On the jagged end of a broken bottle, a 22 year old Perth man has reluctantly helped to keep alive the spirit of Australia's Invasion Day. Despite suffering only minor injuries, the attack on his person recognises the colonisation centuries ago by the forefathers looking to unleash their cargo of prisoners.
Cut open, the Perth man's inaction coincides with celebrations all throughout the country as commemoration of the 1788 start of the slaughter and claiming of inhabited lands as void of life.
In the country's aorta of Canberra, a few hundred people gathered in front of Old Parliament House. There they sat for calls to recognise the sovereignty of the Aborigines over Australia. As they know the January 26 innately as Invasion Day, the original owners acknowledge that many still consider it as "Australia Day".
Over in Queensland, in the innards of inner Brisbane, a group of local Indigenous set flames to lick an Australian flag. Inflamed by the not-so artistic gesture, Queensland RSL President Bill Mason plans on urging politicians to make such disposal methods of the national flag illegal.
"I think it's absolutely disgusting and unfortunately it's not punishable by law as an offence on its own, it may fall into some other category but it's unfortunate."
Written on Thursday, 26 January 2006