Published 26 January 202217 March 2022 · Aboriginal Australia / Invasion Day We’re not publishing today Evelyn Araluen Dear Overland family, I write in honour and respect for the 700+ First Nations language groups of so-called-Australia, for the ancestors who have cared for this land since time immemorial, and for the custodians who continue to protect the sovereignty of their lands and waters. I write in honour and respect for my ancestors, family and countrypeople. Invasion Day is not a day to celebrate. It is not a day to profit from dispossession and genocide. It is not a day to debate the humanity of vulnerable and marginalised people. It is also not a day to make demands on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to endlessly repeat arguments for our own humanity. As a publisher I am acutely aware of the cost of this intellectual and political labour on Blak people. It is draining to walk in the shadow of a violent history in which every right wrestled back from the colony has been paid for a hundred times over with our blood. What has historically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people been a day of protest, mourning and reverence for our own survival is being coopted by popular discourse and performative activism. Settler allies can buy overpriced tee shirts our people can’t afford, make social media posts to impress their mates, and replace the beachside BBQ with rallies crowding our people to the back of the march at no real material cost to themselves. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are endlessly called upon to rearticulate our suffering and need for community-specific resources to close ever-widening gaps, and in return we are told to be grateful for symbolic campaigns to incrementally rearrange the oppressions of the colony. So today we’re not making those demands on our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contributors to repeat and repeat and repeat their resistance. Today we’re providing information on First Nations led campaigns, donation drives and educational resources on the true history of Blak struggle and survivial. In solidarity and power. Bugalwan to Blakfullas only today. Pay The Rent Path to Equality: extensive links to donation drives, petitions, organisations, artists and education resources Dhadjowa Foundation: Stop Black Deaths in Custody Fundraiser to restore footage from NINGLA-ANA Hungry For Our Land film Survival Guide: a podcast series centring Indigenous voices amongst multicultural Waterloo residents to critique colonisation and gentrification, by Lorna Munro and Joel Sherwood Spring. Frontier War Stories: a podcast dedicated to truth-telling about a side of Australian that has been left out of the history books. Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service Invasion Day Webinar BlackWords: archive of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writing and storytelling IndigenousX: a 100% Indigenous owned and operated media, consultancy, and training organisation Barry Corr on Invasion Day Lorna Munro on healing and resistence Dakota Feirer on healing country Evelyn Araluen Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, researcher and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Her Stella-prize winning poetry collection DROPBEAR was published by UQP in 2021. She lectures in Literature and Creative Writing at Deakin University. More by Evelyn Araluen › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 30 October 202330 October 2023 · Politics The lost Commonwealth Barry Corr Constitutional change is dead in the water. The Referendum has exposed the divides within our society, and the result demonstrates to the world Australia’s unconsciousness of its human rights failures. Sixty per cent of Australian voters have, consciously or unconsciously, determined that ‘bipartisanship’ lies somewhere between erasure and assimilation. 4 2 October 20233 October 2023 · Aboriginal Australia The use and abuse of History in the Voice referendum debate: an interview with Professor Gary Foley Gary Foley and Padraic Gibson I can see the failure of the referendum making a whole lot of Blackfellas sit up and think and realise again, what we realised back in ’67, that our best efforts to achieve our aims are always at our own behest, under our own control. A whole new generation of Black activists deciding hang on, to hell with the rest of them, let’s just focus on our own communities and start building up the strength of our own communities.
