Dr Tom Calma has urged Australians to consider what January 26 means for Indigenous Australians. Many Indigenous people choose to mourn or not celebrate Australia Day, preferring to call it Invasion Day or Survival Day. Some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are quite comfortable to use it as a day of celebration, said Dr Tom Calma.Others want to see it as a day of mourning, a day of sorrow, a day where we can help educate the rest of the community about us. According to the Kungarakan and Iwaidja man, Australia Day is an opportunity to learn about Australias pre-colonial history. Its not the birth of the nation, because the nation was well and truly here 40,000 to 60,000 years before Captain Cook proclaimed Australia as a colony of Britain. Australia, as a continent, was never ceded but it was actually forcefully taken through the doctrine of terra nullius. It meant that we as Aboriginal people couldnt exert our rights as the first peoples of this nation. Dr Calma, who is also the co-chair of Reconciliation Australia, says discrimination and racism began on January 26, 1788 and has continued to this day. Read More: sbs.au/news/article/2015/01/23/reflect-what-january-26-means-indigenous-aussies-calma
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 18:32:39 +0000
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