SYDNEY: Thousands of Australians defied coronavirus rules on Tuesday to protest the country’s national day, held on the anniversary of British colonization of the vast continent that its Indigenous population marks as “Invasion Day.”
Officially recognized as Australia Day, January 26 also sees annual rallies drawing attention to the injustices faced by Indigenous people and calling on the government to change the date of the national holiday.
The celebration of the origins of the modern nation is a time of mourning for Indigenous Australians, who have inhabited the land for 65,000 years and view the arrival of British settlers in 1788 as the beginning of two centuries of pain and suffering.
Thousands of people gathered at a central Sydney park in defiance of police threats of fines and arrests for breaching a 500-person limit on public gatherings, though organizers called off a march through the city that usually follows.
Police said five people were arrested, including one who was charged with assaulting a police officer, but praised the crowds as largely peaceful.
Authorities earlier refused to waive the cap on numbers, despite no new cases being detected in Australia’s biggest city for more than a week.
Chants of “Sovereignty was never ceded” and “No justice, no peace” rang out while others held up placards with slogans including “Not a Date to Celebrate” and “Black Lives Matter.”
“For us it represents cultural genocide. Our families being ripped apart. Years and years of disease and famine. And the intergenerational impacts of that are still being felt today,” Gomeroi man Dylan Booth said.
Australia last year failed to meet most key targets on closing the health and wellbeing gap between Aboriginal Australians and the rest of the population, with soaring incarceration rates among Indigenous people and a life expectancy about eight years lower than the national average.
Thousands also attended protests in other major cities across the country, with rally organizers encouraging attendees to wear face masks and maintain physical distance where possible.
In Australia’s second-biggest city of Melbourne, where an estimated 10,000 turned out to march through the streets, attendees walked in 100-person groups to comply with coronavirus rules.
Some waved Aboriginal flags, while others held aloft signs including “No Pride in Genocide” and “You are on Stolen Land.”
“People (are) having barbecues and shrimp on the barbie and celebrating the death and destruction of these people, the oldest continuing living culture in the world,” The Age reported Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe as telling the crowd.
Police in Melbourne detained one counter-protester, a man wearing an Australian flag as a cape and a shirt supporting the violent US far-right group Proud Boys, according to an AFP photographer.
The push to change the date — or even abolish the celebration entirely — remains divisive.
On social media, supportive hashtags #InvasionDay2021 and #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe were trending but a poll of more than 1,000 people conducted for Fairfax newspapers showed 48 percent opposed the change while just 28 percent supported it.
The debate around Australia Day — which was only formally established as a national holiday in 1994 — has grown increasingly heated debate in recent years.
The occasion is staunchly defended by right-wing commentators and retains strong support from the country’s conservative government.
Official celebrations this year were muted amid the pandemic, with many towns and cities canceling or scaling down events due to coronavirus restrictions.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who earlier in the week chided Cricket Australia for dropping the name from promotions for its January 26 matches, said history “changed forever” when the First Fleet arrived in 1788 and there was “no escaping or canceling this fact.”
“For better and worse, it was the moment where the journey to our modern Australia began,” he told an official ceremony in Canberra.
“And it is this continuing Australian journey that we recognize today.”
Thousands of Australians defy coronavirus rules to mark ‘Invasion Day’
https://arab.news/4ag2r
Thousands of Australians defy coronavirus rules to mark ‘Invasion Day’
- Officially recognized as Australia Day, January 26 sees annual rallies drawing attention to the injustices faced by Indigenous people
- Thousands of people gathered at a central Sydney park in defiance of police threats of fines and arrests
UK cyclists to ride 550km in Saudi Arabia to save children with heart defects
- The H&K Cycle Club was the first team to take the Hejaz route, and their endeavour has since 2022 inspired hundreds of other cyclists to follow suit
- The cyclists expect to face scorching heat, brutal headwinds, sandstorms, and long no-U-turn stretches of roads, along with physical and mental exhaustion
LONDON: A cycling team from London set out on Sunday on a 550km journey from Makkah to Madinah in Saudi Arabia to raise funds for children in developing countries with congenital heart defects.
