Indigenous rapper says Australia Day date should be changed to celebrate sporting feat loved by all Aussies
An Indigenous rapper is pushing for the date of Australia Day to be changed to September 25 – the day Cathy Freeman won gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Rapper Rulla Kelly-Mansell said Freeman’s victory was a ‘moment in time that we were immersed in the beauty of our identity, as opposed to arguing about it’.
After lighting the cauldron at the opening ceremony, Freeman overcame a huge amount of pressure to win gold in the 400m in front of 112,574 screaming fans.
‘If you put it into the context of what it signifies, you’ll struggle to find a moment in our shared history that organically sowed us together more so than this event, without friction, without conflict, or an attitude of ignorance and racism or naivety and disrespect,’ Kelly-Mansell told the ABC.
‘There is no contention of what did or didn’t happen; it happened.’
Freeman carried both the Australian and Aboriginal flags on her victory lap which caused controversy at the time.
Cathy Freeman displays the Australian and Aboriginal flags after winning the 400m at the Sydney Olympics on September 25, 2000
At the 1994 Commonwealth Games, administrator Arthur Tunstall threatened to send Freeman home for carrying both flags during her victory lap.
But there was no such controversy on the night of September 25, 2000, when Freeman was celebrated by exuberant fans.
‘She made us forget, in real time, that there’s conflict between black and white,’ Kelly-Mansell said.
‘If we want to celebrate values which empower us, through resilience, sacrifice and the representation of gender and cultural equality, somebody convince me or give me a compelling argument as to why it shouldn’t be celebrated on September 25.’
January 26 and what it signifies has been a point of national divide for years.
Australia Day, observed each year on that date, marks the landing of the First Fleet in 1788 when the first governor of the British colony of New South Wales, Arthur Philip, hoisted the Union Jack at Sydney Cove.
But for many First Nations people, it is known as ‘Invasion Day’ or the ‘Day of Mourning’, with many campaigning for the holiday to be abolished completely.
Kelly-Mansell had been searching through the calendar for an alternative day.
Rapper Rulla Kelly-Mansell thinks he’s found the perfect day to celebrate Australia Day
‘I accept that January 26 will forever be mourned for my people and or celebrated by those who choose to, regardless of if the date changes,’ he told the ABC.
‘The reality is we will never agree on what occurred, not yet anyways.
‘We campaign for changing the date, but we don’t have a date to change it to, so I thought, well, let’s go find a date, and if we find a date, then we campaign for that day.’
He said Freeman’s historic night at Homebush was not contentious or debated but simply celebrated by all Australians.
‘It wasn’t just a moment, it was the moment and will forever be the moment in time that we were immersed in the euphoric beauty of our identity, as opposed to arguing about it,’ Kelly-Mansell said.
