Australia Day or Invasion Day?

Australia Day on January 26 is the national day of Australia and a big event in the country like national days elsewhere in the world. It is the largest celebration in the harbour district in downtown Sydney, accompanied by festivities in all other major cities as well as smaller towns.
A debate has been there for few decades over the Australia Day that is getting renewed every year. The increasingly fierce and popular debate is, however, not about celebration of the national day. The debate is about the specific date - January 26 - and how the date was put in the first place. On January 26 in 1778 the first fleet of Great Britain, the erstwhile coloniser of Australian continent, sailed into Sydney harbour. So, the date is recognised as the day when colonisation of Australia began.
Like some other countries of the world - Canada, New Zealand and United States being major examples - which came to be dominated by White European population, Australia is a prominent settler colonial country. From January 26, 1776 onwards, White European population settled in the Australian landmass under British colonial rule. If the subsequent history is any guide, the European colonisation of Australia only happened at the costs of large-scale population displacement, comprehensive economic dispossession and widespread atrocities suffered by the native population, now known as the Aboriginals. So, unlike the national days of America, France or Bangladesh, Australia Day does not carry any sense of freedom or liberation. It rather marks White European conquest and domination of historical Australia, the land defined by the English colonisers as Terra Nullius or nobody's land. Of course, the country was not of nobody but of the native Australians (or Aboriginals) who have been living here for 60,000-80,000 years. It is the colonial oppression that made themselves 'nobody' in their ancestral land.
That said, January 26 as Australia Day was not a matter of debate till a few decades earlier. Among the settler colonial countries, Australia has demonstrated much less sensitivity about historical wrongs and injustices done to the indigenous population. Until the late 1960s or more specifically until after the 1967 referendum, the aboriginal Australians did not have voting rights and were not even counted in the national census! It is still the only Commonwealth country that is yet to sign a treaty of reconciliation with its indigenous people despite the promise of that treaty being made 30 years ago by then Prime Minister Bob Hawke. New Zealand signed such a treaty in 1840, although it went to comprehensive enforcement only since 1975. Canada has so far signed hundreds of such treaties from 1701 onward culminating into the constitutional recognition of native people's rights in 1982. The Australian government's apology to the indigenous Australian population came out as late as 2008 during the labour government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. On the contrary, the New Zealand government has been issuing apologies, at least since the mid-1970s, for each act of suppression and dispossession of the native population by White settlers. Probably, the only other settler colonial country that fared equally or more badly than Australia in reconciling with the indigenous population is the United States.
Lo and behold, Australia has also evolved albeit in lesser pace in reconciling with past injustices. Above all, Australia is a liberal democratic polity where fundamental rights, rule of law, and freedom of thought and expression are sacrosanct. There has been increasing discussion and recognition about historical injustices to the Aboriginal population - especially in the academic and activist circles over the last 3-4 decades. In continuation, a growing minority have been questioning the legitimacy of January 26 as Australia Day. Almost a century ago, in 1938, the Aboriginals first celebrated January 26 as the Day of Mourning. In 1988, a large gathering of indigenous people and their non-indigenous supporters marked January 26 with a large protest gathering commemorating it as Invasion Day. Ever since, Australia Day celebrations every year are overshadowed by Invasion Day commemorations. This 26 January, when the current Australian PM Scott Morrison was invoking the memory of his fifth great grandfather in defence of the Australia Day at a citizenship ceremony in Canberra, about one hundred thousand people were commemorating Invasion Day in Melbourne through protest and memorial service. Invasion Day commemorations also accompanied Australia Day celebrations in other major cities: Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart and Perth.
The 'Change the Date' debate is also getting louder over the years giving steam to both supporters and detractors of January 26 as the national day. A handful of local councils have been trying to move their citizenship ceremonies (for new Australian citizens) - also held on January 26 - to another date in tacit recognition of the historical injustices suffered by indigenous Australians. A week ahead of this year's Australia Day, aboriginal television host Brooke Boney's emotional appeal went viral. She said, "I can't separate January 26 from the fact that my brothers are more likely to go to jail than school, or my little sisters or mum are more likely to be beaten and raped." "And that started from that day. So for me it's a difficult day and I don't want to celebrate it. But any other day of the year I'll tie an Australian flag around my neck and I'll run through the streets."
But the reactions to such demands for changing the date were restless and even arrogant. A group of conservative politicians have reacted strongly. They are led from the front by PM Morrison who said earlier this month, "I am not just going to not change it (the date), I'm going to ensure it doesn't get eroded." He also announced potential measures to ban local councils from holding citizenship ceremonies on any other day instead of January 26. Boney, simultaneously, received stream of criticism on social media for her decrying of January 26.
While the current PM may have resorted to harsher rhetoric and chest-thumping nationalism in his opposition to date change of Australia Day from January 26, he was no different from his predecessors. Even Kevin Rudd who issued government apology to the indigenous Australians during his prime ministership, stubbornly defended January 26 as the date of national day. At least on this issue, both the country's major political parties - Liberal and Labour - have had a consensus so far despite their continuous bickering over majority of national issues. Maybe, that is not surprising since majority Australians, who are predominantly descendants of White settlers from the British Isles and Western Europe, are still in favour of January 26 as the Australia Day.
Australia as a country and attitudes of average Australians are changing however. The country is more multi-ethnic than it was few decades ago and has become increasingly at ease with multiracialism. The debate over Australia Day is increasingly accepted and the demand for changing its date has moved towards mainstream. An opinion poll in 2017 found 54 per cent Australians to be in favour of keeping January 26 as Australia Day while only 26 per cent opposed. While still the majority are supporting January 26, they are the dwindling majority. Because, a similar survey in 2004 found 79 per cent favouring January 26, 15 per cent opposing and 6.0 per cent uncommitted. That time seems nearer when the Australia Day will be shifted to a more appropriate date, one that is widely accepted to all including the indigenous Australians and without the historical baggage of January 26.

The writer is a PhD Candidate, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University (Perth WA). [email protected]