You are reading a single comment by @nny and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@nny
Cancelled, due to mass bailing, everyone is still going to the pub however...Roebuck
Tuesday 26th January 2010 - Invasion Day Ride
1900 (sharp) from trafalgar sq. heading west.
1940 putney brdge
a coupla laps of RP and then drinks somewhere - pref Roebuck??
In the past, Australia Day has not really been my thing - it can highlight all that is unsettling about Australian culture, society, politics etc. On Australia Days gone by, media and popular portrayals of what is apparently great about being 'Australian' have had a tendency to be totally exclusionary - in particular of Indigenous populations, for whom the 26th of Jan marks the beginning of a continuing struggle for land rights, reconciliation and full equality with non-indigenous Australians. Australia Day moreover has had a tendency to exclude 'captives with white faces'; women and poor Australians or those who have fallen outside dominant notions of what it means to be 'Australian' - a generally white, masculine, and youthful image.
It is with ambivalence that I even suggest an Australia Day meet up. However, rather than shying away from a day that generally abhors me, in recent years I have viewed the 26th as a good opportunity to subvert the Australia Day stereotype.
So, keeping in mind protracted struggles over wage labour, land rights and race and sex equality, who would like to help celebrate (get shitfaced on):
Invasion Day, next Tuesday from 7pm
pic - Tent Embassy outside Old Parliament House, Canberra. Erected day after Aus Day, 1972.