This is the fifth year that Shamsul Abdin, the head of the H&K Cycle Club, and 40 riders aged between 18 and 65, are taking on the challenge through the Hejaz region.
Abdin told Arab News that the “Hijrah Ride” was a replication of the journey made by Prophet Muhammad over 1,400 years ago, when he migrated from Makkah to Madinah, where he established the first city-state of Islam. This migration, known as Hijrah, also marked the beginning of the Islamic Hijri calendar.
The H&K Cycle Club has expanded from just six riders 14 years ago to more than 40 members from various cities across the UK, including London, Manchester, Oxford, and Birmingham. In November, they began their training in the freezing temperatures of the UK, aiming to cycle over 100 kilometers each day within 6 to 7 hours for a 4-day ride in Saudi Arabia. On Wednesday, they are expected to arrive in Madinah.
They have cycled throughout the UK and parts of Europe, riding from London to Istanbul to raise funds for various causes through Muntada Aid, a charity that works on projects in developing countries and organizes the “Hijrah Ride”.
They were also the first cycling team to take the Hejaz route, and their endeavour has since inspired hundreds of other cyclists to follow suit. Abdin has seen Saudi Arabia become more bike-friendly over the past five years, with cycling lanes integrated into city development, while drivers, locals, and authorities are now more aware of cyclists on the roads.
The cyclists expect to face scorching heat, brutal headwinds, sandstorms, and long no-U-turn stretches of roads, along with physical and mental exhaustion. For many riders, this will be their fifth ride in Hejaz. Some of them include Uber and bus drivers, business analysts, and even entrepreneurs, according to Abdin.
“The headwind feels like climbing a mountain; it’s a constant resistance. To overcome this challenge, we ride in a peloton, taking turns at the front. One person heads into the wind while the others line up behind, shielded from the gusts. After a while, we rotate, allowing everyone a chance to lead,” Abdin explained.
Almost £923,000 has been raised by the “Hijrah Ride” since its inception, to reach a target of one million pounds this year. Some of the money went into emergency aid programs in Gaza and Sudan. Muntada Aid aims to raise about £250,000 for its flagship project, “Little Hearts,” which will fund 150 surgeries for children with congenital heart defects in Pakistan and Bangladesh this year.
“I fell in love with this project, which gives children the opportunity to live up to their potential as adults, truly,” said Abdin, who was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in December for his contribution to charitable fundraising.
The riders will be escorted by two vehicles, one in front and one in the rear, carrying paramedics and media staff, along with food and water. They will split into two groups based on their cycling powers. Along the route, they will pass several locations, including Jeddah on the Red Sea, King Abdullah Economic City, Rabigh, Masturah, and Badr, before reaching the elevated roads of Madinah, where their journey, which started with performing Umrah in Makkah, will end.
Muntada Aid is a part of Al-Muntada Trust, which was founded in 1986 by a group of Middle Eastern students, including individuals from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to address the famine crisis in Ethiopia. Since then, the organization has assisted children in 17 countries, including Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Kosovo, Bosnia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mali, and Niger. They focus on developing infrastructure in education, health, water and sanitation sectors.
Nasrun Mir, the marketing director of Muntada Aid, told Arab News that they support “Hijrah Ride” with financial backing and logistics, and that they have obtained permits through communication with the Saudi Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Saudi embassy in London, and the British Consulate in Jeddah.
Mir, who is joining the journey as part of the media team this week, said that the reception in Saudi Arabia could not be friendlier.
“People offer us free food and drinks. They want to have conversations with us. They want to know what we do. In the Middle East, there is still no concept of using sports as a tool for charity. The general idea is that if I want to give money to the charity, I’ll give it to them. You don’t need to run. You don’t need to cycle,” Mir said.
In one incident, a local community prevented the riders from passing through their village unless they disembarked and sat down to eat with them. In particular sections of the road near Madinah, a Saudi police vehicle has escorted the riders for a few kilometers, he added.
“There have been incidents where people have stopped us from eating our own food during the break. They literally took our food and said, ‘No, you come to our village; you cannot eat your food. You have to have food, which we will prepare.’ This delayed ride for a couple of hours,” Mir said.
