*Map of Aboriginal Australia can be purchased here
We’ve established that genocide is not something to be celebrated, that housing insecurity sabotages our ability to function to our fullest potential & that generational trauma is passed on irrespective of physical changes; location, $, class, privilege etc.
& yet we still have space in Australian society for a national holiday that upholds these basic principals, & more. We’re still governed by that same violent mentality that sought to conquer, eliminate & deny the very existence of Aboriginal people, their cultures & spirituality, that lived on & with this land for thousands of years. Thousands.
One historical difference in the colonisation of Australia & Nth America is that the specifics of conflict, dispossession & betrayal were barely recorded in visual form in Australia. Where we can find photographs & sketches of the Civil War in the US, there is hardly any visual representation of the truth in Australia, & blatant fabrication of the truth in written form. This has contributed to problematic misconceptions that a) no one was here when Captain Cook arrived b) Aboriginal people did not fight back, unlike Maori people c) the British came in peace. .
Looking at this map v’s the British division (where someone got a ruler & divided it up into what we know as Australia today), is a good reminder for us white fellas that colonisation enforces straight lines, a strict rule of thumb via assimilation, & continual erasure. Straight lines don’t occur in nature. Decolonisation requires us to think beyond the rules & mentality we’ve been indoctrinated into, to listen & soften our edges.
Today & everyday I stand in solidarity with the traditional custodians of this land, & continue to seek understanding of the ways in which my presence, my whiteness, my ignorance continue to reinforce this violence.