January 26th: Australia Day or Invasion Day?

January 26th.

What does this day mean to Australia?    

To us non-Indigenous Australians, it's a national day of celebration, recognized nationwide for people to celebrate our great country together. Other countries have their own national day, like the Americans have the 4th of July, but you have to agree, nothing is quite like Australia Day. When else do you get a public holiday where at least half of Australia gets wasted? But is this all that it means, just a day of booze and food? That in our short 123 year history, we've been the most perfect and best country in the entire world?

To the Indigenous Australians, who were here in this continent for much, much longer than us; Australia is just a blip in their history, a short 123 year period in their over 60,000 year long history. Even though our country only represents 0.2% of their history, it's easily the most painful stain on their culture For them, January 26th is Invasion Day, when the British came to Australia and decimated their people, their history, and their culture. Australia has supposedly become more modern as we become more inclusive and diverse, but we're also quick to forget that it was only a little over 70 years ago that Indigenous Australians were allowed to become citizens of their own country. Think about that. Elvis Presley had just started to make music when Indigenous Australians had begun to be thought of as people who could hold citizenship. We as a nation have forgotten what really happened on Australia Day and the lasting impacts on our First Nation's people. Like look at this guy...🤦‍♂️

That's why the work of Samuel Wagan Watson is so important for Australia. His poem "cheap-white goods at the dreamtime sale" in his anthology of poem, "Smoke Encrypted Whispers" reminds Australia of its' violent colonial past, that whilst Australia Day is just a carefree day for us, it's a dark reminder to the Indigenous people of what was lost, an annual day of humiliation. 

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Cultural exploitation and consumerism

Samuel Wagan Watson explores the colonial scars which still harm Aboriginal communities as he explains that Australians have commodified his culture. Even the poem's title itself, "cheap white-goods at the dreamtime sale" explores how his "dreamtime" has been made into a "sale" of these "cheap white-goods". These "cheap white-goods" refers to the random worthless electric appliances you use at home like all the old fridges that are barely working. Yet it's juxtaposed against the sacred and historically rich concept of the "dreamtime", the creation story of Aboriginal culture. Watson explains that mainstream Australian culture (i.e. the media and the government programs like reconciliation) has placed these two concepts at the same level, that they are both equally important and trivialized, and from our perspective, we assign equal value to the "cheap", mass produced and disposable "white goods" as we do to the "dreamtime", a rich representation of Aboriginal culture. Wagan Watson explains that Australia has exploited his culture, has quite literally made it into a "sale" of not anything culturally significant nor important but rather artefacts of Western consumerism, the "cheap-white goods". We have consumed his culture and will eventually dispose of it, treading the oldest human civilization like it's nothing more but an economic commodity, a common household appliance.  

He continues to drive the loss of his culture due to the greed of ours. He describes that Aboriginal traditions has fallen "under the arms of the neon goddess", a stark symbol for the materialist West and also "under the hammer in London", signifying its' status as something that can be bought and sold. Samuel Wagan Watson depicts modernity as creating a deity of sorts, a "goddess" (not the Wonder Woman kind), out of the allure for modernity and consumerism which is encapsulated within the "neon" lights that are associated with the urban environment and commercialization. This "neon goddess" is a metaphorical description of the materialism prevalent in modernity - forces which have historically imposed themselves on Aboriginal culture and further I find it interesting that he brings up some spiritual terminology. His culture's gods and goddesses involve nature, holistically connecting them to it as he mentions the "dreamtime". This is contrasted to how Australia has created their own goddess from the depths of their greed, a "neon goddess", bright and flashy, and wholly distant from us, providing us no benefit apart from consumption. By placing these Indigenous artefacts "under the arms" of this "neon goddess", Samuel Wagan Watson suggests a subjugation of Indigenous heritage to these external and materialistic forces. The "hammer in London" also refers to the auctioning of these artefacts highlighting the detachment from its' cultural context as now it's placed "under" the "hammer" exemplifying its' commodification where it's now an economic good, something to be bought and traded with. Also interesting to note is the sheer quantity of traditional items that are held overseas, either stolen or auctioned off to museums with "6000 Aboriginal artefacts in the British Museum"" which really displays the proportion of Aboriginal culture that has been trivialized to something to be ogled at in a museum, a good to just look at it, lacking all cultural value. 

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Loss of Authenticity and Identity in Indigenous culture

Totems are a really important part of Aboriginal culture, which "define people's roles and responsibilities and their relationships with each other and creation". 

Yet Samuel Wagan Watson metaphorically describes that these "totems", the physical representations of Aboriginal spirituality and religious practices that constitute their identity, as "comatose", 
conjuring a state of unconsciousness or dormancy. Wagan Watson conveys that there is a lack of vitality and life force in these "totems", suggesting that they have lost their significance and authenticity. Furthermore, it depicts the disarray in the cultural elements as they are described as "litter", highlighting the little worth assigned to these traditional artefacts as well as highlighting the fragmented and scattered Aboriginal culture which has been reduced to mere debris having lost its' vivacity. 

He then (very clearly in my opinion) explains that the "bargains" and "half-truths" given to his people from reconciliation efforts for example have caused the culture to "simmer over authenticity". He demonstrates that all the talk of reconciliation and supposed attempts at reparations to reverse the effects of colonization have been for naught, that the efforts themselves are inauthentic but also results in the culture that it's trying to "help", lacking "authenticity" but rather rather always hovering and "simmering over" it.

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I don't want to end on a bitter note though. Australia is still a great country and we've come a long way but still, we can never forget what happened for Australia to form. Instead of inauthentically engaging with the Aboriginal culture like the people who commodify it, we should strive to understand and learn about their history and the ongoing impact of colonization. Wagan Watson points out how Australia has seemed to forget how just a little over 200 years ago, we changed his people forever and colonized their home. We truly can never forget what we took from them and the impact that our violent past still has on them.