pandemic, the rising of youth voices and activism via social media has been a welcomed glimmer of hope.
Despite these ripples rising, these efforts have continually been met with a deafening silence and a lack of leadership from our elected officials. This absence of a healing agenda from our politicians, shows that nothing will truly change until non-Indigenous Australians take on our responsibility and walk alongside Aboriginal communities. More than a time for argument, this date should be regarded as a unique opportunity to open community dialogues and together reimagine another date/day that fosters greater inclusion.
Young non-Indigenous Australians, play a critical role in moving this conversation from demeaning yearly debates into tangible action and change.
More than standing in solidarity on the social media frontlines, the time is now ripe for us to use our ears, our voices, our bodies, our buying power, and our political vote to determine the truth of what it means to be an Australian. Chances are, you’ve heard the worn-out arguments in opposition to changing the date. The suggestions that “we can’t change history” or that “tradition is important” - and yes, both of those are true. We cannot change history, but we can choose to tell the truth of our history; the 26th of January is an opportunity to do just that.
Contrary to popular understanding, the 26th of January does not mark the first English vessel to arrive on this land. This occurred 18 years before in 1770, when Lieutenant James Cook stood on Australian soil and “discovered” it for the Commonwealth.
The 1788 arrival of the “First Fleet” to Botany Bay, land of the Dharawal Nation, also didn’t occur on the 26th but rather, the 18th of January. What we celebrate on the 26th of January, therefore, is not the “First Fleet” arrival, but the first raising of the British Flag, signifying the spark of colonial “superiority” and contamination which would spread across this sovereign land.
It is this truth that our nation was built to forget.
The unspoken history of dismantling communities; imprisoning people on their own lands, infecting their languages, cultures, and ecosystems, and demeaning their humanity. For this reason, the 26th of January is a day of mourning; an acknowledgment of the thousands of lives lost to the legal fiction of terra nullius. Undeniably, tradition is an important tool to maintain communities, however, we must be critical of which history is privileged in this narrative; what traditions are valued and celebrated; what moments of history we embed in our story, and which truths we ignore. In this so-called “lucky country” Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults are imprisoned at 13 times the rate of their non-Indigenous neighbours. Children as young as 10 can be imprisoned, locked into solitary confinement, and experience deep traumas that entrench them in perpetual cycles of custody.
Is this a tradition we are proud of?
Of the approximately 600 children aged between 10 and 13 locked up in Australia, 65 percent are Indigenous. In the Northern Territory, this number is more harrowing, where 90 percent of young people in detention identify as Indigenous.
As a nation, Australia prides itself on ‘the fair go’ and ‘mateship’. Our reputation for being friendly, welcoming people has brought migrants to this country from near and far. However, the reality of a ‘fair go’ is very far from Australia’s truth. We cannot call ourselves a nation of “mates” when we came to this land with the intention of brutal extermination, to steal our neighbours’ home, food and water, while also not inviting them to sit at their own table. Not the kind of mate you’d invite to celebrate with you, is it? And yet, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been inviting us to walk with them – in deep mourning and celebration of survival.
As the recent Uluru Statement from the heart demonstrates, First Nations communities in Australia are doing the work of healing. Indeed, since the late 1970s, Aboriginal communities have been calling for a Makarrata Commission, to no avail from our elected leaders. We need to do the work that our government officials continually refuse to do. The work of active Reconciliation won’t be done in parliament – it will be pushed forward by grassroots movements, as it was in the 1967 referendum. Changing this conversation requires individuals and communities like us to come together and demand an Australia that is truthful in its history and sincere in its reconciliation.
In the upcoming 2022 elections, it is our time to lead change, moving forward with more than an acknowledgment. As young Australia’s we must be critical of politicians and systems that benefit from and perpetuate this denial of Australia’s truth. For as long as our nation continues to empower politicians that pull the veil over our eyes and deny the truths of our history, Australia’s wounds will deepen. Silence will continue to breed violence; racism and ignorance will fester.
In his important book ‘Australia Day’, renowned First Nations journalist, Stan Grant said, “a nation is nothing if not a story: memories and history.”
These words beg the questions; Who are we as Australians? What story does ‘Australia Day’ tell about who we are as people? And, most importantly, what story do we want to share with future generations and the world?
If we continue down this path of January 26th as a celebration of cultural dispossession, theft, slaughter, rape, and exclusion towards our First Nations brothers and sisters, then we do so glorifying that we as Australians have no true interest in listening to First Nations peoples.
No interest in empowering these communities or including them as equal citizens on their own land. Indeed, while we continue to celebrate the destruction of Aboriginal languages, communities, and cultures, our political agenda continues to widen the ‘gaps’ rather than close them. In other regions such as North America, nations have already begun ushering in this new era of truth-telling; changing the significance of long celebrated days like ‘Colombus Day’ to instead reflect, acknowledge and pay respects to the resilience, cultural diversity and survival of Indigenous peoples.
In 2022, Australia is far off from this fate, but we needn't be. Changing the date of ‘Australia Day’ to one that can unite us all as equal humans living on this land should be a cause for celebration. Equally, keeping the 26th of January as a date of national significance is integral for truth-telling; a day of mourning for the thousands of Aboriginal lives taken and futures stolen throughout the past 230 years of modern Australia.
Facing the truth will hurt, if we have done wrong as a nation then it must… but it is empathy that makes us human. Only by acknowledging this wrongdoing, standing in solidarity as non-Indigenous people, and making an ongoing commitment to learn and unlearn, can we begin healing for this land.
