On the morning of Australia Day last week, I made my way to the Invasion Day Sydney protest with an I Support Australia Day sign. When I turned up to the protest at Belmore Park in the Sydney CBD, there was already a man across the road flying the Australian flag. 7News was interviewing him. I headed over, but an Indigenous activist beat me to the Australian flag man.
As I stood next to the activist and flag man, I watched them argue over the meaning of Australia Day. The man holding the flag kept calm as he acknowledged the wrongdoings against Indigenous Australians since 1788, but the Indigenous activist kept aggressively talking over him and lecturing the flag man on the wrongdoings which had already been acknowledged.
Flag man was reasonable in stating that Australia Day is a day to acknowledge past mistakes, celebrate our national achievements, and resolve to do better as a nation together.
Whilst the activist agreed that changing the date won’t fix anything, and that there’s room for two narratives, he maintained his #AbolishTheDay position by proceeding to accuse the flag man of celebrating land theft, murder, and rape, then demanded that he join the Invasion Day cause. In response, the flag man made clear that he had been quietly presenting an alternative narrative from across the road.
Whilst the activist agreed that everyone is entitled to their opinions, he lectured the man again on past wrongdoings. The man acknowledged these wrongdoings again, thanked the Indigenous activist for his time, and said that they’ll probably have to agree to disagree, because as far as the flag man was concerned, the narrative should be that we ‘do better’ together as one nation.
Because the activist didn’t want to agree to disagree, the man holding the Australian flag tried a different approach by asking why is it that we celebrate ANZAC Day which marks Australia’s ‘invasion’ of Turkey… The activist addressed this by admitting that his local community never really acknowledge Indigenous soldiers who’ve served in the past – a fair point, if true. The activist turned around and told the 7News reporter, who was observing, that the Australian flag doesn’t intimidate him, it’s just that it’s disrespectful to counter-protest the Invasion Day protest. I agreed with the man holding the Australian flag when he said that there is an alternative to the Invasion Day narrative, and it needs to be presented politely.
The Indigenous activist acknowledged the other man’s freedom of speech, then returned to his earlier accusations of celebrating land theft, murder, and rape. The argumentative merry-go-round continued until the activist walked away. And with that, it was my turn to be gaslit. A young white (at least, as far as I could tell) man accused me, a Vietnamese-Australian woman, of supporting the rape of Indigenous Australians. I asked him where the word ‘rape’ appears on my sign, to which he responded that Australia Day is a day of rape and murder. And so the circular arguments continued.
The young man in question and the young woman with him, who also appeared to be white, did not want to accept that freedom and democracy is what Australia Day actually means to myself, the flag man, and many other Australians. They asked why I don’t go and stand with the Invasion Day crowd, and could not understand that I was not obliged to cross the road. The young man then proceeded to refer to himself and the woman as ‘blackfellas’ and claimed that they’re white-looking because of Australia Day. A bizarre claim.
I asked them, ‘Aren’t you Australians?’ The young man confirmed that he is indeed an Aboriginal Australian. Then someone next to them said my question is silly, dumb, and gaslighting. I made it clear that I’m Australian regardless of my skin colour, and that we’re a diverse bunch of Australians and come in different shapes and forms. Eventually this argumentative back-and-forth came to an end, and a serious journalist approached me.
He was a man of Indigenous appearance carrying voice recording equipment. He asked, ‘What does Australia Day mean to me?’ I explained my parents’ immigrant story, post-Vietnam War, where Australia gave them what they couldn’t have back in Vietnam. I made clear that whilst there is a bad side to Australian history, Australia means freedom and democracy to my parents and I, and this includes the freedom of press that this polite gentleman was exercising in interviewing me.
He then asked me about my thoughts on the different perspectives of Australia Day. As I was acknowledging the different perspectives, we were distracted by NSW Police pulling the flag man from earlier to the side in order to move him on. If I recall correctly, on the question of what the new date for Australia Day should be, I suggested September 17. September 17, 1790, was a day of amity and reconciliation, when Admiral Arthur Phillip visited Bennelong and his people with gifts and an apology.
When I was retelling the events that led to September 17, this journalist questioned whether this was white man’s history that I was retelling. I was very certain that it wasn’t, and this was fact-checked at the time of writing. But I didn’t take offence to his question, he was certainly more polite than the young man gaslighting me earlier. I think how this topic came up was that I was trying to make the point that I don’t see a lot of effort put into seeking appropriate solutions regarding a new Australia Day date.
My last recollection with this journalist was that we got onto damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t topics relating to Alice Springs, like whether alcohol restrictions are right or wrong for all Australians and not just Indigenous Australians. The interview became interesting, and I was getting excited before I was interrupted again by NSW Police. They believed that my sign was ‘a little inflammatory’. They wanted me to voluntarily move along before a breach of peace occurred.
I wasn’t too willing, but I moved along before police decided to be more than just politely forceful. They directed me to under the railway bridge nearby to take down my details and take an impromptu mugshot of me – they must’ve thought I was a troll. I’m very disappointed in NSW Police, clearly their behaviour was not an improvement from when I counter-protested the protest against CPAC Conference held in Sydney last year. During that protest, I was trying to protect a fellow CPAC attendee from being physically attacked by the protesters, but police at the time took a laissez-faire approach.
I moved on from Belmore Park, some Invasion Day protesters followed and harassed me. The argumentative behaviour exhibited by the protesters resumed, and some were particularly rude. I had enough and accused one of being a white man mansplaining to an Asian woman – I do not usually talk like this, I just wanted him to go away. He angrily yelled at me, ‘Don’t you dare use your Asiatic background!’ before finally storming off. The irony, especially given that mainstream media labelled me a ‘right-wing nationalist’ for holding an I Support Australia Day sign.
Dana Pham is a Sydney-based professional counter-protester.
