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March 21st 1960, police in the town of Sharpeville, South Africa opened fire on a swarm of Blacks peacefully protesting for the abolition of South Africa’s pass laws. Of the 249 who fell victim to the sub-machine guns, 69 were killed – some shot in the back as they fled – 180 injured, women and children included.
6 years later the United Nations declared the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre, March 21st, as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IDERD). Globally, this is treated as a day of commemoration and mourning for the lives lost fighting for basic human rights under a doctrine of egalitarianism – but in Australia, we do things a bit differently.
In 1999, Australia was strayed from the rest of the world, when the Howard government renamed March 21st from the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to ‘Harmony Day’. Aligning with the then-prime minister John Howard’s personal belief that racism was not an inherent problem in Australia.
As a result, to this day Australians partake in a week-long celebration of our unified multicultural society, known as ‘Harmony Week. Whilst multiculturalism is a crux of modern Australian society and well and truly worth celebrating, these celebrations solidify Howard’s antiquated pretence that our society is one without the need to actively combat racism.
Australia’s National Close the Gap Day also falls on the 21st of March, and yet again whilst the national agreement has bettered the lives of many First Nations people (which should be celebrated), a vast portion still live starved of opportunity, with limited access to adequate education, far worse predicted health outcomes, lower employability, greater chances of becoming incarcerated and generally poorer quality of life.
Deeper and deeper the need for systemic change within our country is buried below positive, flashy, colourful, government campaigns and celebration, forgetting the progress, which is blatantly necessary but, yet to be made.
As a proud, young, female, Aboriginal Australian who received a generous scholarship for my education at an all-girls private boarding school and now studies at one of Australia’s most prestigious universities, I never have to worry about affording this month’s prescriptions or doctor appointments. As someone who won’t ever be without a job because of my education and connections, residing at one of the most well-respected residential colleges in the country, I may not fit the image you picture when you think of a member of such a minority group which these poor expected life indicators.
But there are many First Nations Australians not as privileged as me.
Only a few months ago I returned home to Moree on holiday to my job serving local customers their morning coffee. The night before a gang of unidentified youths had broken into a family home, harassed residents, stole their car, sped away and burnt it out. A customer, completely unsuspecting of me with my fair complexion, blonde hair and blue eyes, completes his order and says, ‘I wonder which group of the Aborigine kids it was last night’.
But we call it Harmony Day.
Alongside other proud fair skinned First Nations Australians I am constantly questioned. I hear of people saying, ‘She doesn’t really deserve that scholarship…I wonder what per cent she is?’. I am treated differently from my dark-skinned counterparts like my dad, because some Australians are too stubborn to believe that people who look like me can also be Aboriginal.
But we call it Harmony Day.
In October of last year, my diabetic cousin nearly had his foot amputated from associated complications. After returning home from surgery in Newcastle, in extreme pain, he was refused treatment by local doctors and nurses as the hospital was understaffed and ‘out of betadine’.
But we call it Harmony Day.
I believe I am doing my bit towards reconciliation, closing the gap, and eliminating racial discrimination – but I am only one person. We have a long way to go towards reaching equitable outcomes on racial grounds and hiding behind the ‘harmonious’ beliefs preached by an ex-prime minister 17 years ago is simply not good enough.
I hope that together, Australian communities can admit our imperfections and strive to celebrate a unified multicultural society committed to real tangible change.
After all, racial discrimination has not been eliminated, so why hide behind harmony?