The letter from Australia is a weekly newsletter from our Australian office. Register to receive it by email. This week’s issue is written by Julia Bergin, a reporter based in the Northern Territory.
Parades, Union Jack-themed barbecues, angry protests and thoughtful vigils – it’s 2024, and January 26 in Australia remains a day that inspires many different reactions across the country.
Formally Australia Day, but also known as Invasion Day or Survival Day, the date marks the violent arrival of British settlers to the continent in 1788 and has a long history as a political flashpoint for Indigenous affairs.
This year, a First Nations advocacy group in Darwin decided to go further, with a hybrid protest for indigenous Australians, Palestinians and the people of West Papua, which was annexed by Indonesia decades ago, leading to conflict dragged on.
“Yes, Invasion Day is the reason we are all here today, but we must go further,” said Mililma May, who heads the group, a nonprofit called Uprising of the People.
Mrs May, a Kulumbirigin Danggalaba Tiwi woman, said what all groups needed were practical, tangible ways of understanding colonialism. By bringing together separate protest movements with a common goal “to demand the return of land”, she said she hoped that on January 26 she would unify oppressed groups and attract a broader cross-section of Australians.
It is also an effort aimed at returning attention to unresolved problems.
In the months since the failure of the Indigenous Voice referendum in Parliament – designed to enshrine an Indigenous advisory group in the Australian Constitution – First Nations issues have fallen off the main news agenda and dropped down the government’s to-do list. government.
William TilmouthAn Arrernte man and founder of Children’s Ground, a First Nations educational organization, said the conversation about Indigenous rights had quieted down after the referendum, making the issue even more difficult for First Nations people to address. First Nations.
“We are 20 meters from the starting gun,” he said. “We start from the back and we have to run harder to get up.”
Historically, Jan. 26 has served as a source of momentum for First Nations rights, Tilmouth said, but the failure of the referendum had hurt Indigenous people this year.
“It’s not talked about much,” he said.
However, the holiday remains politically controversial. In the weeks leading up to January 26, supporters of Australia Day celebrations took to social media to stoke nationalist sentiment, for example by condemning big businesses for “anti-Australian” marketing decisions, such as supermarket chains that reduced Christmas products. (Supermarkets have attributed the reduction to declining demand.)
Tilmouth maintains that January 26 is a day that could and should be used to promote justice and reconciliation, respect and recognition, rather than a day of celebration. Those values, she said, had application beyond Australia, and racism and oppression – “regardless of who, where and when” – did no one any favours.
It was time for humans to start working together, he said: global warming would call the shots from now on.
“Nature is really the great equalizer,” he said.
In Darwin, where a cyclone threatens to flood the city, May closely monitored the weather forecast. She expected a few hundred people to support the hybrid protest, but she knew that the planned action ultimately depended on the whim of forces beyond his control.
“A little rain won’t stop us,” he said. “But we assume the country will be on our side.”
Have your views on Australia Day and the way you celebrate the day changed over time? Let us know by emailing us at nytaustralia@nytimes.com.
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