January 26, 2025
By Ella Noah Bancroft
As January 26 rolls around again in 2025, it feels different this time. There is a different feeling in the air. It smells like smoke and feels like fire and if all my dreams are coming true perhaps it's the burning down of the colonial capitalist systems. 2024 highlighted how corrupt the current system is and now, more than ever, I believe we have more and more people becoming aware of that fact, and realising that these are systems of great harm and ill health..
Even if you think your money will save you or the colour of your skin, this year we have been shown that mother nature does not care. LA is home to 205,400 millionaires, as well as 480 centi-millionaires and 42 billionaires. No amount of money can keep you safe from fire, flood or any other natural disaster.
The re-election of Donald Trump has also made many question the political systems that we are governed by, adding to the tears still pouring from our eyes after witnessing the first television genocide and the destruction of Gaza.
The world became more and more aware of the destructive western democratic settler colonialism as we watched Israel destroy a people and their culture. Never has the global population really understood in real time the violence and destruction that comes with settler colonialism. These structures and systems destroy everything that once was, in order to exploit and destroy our global lands, seas and more than human beings.
So with all this going on, what do we have to celebrate as a colonial democratic western capitalist system? As a country built on the blood and bones of the original people of the land? If we can watch Gaza and feel deeply for those people, we can start to understand the frustration of my people when we celebrate the country known as ‘Australia’. Imagine if the day they bombed Gaza becomes the new Day to Celebrate Israel ?
Are we celebrating that our allies are the US and Israel? I don’t know about you but they are not the allies I want to stand next to as we usher in a new age. I think January 26 feels different this year because 2025 is different. People are really starting to understand we need change and that change requires collective liberation which can only happen when we — the people — take back the power and ignite our local communities and divert money away from government and big business.
In 2025 Australia, ask yourself — what are you celebrating and why? Are you celebrating our privilege which has only been made possible by the raping of this continent and others; off the back of slavery of our Indigenous peoples, pacific islander brothers and sisters, and other communities of mostly brown women and girls in developing worlds?
Are we celebrating that a significant portion of the population struggles with chronic conditions like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers?
We have created a society that is so convenient that our health as a people is significantly impacted by it. Are we celebrating that modern day mental health issues like depression and anxiety are spreading through the masses and touching most people who now live here? Are we celebrating that Indigenous Australians experience significantly poorer health outcomes compared to the non-Indigenous population, with factors like poverty cycles, intergenerational trauma, racism and so much more? Are we celebrating that a considerable proportion of Australians have unhealthy lifestyle habits like poor diet and low physical activity levels, which leads to a sore and sick nation of people?
Are we celebrating a government that didnt stop a genocide when they had the power to? Seems to be a recurring theme…
What would we celebrate about the colony? What is there to celebrate? The most beautiful part of this country is the country, not the systems that continually suffocate it. How has the natural world and the people that live here benefited from the colonial capitalist system?
This is no longer an Indigenous and non-Indigenous debate, it feels like we need to really think about the systems that shape us and how we feed them. We must ask ourselves if these systems are really going to provide collective liberation?
Invasion day is a day of mourning, we mourn the massacres that were enacted on this day, we mark it as a time of war on the east coast, with many of our old people fighting. We mark it as the day the colony falsely claimed this land was not inhabited by people and therefore stole it, we mourn the attempt to destroy our cultural knowledge systems, the attempt to destroy our kinship systems and the destruction of our soils and rivers.
This day is the seed to the destructive system that has only crushed my people since it arrived, destroyed our lands, poisoned our waters, killed and murdered my ancestors and our more than human kin. This is what the capitalist economic system does, it destroys. So really I would say its time we band together as a people, reject the systems that harm us and our world, and choose not to celebrate a government that creates genocides that have long lasting impacts on the society we are all a part of.
In 1938 we saw the empowerment of our old people as they organized acts of Indigenous resistance on January 26 with the Day of Mourning. On this day mob and allies gathered on Gadigal lands to mark the 150th anniversary of British colonisation with a silent protest.
This is not a new fight, this has been going on for so long. It feels like there is a change in the air, that now as we move into 2025 more and more people are understanding the harmful impacts of the colony on our lands and people.
It's hard to pull the wool over our eyes anymore, there is so much information right now about why and how we need to shift and change the systems that be. Our planet is burning, our people are suffering, our children are mad and I am encouraging you to think about how you can be a part of the collective liberation.
Collective liberation requires us to really think about where we spend our money and where we put our attention. Collective liberation is asking you to come face to face with the systems that raised you, the culture that crafted you and truly ask: ‘is this for my benefit or for the benefit of the status quo?’
January 26 marks the violent dispossession of our old people from our land. We now know globally that 80 percent of the world's remaining biodiversity is protected by Indigenous people and that is because of the culture and ways of living and being in deep relationship with country. It is because Indigenous cultures feel the world as alive, not as a commodity to be sold to make our lives more convenient and continue to contribute to the individualist state of mind that keeps us disconnected from our purpose.
We cannot deny that settler colonialism has been one of the most harmful things not only to this country but to the globe as a whole.
I guess what I'm asking us as individuals and the collective is to feel into what kind of world we truly want to create? Do we want to continue to be divided? To not have empathy for our fellow humans who are suffering and in pain? Do we want to come together for collective liberation and find our portal back home to one another and to our planet? A planet that is crying out for our attention. Or will we continue to look into the screens of the future, giving our attention to men like Donald, Elon and Mark? Will we walk out into the world and connect meaningfully with those who have differing opinions; will we look them in the eye and finally see ourselves?