Harmony Day: The Depoliticising of Racism

How Australia took a day about anti-racism and turned it into a day about the colour orange.

The 21st of March every year has been designated by the United Nations (U.N) as the day to commemorate the International Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IERD). On that date in 1960, police killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration against apartheid in Sharpeville, South Africa. Six years after the massacre, the U.N proclaimed March 21st as the day to remember the South African atrocity in the hopes of addressing racial discrimination all over the world.

If you are in Australia and wondering why the date might sound familiar but that you have never have heard of the IERD, don’t worry, cos your confusion is entirely intentional and manufactured.

In 1988, the Australian government led by the Howard administration, unceremoniously replaced the IERD with a scheme they called “Harmony Day.” The project was a response to research that had been published earlier that year which revealed the state of terrible racism in the country.

Researchers on “Harmony Day” have described it as a “bland call” which flinched at an “action-orientated concept that specific a social evil,” referring to the original intention behind the IERD. On Harmony Day in Australian schools, students dress up in their “cultural…