Not a day to celebrate for everyone

A date that Australia is still debating, unsure of the best way forward.

The date, back in 1788, when Captain Arthur Phillip landed at Warrane (Sydney Cove, now known as Circular Quay).

And a date that signifies the beginning of the invasion of the great Southern Land by British colonisers, using the idea of Terra Nullius to give legal sanction to the lie that the country belonged to nobody and could be taken without payment or treaty.

Terra Nullius conveniently ignored the existence of over 250 sovereign nations across the continent, inter-connected by trade, sharing of knowledge, cultural values and spirituality.

Since January 26, 1788, the lives of First Nations peoples changed dramatically.

The acts of violence, dispossession, oppression, spread of disease, removal of children and deliberate destruction of language and culture threatened their very existence.

The intergenerational trauma of the ongoing legacy of these injustices is still being felt today.

But there are also the many stories of resistance, endurance and survival, of defence of country, of fighting to protect communities, culture and history.

In the decades after 1788, Aboriginal people resisted the invasion.

Now known as the Frontier Wars and spanning the period from 1788 until the 1930s, they were a series of conflicts and events — including massacres to expand the colony and Aboriginal defence of country — that are still not officially acknowledged even today.

Back in 1938, on the 150th anniversary of the First Fleet landing at Warrane, Aboriginal leaders met in Sydney and declared January 26 to be a Day of Mourning.

The protest, organised by Jack Patten, William Ferguson and William Cooper, was in recognition of loss of Country, freedom, self-determination and the deaths of so many of their people since 1788.

Fifty years ago, on the eve of January 26, the McMahon Government announced it would not recognise First Nations peoples’ land rights.

This led to Sydney activists Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams and Tony Coorey, driving to Canberra and setting up a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite Parliament House (now the Old Parliament House).

Called the ‘Aboriginal Embassy’, the protest symbolised the fact that Aboriginal people had never ceded sovereignty and had no treaty with the crown.

The government’s announcement made Indigenous Australians, in the words of activist Gary Foley, ‘aliens in our own land, so like other aliens, we needed an embassy’.

National advocacy organisation Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation explains: “Celebrating on this day ignores the truths of our shared history and is akin to asking First Nations people to celebrate the atrocities committed against them”.

“January 26 is a difficult date for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and is not a date that can serve as a unifying national day of celebration,” Reconciliation Australia chief executive Karen Mundine said.

To many there is little to celebrate. January 26 is a day of sadness — loss of sovereign rights to land, loss of family, loss of the right to practice culture.

Nationhood of our country has come at a huge cost for Australia’s First Nations peoples.

To celebrate our national day on January 26 – a day that the invasion of lands started — is not a way to bring everyone together.

Rather, January 26 is a day to reflect on the resilience of First Nations peoples and how this has ensured their survival in the face of almost overwhelming and systematic injustices.

It is also a day when non-Aboriginal people might consider how they would feel if they were asked to celebrate on a day that represented such a loss.

So, let’s talk about January 26, and reflect on how we can create a day that all Australians can celebrate and be proud of.

Join us at the Mooroopna Survival Day dawn service.

Come along to reflect on the meaning of this day and gain an understanding of, and learn about, a different perspective on how Australian peoples, cultures and histories can be celebrated.

What can you do this Survival Day?