Thoughts from our Founder and Owner Pauly Vandenbergh on the ongoing use of 26th January as our national holiday.
Not once have I heard a different answer to the question: what is the worst massacre in Australian history?
“Port Arthur, of course,” is always the response.
Port Arthur is Australia’s – and one of the world’s – worst mass-shootings, and a tragic loss of life.
In modern times, it is unmatched.
But in Australian history?
What then of the massacres of Aboriginal peoples across this continent? What of the shootings, hangings, dispossessions and thefts of our lands? What of the atrocities against our men, women and children?
What of the Coniston massacre in 1928 where the ‘official’ story was that 32 members of the Warlpiri people were killed, even though modern scholarship puts that figure well above 50, and potentially in the hundreds?
What of the frontier wars waged against the hundreds of First Nations, those distinct territories, cultures and languages, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who called that Country home?
Only now are the rest of our Australian brothers and sisters becoming truly aware of the decades of conflict that took place after 1788 between Europeans and the original inhabitants of this continent.
Across these frontier conflicts, 40 Aboriginal people were killed for every one settler life lost.
My ancestors were among those massacred in Elliston in 1849. Only in recent years has the true extent of this event become known. Only in the last seven years has a memorial to this tragedy been erected.
To me, that memorial symbolises Australia’s slow, but important journey of coming to understand this shared history.
It wouldn’t surprise me if people my age or older hadn’t heard of these stories. Why would we? Our Australian history classes were ones of convicts, bushrangers, goldrushes, overseas wars.
Only now do classrooms teach about our cultures and history. Adults my age might be lucky enough to have an Aboriginal person take their workplace through cultural awareness training, many aren’t.
But if talk of the Australian frontier wars is new to you, SBS has a good documentary series available to watch here, I strongly recommend it: https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/the-australian-wars
Since it became a national holiday in 1994, January 26 has brought these important facts about Aboriginal history into the public conversation.
More and more people are learning January 26 marks the day the Union Jack was flown for the first time in Sydney Cove and our First cultures changed forever. It marks the moment where our languages began to die, where our lands were forcibly taken, where the persecution of our peoples began.
All Aboriginal people like me ask, is whether that’s a date worth celebrating?
Because that’s what we’re constantly told Australia Day is about: a date to celebrate this country.
And it is a great country, we are part of it: we vote, we pay tax, we’ve fought in World Wars, we’ve worn green and gold on the sporting field, we’re doctors, lawyers, teachers, business owners, labourers, parents and children of this place.
We’ve also survived the White Australia Policy and other discriminatory decisions by government, the constant subtle discrimination questioning of our identities, culture and place in the world, as well as overt racism and abuse in this society: All are consequences of what January 26 has come to symbolise for our peoples.
We want to join the celebration of this place, but that’s hard to do on a date which marked the slow and sometimes violent destruction of everything we are. Any other date would be better to celebrate Australia.
I’ve been encouraged by the number of non-Aboriginal people asking me what they can do to help build understanding among their friends and families, of the reasons why January 26 should not be the date for Australia Day.
My simple answer is: it’s a compassionate thing to change the date. It requires empathy.
Imagine if, today, a foreign country sailed ashore, took our lands away, erased our culture, massacred our men and women, take away our kids because of the colour of their skin and the language of their voice. Do we really think that, 235 years into the future, our descendents would be thrilled to ‘celebrate’ the country built on their ancestral lands and on the back of their forebears ’ persecution?
I don’t think anyone would.
We don’t need a referendum; we don’t need an overseas monarch to pass away, be crowned or have a birthday; we don’t need to have a horse race; and we don’t need a grand final to change the date of Australia Day.
We just need compassionate Australians to agree there are 364 better dates on the calendar to celebrate this country than January 26. It’s time to do that.
