January 26th and the Future of Australia

January 26th is celebrated as Australia day, a national holiday at the tail end of the holiday season, a day to get together with friends over a BBQ or a day at the beach. For those outside of Australia, January 26th 1788 marked the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships at Port Jackson, New South Wales, the beginnings of English colonization.

For aboriginals the day is known as “Invasion Day” (or more derogatively as “Nazi Christmas”), as the day marks the beginning of colonisation, when aboriginals would begin a 200 year period of dispossession from their lands, suffer mass killings, and come to be regarded as inferior forms of life and culture that were not-quite-fully-human. And the official policy imposed of Terra Nullius, whereby indigenous people were given no status, was the precursor to genocide - without any status as a human, colonists acted with impunity. January 26th thus represents this, as well as the stolen generation policies from 1910 to 1970, children forcibly taken from their parents and put into institutional settings, forced adoptions and many instances of abuse. It continues to represent the lopsided power relationship aboriginals have with the government and large-scale mining interests that perpetuate new forms of neo-colonialism and de-facto invasion.

Aboriginal activists have been clear that this day is a completely inappropriate day to celebrate the nation, if it is to be a day of national unity. How can a day of national unity be a day of conquest and celebration for one group and a day of loss and grief for the other? Many have quite rightly argued that Australia should pick another day that indigenous people can celebrate, together with non-indigenous - a day that can be mutually celebrated. Several local councils in Melbourne have already opted to stop celebrating Australia day. It still amazes me that many in Australia do not seem to understand that celebrating this day is salt in the wound to aboriginal people. One the one hand there seems to be a widespread lack of understanding in Australia about the controversy over January 26th. One the other hand, there are those conservatives who vehemently come to the defence of Australia Day. Such is the pathos that the prime minister and his government went so far as to strip several local councils that voted to do away with Australia Day celebrations of their ability to conduct citizenship ceremonies.

In the US there is a similar controversy with Colombus day. For many years Columbus day has been celebrated, but as well it is contested by Native Americans as a day of tragedy. Columbus day is still a federal holiday in the US and celebrated in many states. According to Howard Zinn and other historians, Columbus’ trips to the Bahamas, Caribbean and especially Hispaniola began the tragic dispossession and genocide of Native American peoples. While Columbus is celebrated as a discoverer, it is common historical knowledge that he was active in the forced enslavement and killing of indigenous people, as well as their deportation back to Spain. He instigated the almost total depopulation of natives in Hispaniola, estimated at over a quarter of a million people. Over a roughly 50 year period (from 1492 to 1548) the local population went from approx. 300,000 to 500. 

As a Mexican growing up in the US I was acutely aware that different narratives of history were butting up against each other. I grew up with two versions of history. In one version (high school text books) the US spread civilization to N. America and democracy to the world. In the other the US perpetuated genocide across N. America and practiced neo-colonialism globally. The reason for the dual narrative is that Mexicans themselves are, except for the most cloistered criollos, mostly mestizo, meaning mixed. We are hybrids. This can vary from people who are mostly European with a bit of indigenous, to those who are mostly indigenous genetically with some European, and everything in between. It is considered common sense by Mexicans that almost all mexicans are mestizo, or as Octavio Paz famously said, “Somos hijos de la chingada”, meaning we are the “sons of the fucked”, the offspring of the rape of Mexico by the conquistadors. In my family, the genetic tests say that we are approximately 30% indigenous, 65% European and 5% sub-saharan African. 

Despite the obviousness of Mexicans as mestizo, growing up in LA I heard many of my Mexican classmates deny they were Mexican and instead refer to themselves as Spanish. Even as an 11 year old this struck me as odd and it would take me a few years to understand what was actually going on. In effect there was a sense of shame associated with being Mexican, but where did this come from? Well Mexicans were looked down upon in the US when I was growing up. But why try to associate with being Spanish? In retrospect it came from being indigenous, and the image of self, the humiliation associated with living in a country where white supremacy is an official way of thinking. Because of this I am very sensitive to culture-on-culture violence in its many forms. 

The issues that indigenous people face in Australia and elsewhere have everything to do with white supremacy. White supremacy was the way in which Europeans allowed themselves to see themselves as superior, and other non-westerners as inferior. It is a theme that goes back to the Spanish conquest of the Americas, in which non-Christians were seen as heathen. It was structured into a social science through anthropology, which in its early days created classifications of people, from a more evolved human to less evolved human. Through popular thinkers like Herbert Spencer, white supremacy was mobilised as a political economic program, whereby Europe should govern and exploit inferior nations.

What does the genocide in the Americas (estimated at 80-90 million people), the genocide of Australian aboriginals, the enslavement of Africans and the Nazi holocaust all have in common? They were all to a lesser or greater degrees a product of the worldview of white supremacy. But it was only with this last event, the holocaust, that the world ultimately saw the horrific culmination of the racism of white superiority, its conclusion. From this point on white supremacy was officially discredited.

And yet in this issue over January 26th in Australia it seems to live on. In general the problem in Australia is that people have an image of their country as progressive, multicultural and open. While this is true in some-to-many aspects (depending on the context), the problem is that when this image of Australia is challenged, one can hear a pin drop in the room as the room goes quiet. An incredible feeling of discomfort permeates and one can hear people saying in their head: “mate… why’d you have to fucking ruin a perfectly good occasion”. This is because the core narrative people tell themselves about Australian culture is being fundamentally challenged.

To make conversation uncomfortable, and to freeze people out who make uncomfortable statements is to enforce a taboo on a subject, whether this is conscious or not. Mainstream Australia enforces a taboo on talking about January 26th. The force of the taboo on discussing this has kept this issue from being discussed more openly for decades. Now however it is emerging into the mainstream as commentators and others openly acknowledge their sentiments.

The future of Australia hinges on whether Australia can have a conversation about this, rather than enforce a taboo on it, and also whether Australia sticks with the 26th or moves it to another better date. January 26th in its uncritical celebratory manifestation simply represents European colonisation as unproblematically good. It expresses a “problem, what problem?” blindness to those who are clearly saying that this date of celebration is hurtful. It makes discussing the issue a taboo - as soon as one raises it they get frozen out. Moreover a view that does know about the harms perpetrated against aboriginals but still insists on a January 26th Australia day, in my opinion, represents a future that celebrates white supremacy - it is quite simply racist. In this vision superior Euro-australia has nothing to learn from aboriginal Australia. It does not acknowledge the real pain that was caused and is still caused, it still denies what is real. While it is no longer terra nullius, it is another form of violence, emovere nullia (your emotions do not exist). It is a vision that cannot lead to integration, as Euro-Australia continues its steamroller like one-culture-on-top-of-the-other behaviour. It sends a message to everyone that it is okay to actively deny the feelings and experiences of other cultural groups, a national recipe for emotional violence and social fragmentation. 

The alternative is all about listening and the capacity for dialog. Can conservative and mainstream Euro-Australians learn to listen to and empathize with what indigenous people are saying? This would be a leap of monumental courage. Hearts would break open as we experience and feel the lives of others. The patronage relationship would be transformed, Euro-Australia does have much to learn from Aboriginal Australia. It is a path to healing. And this not just about one-way listening. Through a dialog another date can be discussed. What are the values and principles that the various groups want to affirm together? What is a date that reflects these mutually agreed values, ways of knowing? Or perhaps several dates can be used that pluralises the narratives and that allow for a broader tapestry of shared but divergent meanings. In my opinion the soul and the future of Australia rests on these questions. Rather than a peripheral issue, the path taken here will shape every other aspect of life in the country into the future.