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TEHRAN, Jan 26 - Tens of thousands of people rallied across Australia on Saturday calling for the abolition of the Jan. 26 national holiday in protests showing a deep division over a festivity intended to celebrate the birth of modern Australia.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - While Australia Day marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the “First Fleet” of British ships at Sydney Cove, many indigenous Australians, who trace their lineage on the continent back 50,000 years, regard it as “Invasion Day”.
At a rally in Sydney stretched along more than half a dozen of city blocks, about 5,000 protesters chanted, “Always was and always will be aboriginal land” and “No pride in genocide.” Protests attended by several thousand people took place in Melbourne, Canberra and other Australian cities.
Attending official celebrations and a citizenship ceremony in Canberra, Morrison said it is idealism and enlightenment, not cruelty and dispossession that have prevailed in the country.
“These great ideas are the foundation of our modern Australia, and they have transformed us into this most recent chapter of our great story - the one we write together,” Morrison told crowds in the capital.
Australia’s 700,000 or so indigenous people track near the bottom of its 25 million citizens in almost every economic and social indicator.
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