Thread by @FlickReynolds

#InvasionDay - a thread about Australia Day
1/8 For those who still think British ‘colonisation’ of Australia wasn’t that bad & celebrating the arrival of the First Fleet on 26 January 1788 is fine...here is an article from the Coburg Leader of 1893....

2/8 This is a real newspaper article from 128 years ago which is describing in graphic & appalling detail.....genocide. I apologise if this is upsetting reading (because it certainly is), but it’s really clear that.......

3/8....too many Australians of European heritage are completely ignorant about what really happened. How their & my own forebears took this land and systematically displaced & destroyed First Nations people. Read this & know this. Face this.

4/8 Because continuing to have a national celebration on 26 January is not only insensitive, it is an ongoing insult to the First Nations people of this land. If you think it’s no big deal, it’s just a date....you do not know the history of the place you now inhabit.

5/8 I will be posting other appalling articles from Australian newspapers of the 1800s/1900s on this thread because, frankly, they’re not hard to find. The superiority, the casual murder of human beings, of families, of culture. Followed by the deliberate ‘forgetting’ & the lies.

6/8 This isn’t about ‘black armband’ history...this is about history. Look at it. Know what has happened...what is happening. The 26th January will always be the anniversary the First Fleet arrived here...not having a national celebration on that date will not change that fact...

7/8 But it may help us towards some better understanding, some unity, some form of reconciliation. Though, I am unsure if those of us here in Australia who’s forebears were complicit in genocide are yet deserving of any form of forgiveness. We need to do much more. #InvasionDay

8/8 I only aim to add my voice to existing awareness raising about the real post 1788 history of this land. I’m a white Aussie, whose British forbears came here in 1851 & who was never taught our genocidal history.

Always was, always will be. #FirstNations

Addition to thread: Here’s more genocide......from the newspaper, The Australasian, November 1928. #InvasionDay

Addition to thread: Just so we’re all very clear that the injustice & horror isn’t all from very old newspapers. This is much more recent. 30 years ago & here we are still.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Com…

Addition to thread: From an article in the Sydney Morning Herald December 1910. It’s remarkable how unremarkably they report on this mass murder. #InvasionDay #genocide

Addition to thread: this piece from the Brisbane Courier in 1918 is appalling by omission. When a cyclone hit this (forced) settlement only the white folks deaths appear to have been deemed newsworthy. It’s estimated that about 100 aboriginal people were also killed. No mention.