Invasion Day

"Always was, always will be......... Aboriginal land". The continuous chant was loud, the numbers were large, and it made an interesting and meritorious alternative to the usual Australia Day attractions. The Invasion Day march went from the Block in Redfern into the city.

  
There were an awful lot of police officers on duty for it, a lot of them with video cameras. As far as I'm aware there weren't any untoward incidents requiring any subsequent use of the footage.

From the pointy political end of the issue, on to the softer sell. I walked back to Victoria Park in Camperdown, where the annual Yabun Festival of aboriginal culture was being held. 'Yabun', by the way, means 'music to a beat', and there was lots of music, plus traditional dancing demonstrations, and information and other stalls selling T shirts with the message below.

The Australia Day vs Invasion Day dichotomy comes up every year. And so it should. At least until they move Australia Day to the first of January, to commemorate the founding of Australia in 1901, rather than the day in 1788 that the British officers of the First Fleet erected a flagpole at Sydney Cove and declared New South Wales as a British colony. (This was almost a week after they arrived in Botany Bay, by the way.)

It's good anyway to see that the mainstream Australia Day organisers are incorporating indigenous performers and ceremonies into the proceedings too. Here's Jessica Mauboy singing the national anthem in the Gadigal (Sydney) language on top of the Harbour Bridge. Click here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g61BocUcss0

Anglo Indians of the world unite........!

And every three years they do, in a different part of the world each time. This time it's Sydney's turn. Or at least, Blacktown's - Quakers Hill to be  precise. Funny though that the publicity material all showed pictures of Harbour Bridges and Opera Houses!

Your fearless reporter got himself an invite to this amazing cultural event, and enjoyed it a lot. The Anglo Indians used to run an empire after all, so they ought to be able to organise a good party. And indeed that's what they do best. It's all on a homely, low-cost basis though, hence suburban Quakers Hill, I guess.

The food was nice though, and the people were universally friendly and decent folk. They were all members of the Anglo Indian diaspora, and many had come from North America and the British Isles.

The Blacktown dignitaries welcomed the visitors and organised a welcome too from the local traditional landowners, a representative of whom performed a smoking ceremony and played a didgeridoo.

Then the serious business began, of finding one's old schoolmates from their Indian childhoods of 50 years ago, and doing hearty renditions of the old school anthems. They sounded all out of tune, but then maybe it's always like that. Here's a recent rendition from La Martiniere Kolkata school itself, with band and choir and full hierarchy in full regalia. Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RobDErH4KK0

Waterloo's got towers and parks too

Big towers in fact. The 1960s era public housing high rises here have been referred to as 'suicide towers', for reasons one can well imagine. So maybe it's good news that they're going to be demolished soon.

The promised extension of the Sydney Metro system south of  the city will help bring about a redevelopment of the area in a few years time.

The state government is promising that there will continue to be the same amount of social housing in the shiny new Waterloo.

Watch this space.

Redfern's towers and parks, and some rather nice streetscapes

This library's Custom built

Customs House is a fine old historic building in Circular Quay. I've called in before, but only today did I experience the full majesty of the service it offers.

It's now a City of Sydney public library, but it's the most welcoming library that any visitor or tourist could ever hope for. Especially on a wet summer day like today.



I've browsed the newspaper collection in the past, and it's the best public collection of Australian and international ones in the country. There's now a similarly fine array of magazines, lots of fiction and non-fiction books, and a rather magnificent old reading room.

It's also got a Sydney city scale model under the ground level glass floor.

And better still, all kinds of interesting exhibitions, like the 'India's Disappearing Railways' photographic display, featuring the work of recently deceased photographer Angus McDonald.

For its first 150 years the fine old building housed the Customs Service, and I'm sure it did a good job. It's doing an excellent job too as a drop-in library.