public holidays
Indigenous people demand abolition of “Australia Day”
In many places, indigenous people celebrate their culture with dances and songs. photo
© Dan Himbrechts/AAP/dpa
Australia has one of the most controversial national holidays in the world. On January 26th the country celebrates the arrival of the Europeans. The indigenous population is demanding abolition.
The controversial national holiday “Australia Day has once again sparked nationwide protests Down Under. The day commemorates the arrival of the first British fleet in Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788, as a result of which the country was colonized.
The indigenous population, however, calls the day “Invasion Day”: they associate the arrival of the Europeans primarily with atrocities and their own dispossession. In Melbourne and Sydney, among other places, thousands of demonstrators have been gathering for rallies since the morning.
Parliament building cordoned off
In the capital Canberra, the parliament building was sealed off after hundreds of protesters broke through police barriers, Australian media reported. These included pro-Palestinian activists who were protesting against the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.
In many places, indigenous people celebrated their culture with dances and songs. “This was and always will be Aboriginal land,” chanted participants at a protest in Sydney. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also attended an indigenous ceremony.
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have cared for this land for over 65,000 years,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Their culture and their connection to the country continue to enrich our nation today.” Many Australians celebrated the holiday as usual with family and friends at a barbecue or on the beach.
Date change or abolition?
But what are the opponents of “Australia Day” demanding? Some would like the date to be changed – if possible to a day that symbolically reflects the diversity of the Australian population. Others want the national holiday to be abolished completely.
“We believe there is not a day in the calendar where there have not been massacres and violence,” the ABC quoted Indigenous Tarneen Onus Browne, who organized the demonstration in Melbourne, as saying. “We try to make that clear every year – and we also want to put an end to the myth of this colony and its discovery.”
There was only an official apology for the suffering of the indigenous people in 2008 by the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who asked for forgiveness for the injustice suffered. For many decades, Aboriginal children were taken from their parents and had to grow up in homes or with white families. Tens of thousands of girls and boys were affected; in Australia they are known as the “Stolen Generation”.