Australia Day by any other name
It is still possible to "celebrate what's great" without denying what ain't.
Australian of the Year Mick Dodson is absolutely right that we "need to have a conversation" about what it means for us as a society that we celebrate Australia Day on January 26th, a "day of mourning" for Indigenous Australia. However, it's doubtful changing our National Day to a different date would help that conversation develop or provide any healing.
Changing the date would be revisionist and revisionist history is a bad idea. The current issue is that people want to gloss over the fact that 26 January is the anniversary of a colonial invasion, but if we move the date then a few decades from now it might be even easier for people to gloss over that important fact in our foundation story all together.
It would be a terrible missed opportunity. Australia Day is the perfect time to give mainstream Australia a little bit of a history lesson whilst they're paying attention and in a good mood.
Celebrating our National Day on a different date, or calling it something else doesn't have the power to reflect a less racist, more respectful society. Granted, it would be a symbolic change, but surely we can do better than symbolism? Rather than changing our National Day and then hoping our national identity will fall into line we should work on fostering a more educated understanding of what Australia Day represents.
You can't fake reconciliation or respect, it has to be heartfelt.
In matters both public and private whilst problematic, it is still possible to "celebrate what's great" without denying what ain't.
Young love gushes "my sweetie didn't do anything wrong, they're perfect"!!!! Whereas the mature love says "nobody's perfect, we've all made mistakes but I accept you with a full understanding of who you really are and love you anyway, together we can work through this".
Love of one's country is much the same. A drunken idiot running around the city on the weekend draped in the flag might think they're a true patriot, but we can't let this type of "passion" hijack Australia Day from those of us who want to express a much more complex but ultimately richer sense of National Identity.
We need to accept Australia Day for what it is. Clinging to a mythologised version of the story of January 26th doesn't help, but nor would dumping it and replacing it with a less difficult date; the difficult history remains either way.
Australia Day could benefit from taking a leaf out of its cousin Anzac Day's book.
Anzac Day gets up at dawn to the sound of the last post and attends to the solemn business on the agenda, before letting its hair down playing two-up. This combination of traditions that embrace the twin themes of remembrance and mateship, are what makes it so poignant.
Why can't we take a similar approach to Australia Day?
If you're aim is to build a legend, then you need to pick an angle and run with it. To tell a real story you need many angles told by a range of voices. Just as the Anzac story wouldn't make sense if you left all the bits about war, death and suffering out, so to the Australia Day story doesn't make sense when we try to leave all the bits about invasion, genocide and racism out.
That's why Professor Dodson is right about one thing; we do need a national conversation about what Australia Day means. Not just on January 26th, but in schools and workplaces and government all year round.
mdart
February 2, 2009 at 5:23 am
Time to cut the tack out of Australia Day
As I share my birthday with Australia Day – I hope the day can certainly change it's tone!
It is embrassing that the day has become a tacky parody of 'celebration' (i.e. stick a plastic flag on your car and drink yourself into oblivion). This lowest-common-demoninator form of celebration just adds insult to the injury that this is a rememberance day of a hostile invasion, and the way in which we choose to mark this smacks of an 'up yours, we won' attitude to indigenous people.
We should keep the day, keep the name, but endeavour to take on a more truthful and less Bogan approach – commiserate on the evils that we did, but celebrate the potential that we can become so much more – indgenous Australians included.
Hopefully then it will become a bit less embarassing to have a drink and a bit of a party on my birthday…
sally.rose
February 2, 2009 at 5:29 am
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday for last week!