Australia Day is not a religious celebration, yet it may easily be compared to the ritual stages explicated in Turner and Turner's article. Turner and Turner describe the use of symbols as “the development of a ‘metalanguage' which enables participants and spectators to realize just how far they have fallen short of or transgressed their own ideal standards. In some kinds of ritual, to these ideals may be questioned, especially under conditions of sharp social change”. It is through the omission of the Aboriginal flag and the encouraged display of the Australian British flag that participants assess their progression. Though attempts have been made toward reconciliation between the two cultures, the pride in symbolic references, such as the flag or National Anthem (See Figure 4 ) suggests that small steps toward incorporating the Aboriginal culture have been avoided. Such displays of Anglo-Australian pride reinforce the value instituted in the ancestral European's ability to violently conquer and modernize a sovereign people.
In order to better comprehend the undertones of this commemorative celebration, one must learn the basics of Aboriginal culture in its own context, as well as past European values. The source of many Aboriginal beliefs originates from their religion, based on the concept of The Creation. The Creation was when the Aboriginal spiritual ancestors were formed. These great spirits rose from the plain in the form of animals and landscape features (Gibb 1974). Spirits were left behind to provide all the tools for living; amongst the “tools” were humans. Therefore, Aborigines are interrelated to one another, to nature, and to the heavens through this concept known as Dreamtime. Their religion is holistic in the sense that it often incorporates medicine men and sorcery.
Aborigines retained an extensive, observed understanding of nature which allowed them to hunt, garden, and adjust to the extreme conditions of the Australian climate. The Aborigines also placed a large emphasis on social interaction. The dense camps, occupied by members of closely-related local tribes, were described as noisy from laughing, gossiping, storytelling, and sounds of children playing (Gibb 1974). Aboriginal culture used violence in male rites of passage, in warfare, and in infanticide (in cases of drought and lack of food); dissimilar to the way Europeans had originally introduced them to the concept.
In 1788, Captain Phillip and his 1200 men, women, and children arrived in Australia . According to the Minority Rights Group Report, “the Explanation for their move was that Britain , having lost its 13 colonies wanted a place to dump convicts, but there may also have been commercial reasons”. Along with the fleet of convicts, the Westerners also brought disease, weaponry, and the desire to acquire land, resources, and people through colonization (NADC- NSW).
In Beckett's article “Walter Newton's History of the World- or Australia ”, he quotes Gerald Sider, stating that “colonizers are caught between the impossibility and the necessity of treating the other as the other…and incorporating the other within a single social and cultural system of domination.” Aborigines did not understand the concept of land possession. They did not consider the land theirs; rather it was passed on and entrusted to them by the spirits. Without the understanding of the colonizer's motives and modern weaponry, the Aborigines were defenseless. As a result, nearly all the Aborigines were violently killed in frontier conflicts and massacres (Minority Rights Group, 1988). The few remaining survivors were enslaved or neglected.
After two hundred years of passive surrender, the Aborigines began to demand political and economical status (Minority Rights Group, 1988). Today, advancements have been made to improve housing projects, health conditions, employment, social welfare, and involvement in government. However, the Aborigines are still immensely disadvantaged in comparison to white Australians (Minority Rights Group, 1988).
As stated by the Australia Day Council of New South Whales, “it is those that inherit the past that are left to deal with its consequences”. Descendants of Aborigines are still facing injustice, though legally they obtain equality. Based on the color of their skin, they are more prone to discrimination from fellow citizens as well as police officials. The Minority Rights Group gives evidence that “from 1980 to 1988 over 100 young Aboriginal men died while in police custody.” To white Australians, the suffrage ended long ago, but to the modern Aborigine survivors, the struggle to gain rights to their land, culture, and lives still continues.
Australia Day may not directly enhance the protection and reconciliation efforts, but the attention it brings serves as a medium for those who wish to be heard. The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, beginning in 1991, was allotted ten years to assert and apply their position (known as the formal reconciliation process) (Brennan, 2004). Many questioned their intent, and whether their ultimate goal was realistic. One of the most successful acts of reconciliation utilized the Australia Day celebrations. In 2000, a quarter million people- both non-indigenous and Aboriginal- marched across the Sydney Harbor Bridge to promote reconciliation (Brennan, 2004).Another 250,000 people did the same in their local communities, both during and after the Sydney march. Though some continued to question the effectiveness of this event, Brennan, author of “Reconciliation in Australia: The Relationship Between Indigenous People and the Wider Community”, concludes that “as a political concept, reconciliation may have had fuzzy edges and an ambiguous relationship to the tougher political issues of the day; however, it also had the potential to mobilize a hundreds of thousands of people”.
Optimists may apply Turner and Turner's explanation that “by performing rituals in full-view societies renew themselves at the source of joy, having purified themselves through collective self-criticism ad reflexivity”. Additionally, Rodriquez states that celebration “enacts collective and individual identities while staging a moment of communitas…the invented tradition expresses resistance as well as accommodation to the conditions and structures of power within which the celebration takes place and constructs meaning”. In summary, the gathering and festivals associated with Australia Day, and extensive media coverage present it as not only and opportunity for Aboriginals to be acknowledged, but also as an item to question.