Australia Day is a symbol of oppression to First Nations peoples

To show true compassion and respect to Australia's First Nations peoples, Australia Day should be done away with entirely, writes Megan Krakouer.

ANOTHER INVASION comes and goes but the impacts of the invasions to the continent of Terra Nullius remain for many with merciless brutality. Let us remind that more than two centuries after the first wave of invasions, today’s population of First Nations descendants is much less than the estimated total First Nations population on the first Invasion Day at Botany Bay.

What followed was ceaseless murderous brutality and systematic destruction of the living circumstances of peoples nurtured over countless generations. The invader “settled” in as the oppressor, an ongoing horror where our ancestors were “gaoled” in missions and reserves and had the psychological shit beaten out of them.

It is my hurt that 26 January, celebrated as “Australia Day”, diminishes us all in asking us to celebrate in whatever form what was Invasion Day. For me, changing the date is not enough. It is nothing consolatory whatsoever. It just relocates the day of hurt, of our deepest mourning. No nation should celebrate an invasion day. It is a day of divides, of the oppressor and the oppressed.

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For those who enjoy celebrating Australia Day on the day that marks Indigenous dispossession, Natalie Cromb says: enjoy your day, but know change is coming.

Human habitation in Australia is thousands of years old. Let us celebrate a harmonious nation where the roads are paved to humanness, equality, universalisms and diversities. We can do this by doing away with Australia Day altogether. Australia Day is tied up with a White Australia policy, with a racist Constitution.

Let the oppressor apologise by doing away with Australia Day. Anything less is a slur on our ancestors and a demand that the only road to equality is assimilation.

If Australia wants a voice for our First Nations peoples, or any prospect of treaties, then start listening to the multitudes of First Nations voices. Prove that you want to listen to us and understand us. Hear our cries that we want an end to any form of Australia Day. Till that day comes to light, I argue there is no listening to the majority of First Nations peoples.

To the oppressor I say, surrender your celebrations of power imbalances, your homogeneity imposts, your pitting us against one another. Australia Day smacks smugly as institutional racism, as the “flag” of resistance to “decolonisation”.

Australia Day: Flag 'freed', date still in chains

The fact we celebrate Australia Day each year on this date, January 26, is a glaring example of just how deeply ingrained is the casual racism of the nation towards First Australians.

The oppressor’s gaols are filled with our First Nations brothers, sisters and children, as were the missions, reserves, and other segregations. The hearts and souls of First Nations brothers and sisters are filled with justified paranoia of the oppressor, of distrust from the beginning of life, of them versus us — and Australia Day perpetuates the paranoia, the distrust, the line in the sand.

Do away with Australia Day and it may send a powerfully profound signal to First Nations peoples, more meaningful than all the empty apologies we have to suffer so far while our peoples continue to die at the highest suicide rates, are gaoled at the world’s highest rates, and our children are taken from their families at horrific rates that should have led to rebellions and revolution and not just protests, endless mourning and suicides.

Megan Krakouer LLB is a Mineng Noongar woman from Mt Barker in Western Australia’s southwest. Presently, Megan is the Director of the National Suicide Prevention & Trauma Recovery Project and also works as a human rights legal practitioner for the National Justice Project.