26th of January: More Than Just A Day
As we all know, the 26th of January, nationally known as ‘Australia Day’, came around a few weeks ago. We much prefer referring to it as Invasion Day, simply because that title is far more accurate in terms of the events which occurred on that day back in 1788. Also because it reflects the generations of injustice and dispossession which have occurred since then, rather than the celebrations some associate with the title of Australia Day.
I’m sure most of you noticed plenty of instagram stories sharing similar explanations. We think it’s absolutely crucial that awareness be raised like this and are glad to see more education occurring surrounding the topic, however, we also worry that not enough real life action is taken beyond these posts to back up the social media noise. So, rather than sharing a few words on our instagram which may have been drowned out amongst the multitude of other stories, we’ve chosen to wait until it all settled down a bit and make a donation to the Ngukurr Art Centre instead.
Ngukurr Art Centre is a wonderful organisation in the remote Northern Territory community of Ngukurr. The centre brings together Indigenous artists of the Yugul Mangi clans to facilitate and share their work. Our editor, Matilda Reid, visited the centre herself and met a number of the artists in 2017. It was a remarkable experience for her and she feels strongly that NAC deserves all the support it can get, whether in the form of a donation, purchasing their artists work, or simply keeping up to date with their instagram.
A small donation to NAC, or any Indigenous foundation of your choice, would make a great start to further actively supporting change in Australian culture surrounding Indigenous justice acitvism. An extra bit of self-education is another simple step we could all take. Under the Quandong Tree is a good book for this, or you could watch Mabo on ABC iview. Both are super easy ways to start learning more about Indigenous Australia, which is something we can all do. It’s a positive next step from aforementioned instagram posts.
We are still working on this ourselves and are no experts at the right way to go about this, but we are trying, and that’s what counts. We will continue taking further steps to improve our support and understanding of Indigenous Australia and hope our readers do too.
