Change the Date: Celebrating the Resilience of First Nations Australians

While for many January 26th is a day of family celebrations, beach cricket and barbecues, for the nearly 800,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians it can be a day of overwhelming sadness, frustration, and a reminder of the generational trauma experienced by First Nations people.

January 26, 1788, Captain Cook arrived in Sydney Harbour aboard the first English fleet, bringing with him centuries of mistreatment and oppression that saw nearly 403 massacres of over 10,000 Indigenous Australians in what was known as the Frontier Wars. This bloody and brutal genocide has defined the arguments that support changing Australia Day to Invasion day (or Survival day) for decades. And rightfully so; these horrific events institutionalised systemic racism and prejudice into Australian courts, parliaments and police academies. They have led to injustices and oppressive inequalities in education, healthcare and employment.

However, there is still another rarely considered argument in this debate: if we are to truly recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty, we must look beyond the events of the past few centuries and acknowledge the phenomenal strength, ingenuity and resilience of the oldest surviving culture on earth. Exclusively defining Australian History from 1788 to the present day makes us no better than the first white invaders who tried so hard to suppress and anglicise the cultural identity of Indigenous Australia. To quote Trials, a Ngarrindjeri musician from A.B. Original, “If a holiday that started 80 years ago is more important than acknowledging and respecting the people that were here over 60,000 years ago and their position on it, then we’ve still got a long way to go.”

The Change the Date protests are more than just efforts to acknowledge the oppression, dispossession, and genocide of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, although this is a vital movement towards justice. They are also about celebrating the strength, resilience and survival of First Nations people, and building a future of acknowledgement, learning and reconciliation. Changing the date is only the first step.