Nothing to celebrate

While most Australians fire up the barbecue and crack open beers to celebrate national day on Friday, Robbie Thorpe will be marching in the shadow of Victoria's state parliament.

Like many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, he doesn't see anything to cheer on Australia Day, which marks the arrival of the First Fleet in 1778 to establish a British penal colony.

For him, January 26 is "Invasion Day", a reminder of the dispossession, violence, and loss that colonisation inflicted on the continent's first peoples. As far as the veteran indigenous activist is concerned, it's a day for mourning, solemn reflection, and resistance.

"Colonialism is a disease and this country has got a mental health problem known as denial of their genocidal acts," says Thorpe, who will march in Melbourne's annual Invasion Day rally aimed at changing the date of the national holiday.

"If it wasn't for their acts of terror and their policy of genocide, Australia wouldn't exist."

'Want for nothing'

More than simply symbolising a painful history, January 26 serves as a reminder to many of how Aboriginals remain marginalised to this day. Almost 250 years after European settlement, indigenous Australians on average die a decade earlier than the general population and have access to two-thirds the amount of disposable income.

"People don't realise how peaceful and how beautiful this country was when they arrived here," says Thorpe, who hosts a programme on indigenous affairs on community radio. "We had want for nothing."

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, who make up just three percent of the population, have organised en masse against Australia Day since at least 1938, when campaigner William Cooper held the first "Day of Mourning" in downtown Sydney.

More recently, though, the effort to change the date has gained momentum as an increasing number of white and other non-indigenous Australians have become attuned to the sensitivities around the date.

Earlier this month, the leader of the left-leaning Australian Greens, the third force in the country's politics, said moving Australia Day would be among the party's priorities in the coming year.

Richard Di Natale, the son of Italian immigrants, cited growing awareness, particularly among young people, that the day represented "hurt and suffering" for Aboriginal people.

In November, Triple J, a youth-orientated public radio station, announced it would move its popular annual music countdown from January 26 to the following day, pointing to the controversy around the date.

Reproduced from Al Jazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/01/australia-national-day-fuels-debate-colonial-180124153019791.html

Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)

Falklanders are not a commodity  

Mike Summers
Chair of the Legislative Assembly of the Falkland Islands

"We are not a commodity to be traded between two nations; we are a people, we have a home, and we have the universally-recognised human right to determine our own political future. Any decision about the sovereignty of the Islands absolutely must include Falkland Islanders. Anything else smacks of a return to colonialism. The 2013 Referendum made it very clear that the people of the Falkland Islands value their relationship with the UK, and wish to retain it for the foreseeable future.

The United Nations Charter enshrines the right for all peoples to choose their future and their allegiance, so instead of looking at the Islands through the prism of Argentina vs England, and colonialism vs modernity, it is time to recognise the so-called ‘Falklands Question’ for what it truly is – a question of basic human rights.   A question of allowing the people who have lived and worked in these Islands for nine generations to choose their futures. A question of listening to the people whose voices surely must resonate loudest. If these press reports are accurate, thirty-five years on Argentina has run out of fresh ideas and, rather than focussing on the core issue at the heart of the question, it is going over old ground, just hoping for change. As Benjamin Franklin purportedly said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome.”

(*) The Honourable Mike Summers, OBE
Chair of the Legislative Assembly of the Falkland Islands
9th February 2016