By New South Wales Sydney Wollongong anarchists ---- In the early hours of January 26th we
tipped a bucket of paint on a statue celebrating the First Fleet in Brighton Le Sands,
Botany Bay. ---- We later threw numerous paint bombs at a massive statue of James Cook in
Hyde Park, who according the plaque on the monument ?discovered this territory in 1770?.
---- We sprayed stencils reading: "FUCK AUSSIE PRIDE", "DESTROY COLONIAL AUSTRALIA" &
"PROUDLY UNAUSTRALIAN" throughout the city, Redfern, Newtown, Marrickville, Sydenham and
at Bicentennial Park and Carss Park, where ?Australia Day? celebrations were to take
place. ---- We paint bombed the Tempe office of the Australia First Party, a small fascist
sect which has managed to get one racist elected to the Penrith council.
We dropped 7 banners across Sydney, five from walkway bridges and two from an empty
warehouse on a busy intersection. They read:
ALWAYS WAS, ALWAYS WILL BE ABORIGINAL LAND
DECOLONISATION NOT RECONCILIATION
KILL THE COLONISER IN YOUR HEAD
225 YEARS OF OCCUPATION, 225 YEARS OF RESISTANCE
FROM PAPUA TO PALESTINE, GADIGAL TO WALLMAPU, SOLIDARITY WITH INDIGENOUS STRUGGLES.
And an Aboriginal Flag banner.
Around midday a few of us dropped a massive banner reading FUCK THE FIRST FLEET from a
walkway above Circular Quay in Sydney Harbour, where thousands had gathered to watch city
organised events, including a military aircraft show. A few hundred leaflets were thrown
from the walkway which soon attracted a large police response.
Throughout the night we removed council banners promoting Australia Day events and set
about capturing as many Australian flags as possible. Large and small flags were taken
from park flagpoles, shopfronts, fences, yards, cars and later burnt.
We are completely opposed to this nationalist celebration commemorating the date of
invasion by the First Fleet. The fleet was comprised of eleven prison vessels, sent to
establish a colony on the east coast to displace Britain?s criminalised poor and
rebellious. The colony introduced the paradigm of police, prisons and private property to
a territory where land was communal, communities settled disputes and meted out punishment
without recourse to incarceration or a specialised armed force constantly patrolling and
surveilling everyone?s behaviour.
This process of conquest and control has been consistently opposed and resisted by
Aboriginal fighters, rebellious convicts, radical settlers and migrants. Despite constant
claims to the contrary, struggle against the invasion forces and its laws has not been
defeated. From bushrangers to bank robbers resistance continues through daily attacks
against property, law and order by mostly young vandals, thieves and rebels.
Australian colonialism is not a thing of the past. It is continued and reproduced every
day though government policies such as the NT intervention, the massive incarceration rate
of indigenous youths and Australian military action in the South Pacific and Afghanistan.
It is reproduced and legitimised through the daily activity of everyone on this territory
who upholds property rights and recognise the government?s claim to this territory.
Although nationalist and militarist holidays such as Australia, ANZAC and Remembrance Day
are entirely symbolic, they are intended to foster a proud colonialist mentality and unity
around the state and its armed forces. From Botany Bay to Kabul, we encourage the
disruption of any celebration of colonial occupation.
We extend a wave of solidarity to indigenous resistance struggles around the world. From
Papua freedom fighters resisting Indonesian military occupation, to Mapuche communities
battling the Chilean state and landowners for control of their native lands, indigenous
peoples in Bolivia fighting against a massive highway through their territory. Indigenous
peoples in Brazil who?ve been resisting the Belo Monte Dam for decades, and the first
nation peoples in Canada currently mobilising through the Idle no more campaign.
We are against any process of reconciliation between indigenous and non indigenous
Australians until the structures of colonialism have been destroyed.
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