"Let us rejoice." Australia Day

Australia Day has come and gone with all the traditional festivities: calls to change the flag, calls for a republic, and the insistence that the only thing that has happened in the last 222 years in Australia was the dispossession of the Aborigines.  For some reason, some people seem to think Australia Day is a day to concentrate on all that they don’t like about Australia. One friend on Facebook went so far as to ask ‘Remind me what we are celebrating again?’

I suppose I could have suggested a unified country with a strong liberal democracy with universal suffrage, freedom of speech, association, and belief, a country that has fought for freedom and not just our own, that was at the forefront of suffrage for women, that has given the world two world-class sopranos, as well as writers, artists, philosophers, sportspeople, actors, and scientists in numbers well above statistical probability and much more, but it seemed like too much work –  in itself something of an quintessentially Australian attitude. Which is not to suggest there are not many and urgent issues we need to deal with as a country, but other writers have gone into detail about that. As I said on my own Facebook status, my country right or wrong; when right to be kept right, when wrong to be put right.

I was thinking of calling this blog “For what it is worth” or “I could be wrong but…”, so here goes: to be frank I don’t see the need for a Republic.  Our government works very well, with stability that is the envy of many other countries around the world. People argue we need to make the gesture of Republicanism, to prove we have matured. I don’t have a lot of time for gestures: they’re easy to make and don’t achieve anything. And setting out to prove you’re mature seems self-defeating.

Mind you when I was given the chance to vote for an Australian head of state, I voted ‘yes’. Which seems contradictory, but if the question is put to me, I have to answer. And if we do go for a Republic, I would like to see a system where the President is appointed by a majority of 2/3 of the combined Houses of Parliament. There are those who argue that having the people vote directly for the President will take the politics out of it. How a popular vote removes politics is a mystery to me. On what basis are to make our vote? Hairstyle? Gymnastic ability? Poetry readings? No, the President will be a figurehead, and so should be appointed by the Parliament of the Day, the 2/3 majority avoiding the spectre of the party hack appointment.

The flag: again, I don’t sense a real need for change. In the latest debate one of the most interesting voices belonged to a number of immigrants, who said the flag was the symbol of their dream to come to Australia (this country with nothing to celebrate) and to change it would be to destroy that which sustained that dream for so long. And what would we change it to?  No design is going to please everybody and no design except the current one has such history attached to it. However, one day, and not too far in the future, I think the Union Flag will disappear from the corner. In symbolic terms, the blue field still represents the British heritage of much of the population, our language and institutions, so that will not be lost. Maybe the Aboriginal flag could go there instead? Or perhaps we replace the whole thing with the Eureka Flag instead, which belongs to all of us, not just the Union movement.

As to changing Australia Day from 26 January, I’m not sure what day we can choose where the Aboriginals were not dispossessed during European colonisation. It seems to me that changing the day to another could lead to a forgetting – surely no-one wants that. However, the argument for change is not unreasonable, and could lead to some people finally shutting up. The most positive date I can think of is perhaps the day of the 1967 Referendum,  so 27 May might be the go. Not that the referendum was the end of the story. There is still a long road ahead of us.

I dislike the term ‘Invasion Day’. It's a very understandable term, considering the armed conflicts that followed between settlers and the natives. All to often though, tt seems a very clumsy and obvious code for  white fellahs to say‘I think the right way about Australian history – do you?’ For me, the word ‘invasion’ is too narrow, and implies a purely military purpose to the British colonisation of Australia that just simply didn’t exist. Read Inga Clendinnen’s excellent book about the early years of colonisation, 'Dancing with Strangers'. One of the first interactions between the British and the Australians was a dance party. Many of the problems that occurred between the two groups was not due to malevolence on either side, but to the gulf of misunderstanding that separated them. They had little if any common ground from which they could begin to truly understand each other, despite efforts on both sides.  As someone smarter than me once said, never attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance. No, if you want a term that includes the taking of land from indigenous population, the use of land as a dumping ground for prisoners, the establishment of farms and government buildings, which leads to private ownership of land, an expansion of the original settlement, with clumsy if well meant interaction with the indigenous, the inadvertent spread of disease, as well as the many armed and malicious attacks on those people, leading to the breakdown of their society, the effects of which we are still grappling with, why not use the word we already have – colonisation?

A new friend of mine, daughter of a Greek father and Aborginal mother (she calls herself a Wogerigine) spent Australia Day at a festival called ‘Share the Spirit', celebrating Survival Day. This is a much better term: it focuses on what the Aboriginals have done and are doing and is a true celebration of their culture that we are all invited to join. Australia is heading in the right direction. We can all celebrate that.