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Why some Australians want to move their controversial national day


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A woman attends a march to protest for aboriginal rights on November 14, 2014.

Australia's national day, held on January 26 every year, isn't all beer and barbeques.

While many see it as a day to celebrate the Australian lifestyle, for others it's a painful reminder of death, disease, and cultures now lost forever.
Australia Day marks the arrival of the First Fleet into Sydney Cove in 1788, a date which is mourned by many indigenous people.
"We see it as Invasion Day," Warren Mundine, chairman of the Australian Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council, told CNN.
Tens of thousands of indigenous people were killed during the colonization of Australia, both deliberately and through disease and starvation. The British considered the continent to be "terra nullius" or "nobody's land," despite the estimated 750,000 to 1 million indigenous people living there at the time.
"The 26th of January is the day that the British came to invade, which led to massacres, the loss of land and the destruction of Aboriginal societies," Mundine said.
"We see that as a bad date and we'd like to see another day selected."

Revellers celebrate Australia Day in Melbourne in 2014.

Australia is one of very few former British territories to mark the date of colonization as a national day of celebration.
Originally commemorated only in Sydney, Australia Day is now celebrated nationally and has become increasingly patriotic in recent years, Australian National University professor Frank Bongiorno told CNN.
"People wear flags or paint them on their faces in a way which was probably less common 20 or 30-years ago," he said.
As nationalism has increased, so has the opposition -- in 2016, hundreds of people marched in regional capitals across the country, waving Aboriginal flags and banners with slogans such as "National day of mourning."
According to a January survey by Essential Media, Australia Day is a "day of national pride" for 60% of those surveyed while 19% either think it is a day of reflection or irrelevant in the 21st century.
"It is a bit of an uncomfortable day because it does bring up divisions within the community," Mundine said.
"(Indigenous Australians) do want to have a day of celebration, we do want an Australia Day to be celebratory, the only problem is that the 26th January is about division."

 

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