Add some culture to your calendar!

(Our blak Queen is drawn by Krae Designs )

 

I would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples whose land I write on, and pay my respects to all Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander readers of this piece. My following perspectives are a product of the lessons taught to me by First Nations educators—the sovereigns of this land. 

I am a non-Indigenous Australian of mixed Melanesian and Jewish heritage. I am in the final year of studying a Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics with a minor in Indigenous studies at the Australian National University. These fields of study have encouraged me to scrutinise local and global inequalities. Alongside this, they have also endowed me a healthy dose of skepticism regarding Australia’s mainstream histories, heroes, and commemorations. 

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As the Queen’s birthday long weekend rears its head (bar for those of you in QLD and WA), you may be wondering why, 15,000km from Buckingham palace, Australia has gifted itself a day of rest for ol’ mate Elizabeth’s 95th birthday… which happened back in April. So happy 95.17th birthday to the Queen, I guess? Sure, we can be grateful for the day off and/or penalty rates, but given her last sighting on Australian soil happened in 1954, something about the holiday definitely feels, well, anachronistic. 

History is widely known to be written by the victors. Safe to say, the British monarchy has definitely had their fair share of victory. As a result, Commonwealth nations have forcibly inherited a mixed bag of colonial symbols, nomenclature, and public holidays. These serve as signals of Australia’s values; Christianity, as indicated by Christmas and Easter; Imperialism, as embodied by colonial memorials; and Labour culture, among others. In this, First Nations narratives are distinctly reinforced as secondary. This is not a concept many progressive Australians shy away from interrogating. We find ourselves in the midst of a years-long, international debate regarding colonial monuments and how to best confront them. In 2016, the University of Cape Town’s colossal statue of Cecil Rhodes was removed following the successful #Rhodesmustfall movement, led by Chumani Maxwele. As Australians caught wind of South Africa’s developments, murmurs for Sydney Hyde Park’s Captain Cook statue to face the same fate spread. And in 2020, after it was graffitied, the following embarrassing image surfaced. 

Source: Dominic Lorrimer, The Guardian

Not all will agree with my deeming this picture humiliating. I am sure some derive pride from viewing dozens of police officers protecting one statue. Perhaps these officers maintain a right to preserve monuments of this nature. However, given the public funds that finance their activities, the rest of us are entitled to question such a seemingly disproportionate allocation of resources. Personally, I dream of Cook’s statue toppling to make way for another icon of frontier conflict; Tarenorerer. Also known as Walyer, or more evocatively as the Tasmanian Amazon, Tarenorerer observed her British sealing abductors closely. She strategically learnt English and the ways of their foreign weaponry to later use against them. Tarenorerer led the first Aboriginal attack to employ muskets. For me, her name conjures up an image of a blak superhero, sharp-witted and empowered as she stands tall atop a Tasmanian mountain ledge (or a commemorative mound in Sydney’s Hyde Park!) Honestly? She’s the queen I’d like to be celebrating this June 14th. 

Venturing back to the present, nonetheless, Captain Cook’s statue remains. It is a constant reminder that the colonial project is ongoing. So are the colonial place names that stamp our streets, and, of course, our nation’s calendar. The fight to reject much of this is well underway. Public protest against the celebration of Australia Day dates back to 1938—the first Day of Mourning. Since then, demonstrations on the 26th of January (popularly referred to as ‘Invasion Day’ and ‘Survival Day’) have ballooned, engaging hundreds of thousands of participants nationwide in 2021. 

Yet, many of us non-Indigenous Australians are unaware of dates that hold significance to Indigenous Australia. The shift to pre-programmed calendar platforms hasn’t exactly helped. As a heavy reliant upon my laptop’s iCal, I can confirm that I receive plenty of notifications for dates I did not realise existed prior. You wouldn’t believe my surprise, having grown up in New South Wales, when I found out you Victorians have a day off of work to watch the footy. Skimming my iCal now, of these pre-input ‘Australian Holidays’, Indigenous-related dates are sparse. In fact, there is only one. Canberra, Ngunnawal Country, is alone in observing the Reconciliation Day public holiday. iCal, Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendars and those nostalgic paper diaries could all benefit from a serious upgrade. There are an abundance of dates to choose from; NAIDOC week, Sorry Day, Mabo Day, National Reconciliation Week. Beyond these, there are plenty that do not merely centre narratives of Indigenous struggle (although, of course, crucial to acknowledge). Google, Apple, Microsoft: please send through your alerts for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day, the Miss First Nation competition, and the Nanga Mai awards. It’s time to decolonise the calendar. 

It is difficult to challenge one-sided portrayals of history without viewing dominant narratives alongside others. For reconciliation to be achieved, significantly more attention must be paid to Indigenous narratives. This includes listening to the stories, celebrations and commemorations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Australians, and proudly valuing them as our nation’s own. Our Songlines has created the following calendar plugin to assist in this process. It holds a (non-exhaustive) database of dates that are of significance to an array of Australia’s Indigenous communities. If you are non-Indigenous, this is a fantastic (and simple) opportunity for you to reject the colonial calendar you were raised to blindly follow. 

I look forward to seeing you all at next year’s Our Survival Day event! 😉 

 

 

 

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For those looking for a more… ‘First Nations Australia’ focused calendar, you can view it here, or better yet, download a copy to view in your calendar settings here