Commemorating Eureka's 152nd anniversary : Melbourne Indymedia

4am - 4pm SUNDAY 3rd DECEMBER 2006 EUREKA PARK, BALLARAT

At dawn on Sunday the 3rd December 1854, a group of miners sleeping in the Eureka stockade at Ballarat, were massacred by the British authorities. The Eureka rebellion has played and continues to play a pivotal role in Australian life. Since 2002, the Anarchist Media Institute has attempted to Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion by holding a series of events in Ballarat on the day the Eureka massacre occurred, in the city in which it occurred.

The central themes of the Eureka rebellion - DIRECT DEMOCRACY, DIRECT ACTION, SOLIDARITY and INTERNATIONALISM - are as relevant to our struggle today, as they were in 1854. We celebrate the Eureka rebellion not to just remember the past. By celebrating it, we use the past to understand the present and change the future.

This year's celebrations start at 4.00am at EUREKA PARK (corner Stawell & Eureka St, Ballarat) on SUNDAY 3rd DECEMBER 2006 at the site and time the massacre took place. We meet in front of the Eureka monument in Eureka Park in Ballarat. Participants form a circle and wait for the sun to rise. As we wait, each person takes it in turn to talk about why they've come and what it means to them. When the sun rises, we have a communal breakfast in Eureka Hall (you need to bring your own food and drinks). At 10am, we march to Bakery Hill to take the Eureka oath and announce this year's recipients of the Eureka Australia Day Medal. The Eureka Australia Day Medal is awarded to people whose activities reflect the sentiments expressed in the Eureka oath.

We then march through Ballarat to the old Ballarat Cemetery to pay our respects to the diggers and soldiers (workers at either end of a bayonet) that died at Eureka. The group then marches through the centre of Ballarat, back to Eureka Park, for a late lunch (bring your own food and drinks) and conversation.

We normally walk about 4 kilometres in four hours. It is a day you can meet like minded people and reflect and reclaim our radical history in an era when even Eureka has been sanitised to suit the current political climate.

JOIN US FROM 4.00am TO 4.00pm ON SUNDAY THE 3RD OF DECEMBER 2006 AT EUREKA PARK IN BALLARAT. RECLAIM THE RADICAL SPIRIT OF THE EUREKA REBELLION AND USE THAT SPIRIT TO REMEMBER THE PAST, TO UNDERSTAND THE PRESENT, AND CHANGE THE FUTURE!!