Photographs from yesterday’s rally marking The International Day of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination rally, held on Gadigal Land and organised by The Blak Caucus.
The 21st of March commemorates The International Day of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination which was established in 1966 by the UN in response to the Sharpeville Massacre in apartheid South Africa in 1960, where at least 91 people were killed and over 250 people wounded during a protest against ‘pass laws’. Pass laws have links back to slavery and the violent colonisation of Africa.
Like many countries around the world, ‘Australia’ adopted the International Day of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination by ratifying the UN convention in 1975. But in 1998, John Howard’s Federal Government took ‘Australia’ down another path - the only nation in the world to do so - and rebranded it ‘Harmony Day’, in a political stunt aimed at masking the underlying plague of racism in this country.
Yesterday’s rally aimed to highlight this history which most ‘Australians’ are unaware of. The rally began at Hyde Park with speeches, music and dance, before marching through the CBD to Circular Quay, where speakers called for the abolition of Harmony Day and the reinstatement of The International Day of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
It was a sad irony that when arriving at Circular Quay, Sydney Harbour happened to be hosting one of the largest naval gatherings in its history, including flyovers by military aircraft. This at a time when several wars are raging across the world - in Africa (The Congo and Sudan), West Asia (including in Palestine and Iran), in Ukraine and elsewhere. It also comes at a time when racism is on the rise throughout the world, and when, here in ‘Australia', Aboriginal deaths in custody are at a record high.
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