Today I’m doing something I should do every day, acknowledging the rightful custodians of this
Today I’m doing something I should do every day, acknowledging the rightful custodians of this land, the Dja Dja Warrung and Jaara people and their ancestors. Acknowledging that every piece of beauty here and every liberty I am afforded, has come at their cost and the cost of First Nation people all across this continent.Everything I have that I could give thanks for on this day, has been payed for with the price of human life.When I was a very young teenager and someone first told me celebrating on this day was wrong, I didn’t quite understand. We’re the ‘Lucky Country’ I thought. This country gave my family a second chance. An escape from war, from persecution. A place to settle and find work, a chance at the privileges we have today.I’d previously lived in a developing country and thought I should be thankful for everything people had here. Education, jobs, housing, health care and comparative political and civil stability.It wasn’t until I was older that I began to see that everything I could give thanks for was given to me because I was white. Everything I could give thanks for was something stolen from someone else.The opportunities and so called 'luck’ of Australia were only open to me as a white invader.The security afforded to my migrant grandparents and the life they built here came on the back of theft, torture, enslavement, rape and genocide.Not just of a country, but of a people, their land and their rich culture.January 26 is a day that marks nothing but the beginning of a centuries long suffering for the rightful owners of this nation.If you have to do anything today, make it count. Donate to charities that provide education, housing and health services to remote communities. Donate to women’s refuges, crisis housing, early education centres or just put down your fucking beer and take a few minutes (or all day, I don’t mind) to realise that everything you take for granted here, in this “lucky land” was forcibly taken from someone else.Then think about how you’d feel if the whole country took a day off, got stupid drunk and celebrated those sacred things being brutally and systematically stripped away from you. -- source link