Jenna Woods, Wardandi Noongar woman and mother and Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning at the School of Indigenous Knowledges shares why we need to rethink January 26.
As the summer heat sets in and we head back to work, a familiar conversation arises. Over the past decade, the 26th of January has been hotly debated, often with an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality and often marred by contempt for the other side.
When asked for my thoughts on Australia Day, my original position was rather one-dimensional. I did – and continue to – support changing the date. I envision January 26 as a day of reflection for what has been and Australia Day, on a new date, as a celebration for what will be.
After all, January 26 was not marked as a national holiday until fairly recently, having been established in 1994. The true marker of progress is not the date of Australia Day, but the content of it.
I find myself questioning what is actually being celebrated? What is it to be Australian? Is it only our colonial past that is to be honoured? Who is included in that and who is not? For me, these questions take us beyond questioning the date to questioning the very core of our national identity.
To understand what it is that we are celebrating, we must first truly understand who we are as a nation. Without doing so, Australia Day manifests as a rather superficial national party, characterised by alcohol, barbeques and fireworks.
I believe that we are more mature than this and to truly celebrate the future of Australia, we must dig deeper.
There is an extraordinary amount to be proud of in these lands. Australia is home to the longest living culture in the world, while our lands and seas are as diverse as they are incredible.
We are known as ‘the lucky country’, perform well on internationally measured social indicators and consider ourselves to be a place of fairness, mateship and social equity. This is a part of who we are, but there are other parts to the story that are not as openly acknowledged.
This is not unusual. It has occurred in most colonial nations throughout the world. It’s simple human nature to want to highlight the good and to conceal the bad.
It is far easier to think of the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their parents as a distant event. It is far more comfortable to think of the 1905 Aborigines Act, which removed Aboriginal peoples’ autonomy over their own employment, property ownership, freedom of movement and association, finances and even marriage, as a well-intentioned but poorly implemented idea of some long-dead early settler.
Many find it both confronting and distressing to know this is not the case. The 1905 Act was only dismantled in the mid-1960s. Many of the missions where Stolen Generation children were taken remained operational for more than a decade after this.
We were not considered citizens of Australia until the late 1960s. Not 200 years ago, not even two generations ago. It is the lived experience of our parents.
I invite you to consider the possibilities of what may be.
How can we come together to honour and respect our full history while also celebrating our future in a way that is meaningful to all who call Australia home today?
As a country, we have many holidays of reverence and many others of celebration. Some we spend reflecting on the lessons of the past and honouring the blood, sweat and tears of those who came before us. Others are spent celebrating who we are and who we will become. These are not mutually exclusive – to do one does not cancel out the other. We are able to do both.
Who we are today is shaped by who we were yesterday. Likewise, who we are tomorrow is determined by the possibilities created today. As many local councils act to the Change the Date, I ask you to consider what it is that we are celebrating?
As time moves forwards, all things change. What it means to be Australian has evolved. So too can our national holidays.