On the evening of the 25th of January 2013 a banner of solidarity was hung on the Sydney University fence. This was the evening before the day of celebration that takes part across Australia.
Yabun is a near by celebratory event of survival for Koori people. It is a patch in the geography of the larger space, a country that is dominated that day by celebrations that are void of the recognition of Koori struggle, the celebrated colonial nationalism or ‘Aussi racist culture’.
The Demonstration that took place in 88 is remembered by the Yabun day of celebration, this was a Demonstration responding to 200 years worth of genocide. A Demonstration to insert the recognition of survival but also in response to colonial Australia’s celebration of its self, and to ongoing genocide that functions both institutionally and is supported culturally, ‘Aussi racist culture'.
In the past we have hung banners on this evening of the 25th in several locations around the city. These are just banners and some words and much, much more solidarity need be shown then this.
The banner this time read:
SOLIDARITY WITH KOORI FIGHTER’S
STRUGGLES-INSURRECTIONS
PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE.
(A) (A) (A) (A) (A)
When there is struggle and fight, when things flare up we are attacking authorities main weakness – that it must continually assert it’s self and that it must remain in control. Here is where our strongest bond of solidarity is located - those (meaning non-Indigenous too) who do not wish to be living within this system of oppression and exploitation can flare up together, share solidarity in these moments and bring it also through out the other components of struggle.
This is why we talk to the intensified moments of social unrest both past present and future, as these flares we see in distance still live in every present moment, as the past cannot simply be put in the past and as our time now and the rest of our life times cannot be left in the hands of our oppressors. The planning and the actions we take now determine what flare can be seen in times to come.
We know that potentials of our lives liberated/taken back can and have existed in all moments proceeding now and that the future and the present are yet unwritten.
