26 January.

Today is not a date to celebrate.

Australia is the only colonial nation, the only member of the Commonwealth [of Nations], that celebrates its national day on the anniversary of the beginning of invasion and genocide.

… The landing of the First Fleet [on 26 January 1788] and the raising of the British flag in what was to become Sydney was the actual moment that the colony, invasion, genocide and dispossession began. It was not the moment that the nation began, if Australia is a nation at all, that moment was 1 January 1901, when the federation was formed.

Before 1901 there was no nation here, merely a loose alliance of British colonies each showing complete cultural fidelity to Britain; even more, perhaps, than to each other. It’s hard for me to understand why, beside white nationalism, Australians latch on to 26 January as the national day.

—Claire G. Coleman (Wirlomin Noongar)

From Lies, Damned Lies: A Personal Exploration of the Impact of Colonisation (Ultimo Press, Sydney, 2021).

Photography by James Toose.