Reclaim your history: Remembrance Day
by Joseph Toscano Thursday November 03, 2005 at 04:36 PM
Repost from Anarchist Age Weekly Review No 666

At 10.00am on FRIDAY 11TH NOVEMBER 2005, the Melbourne based Anarchist Media Institute will be holding a vigil to mark a number of important events that have occurred on that day. We encourage you to come and join us and reclaim your history. We will be gathering outside the Old Melbourne Gaol (corner of Russell & McKenzie Street, Melbourne), near the 8-Hour monument to remember and celebrate the formation of the Ballarat Reform League in 1854, the 125th anniversary of the execution of Ned Kelly, the 118th anniversary of the execution of the Haymarket Martyrs, the 87th anniversary of Armistice Day, the 30th anniversary of the dismissal of the Whitlam reformist government.

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1. The 151st anniversary of the formation of the BALLARAT REFORM LEAGUE on the 11th November 1854 at Bakery Hill in Ballarat - the organisation that spearheaded the Eureka rebellion. The League's decision making processes were based on Direct Democratic principles, decisions were made at mass (monster) meetings called by the League and delegates were elected or appointed to carry out those decisions.

2. The 125th anniversary of the execution of Ned Kelly at the Old Melbourne Goal. Not all Victorians saw Ned Kelly as a common criminal. Many, especially the poor and dispossessed, saw him and his gang as heroes. Over 30,000 signatures were collected and presented to Parliament asking for his life to be spared. On the 11th November 1880, over 6,000 people gathered outside Old Melbourne Goal on the day he was executed.

3. The 118th anniversary of the execution of the Haymarket Martyrs on the 11th November 1887. Five anarchists were executed in Chicago for being anarchists not for what they were said to have done. At the end of the 1st May Day rally on the 1st of May 1886, a bomb exploded which killed 2 police. 8 anarchists, who were involved in the organisation of the march, were arrested and tried for murder. All were found guilty. 4 were executed (1 killed himself the night before), 3 were jailed for life. A few years later, both the living and the dead were pardoned by the same authorities that executed them.

4. The 87th anniversary of ARMISTICE DAY. On the 11th November 1918 the 'Great War' officially ended. Over 50 million people died in a war fought by 'workers on either end of a bayonet'. We remember sacrifices of those who died and the sacrifices made by those who stopped conscription being introduced in Australia. Without their efforts, it's highly likely that another 60,000 young Australian lives would have been sacrificed on the European killing fields in what was essentially a trade war.

5. We will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the dismissal of the Whitlam reformist government. On the 11th November 1975, the Governor General dismissed the Whitlam led Labor government its crime, providing universal health care and free education to the Australian people reforms that have been wiped out over the past 30 years.

JOIN US AT 10.00am on FRIDAY 11TH NOVEMBER 2005 outside THE OLD MELBOURNE GOAL.

If you can't join us, organise your own celebrations where you live and work. Reclaim the radical past and use that past to understand the present and change the future.

AUSTRALIAN RADICAL HISTORY - THE EUREKA SERIES No.9 2005
'THE BODIES'

The 'Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion' celebrations that are organised by the Anarchist Media Institute each year, makes a point of walking to the old Ballarat Cemetery to pay our respects to both the diggers and soldiers killed in the Eureka rebellion - 'workers on either end of a bayonet'. There's always been conflict about the number of miners killed during the battle and those massacred after the battle ended. There is also conflict about the number of miners that died as a result of the events that occurred on the 3rd December 1854.

Not all the miners were buried in the old Ballarat Cemetery. A number of bodies were buried in a small bush cemetery in Eureka Street within 100 metres of where the battle took place. The bodies of Captain Ross (the Eureka flag's bridegroom), James Brown, Thonen the lemonade seller and Tom the blacksmith, were removed from their graves in Eureka Street on the 2nd December 1857 and were reburied with the bodies of many of the others killed at Eureka in the diggers mass grave at the old Ballarat Cemetery.

Commemorations to mark the battle in 1857 were limited to placing flowers on the graves 'the graves of the fallen were decorated with chaplets and flowers'. Some of those that died were privately buried, others died as a direct consequence of their wounds a few years later. Many of the massacre victims were buried by their families. Although it is difficult to know how many people died during those tumultuous few hours, numbers vary from as few as 25 to over 50.

Eureka has a significance that has stood the test of time. Eureka commemorations continue to be held by a variety of people, including direct descendants of those who participated. Eureka doesn't belong to the Victorian government, the Federal government or the descendants. It belongs to everyone.

It's important that radicals 'reclaim the radical spirit of the Eureka rebellion' to help people understand the present and change the future. Although Eureka was a military defeat, it ushered in a period of radical change that rocked Australia's fossilised colonial institutions. When we come to Ballarat to Reclaim and celebrate that radical tradition on Saturday the 3rd December 2005, we remember and acknowledge the past, by reclaiming the central elements of Eureka DIRECT DEMOCRACY, DIRECT ACTION, SOLIDARITY and INTERNATIONALISM - principles that are as important and relevant today as they were 151 years ago.

Join us at 4.00am at the Eureka monument at the corner of Eureka & Stawell Street, Ballarat and 'reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion'.

EUREKA 151ST ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS

Join us 4am Saturday 3rd December 2005 at
The site the battle took place
Eureka park (Stawell and Eureka Street Ballarat)

4am Dawn ceremony
7-10am Communal breakfast (bring your own food and drinks)
10am March to Bakery Hill to retake the Eureka oath.
10.30am Presentation of Eureka Australia Day Medal at Bakery Hill.
10 Medals will be awarded.
11.30am March to Ballarat cemetery to pay our respects to the workers at either end of a bayonet who died during the eureka rebellion
12.30pm March back to Eureka Park through the centre of Ballarat. Late lunch & conversational for those participating who are still able to stand up (BYO food & drinks).

See Flag and Banner designs for the Anarchist Media Institute Eureka commemorations: http://www.peacebus.com/FlagDesigns/

www.anarchistmedia.org/weekly.html

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