Schoolgirl anthem protest animates Australia

— A nine-year-old schoolgirl sparked intense debate in Australia on Wednesday after refusing to stand for the national anthem to protest alleged institutional racism.

Student Harper Nielsen was given detention last week for not joining classmates in a rendition of “Advance Australia Fair”, a song she says ignores the nation’s indigenous people.

“When it was originally written, Advance Australia Fair meant advance the white people of Australia,” she told national broadcaster ABC after the incident was reported by local media on Wednesday.

“When it says ’we are young’ it completely disregards the Indigenous Australians who were here before us.” Aboriginal culture stretches back tens of thousands of years before the British began colonizing Australia in the late 1700s.

They remain among the most disadvantaged Australians, with higher rates of poverty, ill-health and imprisonment than any other community.

Harper said she arrived at the decision to protest herself, but had discussed the issue with her parents.

“She’s shown incredible bravery in wanting to stick to what she believes in... and I couldn’t be more proud of her,” Harper’s father Mark Nielsen told the ABC.

Harper was trying to “raise awareness and get people thinking about institutionalized racism... and how that might feel to people who these kinds of things affect”, he added.

The school’s principal had met with Harper and her parents to discuss alternatives to her protest, the Queensland state education department said.