national day of conflict

[tielan]

We don't actually know whose land this is anymore. "Guringgai" is the ethnology that's recorded, but by the time anyone put it down on paper, the locals were long since dead or slaughtered.

Nevertheless, this land was never ceded, it was never sold. It remains Aboriginal land.

I do miss the BBQ parties on the 26th, though. It's a national public holiday so everyone's off, it's late in the summer right before school goes back, a great chance to unwind, catch up, sit down, relax with friends.

And yes, I still wish they'd change the date, or have a national ceremony of acknowledgement/mourning as we do on ANZAC Day. Sadly, neither seems likely in the atmosphere of "we personally have done nothing wrong" that permeates white Australian society regarding treatment of indigenous peoples, past and present.

Comments

[lytwriter]

And people ask why I get so upset that we still have Columbus Day here.

[ladyjax]

We have a few moments that recognize Indigenous peoples but not nearly enough and it's patchwork. In my area, we subbed Columbus Day for Indigenous Peoples Day. That would never fly in other parts of the country. Hell, it took I don't know how long to get Martin Luther King's birthday as a holiday.

[beatrice_otter]

I live on Chinook land. We know damn good and well because the Chinook (several different tribes of them) are still here. Problem is, they've never been recognized by the federal government, because while they signed a treaty with the US back in the late 19th Century (under the same sort of pressure the US put on pretty much every tribe to make "treaties" that let the US do what it wanted), the treaty was never actually ratified by the US. They've been trying to get federal recognition ever since, because not being recognized is the worst possible place to be. They get all of the penalties of being Native Americans without any of the protections (like being allowed to fish in their traditional manner, or having protections to keep any children of the tribe who go into foster care from being placed in non-Native families).