BLOG #7: January 2021
One year ago I posted BIG TROUBLE WITH AUSTRALIA DAY on social media. During this time the debate about shifting the date from 26th January continues. Our alleged PM gave a big bugger off to anyone within sniffing distance of a black lives matter heart and pronounced in his best Scotty from marketing voice : "You know, when those 12 ships turned up in Sydney, all those years ago, it wasn't a particularly flash day for the people on those vessels either."
Well bugger me Scotty mate, it hasn't been "a particularly flash day" for first Australians ever since.
History has a habit of weaving faction and fiction into a taught myth. From Australia Day to Anzac Day our myth-making, flag waving, icon shaping national celebrations have been a finely honed product of a distorted imagination - fed by the DNA of colonisation, racism, and the exoteric disease of Christian self-entitlement.
The 26th of January is not the day to celebrate Australia Day. This was the day Arthur Phillip planted the flag of dispossession. For first Australians it marks Invasion Day. By all means let's have an Australia Day that brings all of us together but not an Australia day underpinned by over two hundred years of segregation, separation and genocide.
THE BIG TROUBLE VIDEO
"Big Trouble" is my take on the 26th January 1788. The music was written and arranged by Phil Rigger with a special thanks to Bruce Carr for his inspired didge playing.
TERRY McARTHUR - Spoken Word PHIL RIGGER - Keys, Vocals RAMSAY McINNES - Guitar GEOFF INNES- Trumpet NATHAN HANDLEY - Snare Drum, Percussion
The video was shot by Brandon Batton at Art Equity, Sydney .
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