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The Significance Of The Aboriginal Embassy Protest Of 1972

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The Aboriginal Embassy protest of 1972 has great historical significance. When looking at why it has such significance it is important to understand some of the driving factors leading up to the protest to provide a bit of context. One of these factors was that the Embassy managed to gain a multitude of international headlines, from areas like china all the way to Europe. It also incited change in the way Australian politics and especcially the ALP at the time thought about assimilation as a policy. Another major role that the Embassy played was giving the Aboriginal people from the rural parts of Australia a political movement that that could get behind, in turn giving them a voice that could be heard even internationally. Because it was …show more content…

When looking at these direct factors of why the protest started, it is necissary to understand that more then 100 years of injustices had also lead to this turning point. On the 26th of January 1972 (Australia Day) former prime minister Billy Mcmahan announced that his government would never grant Aboriginal land rights (Tan, 2016). Mcmahon had chosen the most provocative day possible to announce this as many Aboriginal people consider this to be invasion day. In doing so it can Aboriginal activists were forced to make some sort of stand, they chose to do this in the form of a non-violent protest on the lawns parliament house in Canberra. Four activists from Redfern went there and sat on the front lawn in with, at the start, only a beach umbrella (Tan, 2016). There was no law against this as long as no more than 11 tents were errected on the lawn. The Embassy stood for about 6 months before legislation was put through by the Mcmahon government to make it illegal (Watson and Coe, 2000). However by this time the damage had already been done as the Mcmahon government went down in the upcoming …show more content…

The Embassy is a Heritage listed site after being re-established 20 years after the original protest (Truscott, 2005). Because of this, the Embassy stands as a place where tourists, white Australians and Aboriginal Australians can go to further their understanding on Australias history as well as visit a significant historical site. The Embassy is also within another heritage listed site, this being the surrounding parliament house vista. The fact that the Embassy is within this area means it will gain more attention then it would if it was somewhere else. This extra attention gives a different demographic of people the chance to stop by and learn about a part of history they otherwise would never know about. As such the Embassy even after it's original purpose has ended continues to play a vital role in educating people on events past and

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