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SOAPBOX.
Friday 29.01.2016 to Sunday 31.01.2016 | Dubbo Weekender
Jamie McGaw
Real message lost in a tide of tiresome angst APPY Australia Day…apparently that’s a thing now. It wasn’t such a big deal when I was a kid, more just an excuse for a long weekend and a barbecue, maybe. Now it seems to have exploded with cheap Oi Oi Oi trinkets and American level nationalism. Worst of all, its been embraced by the flag-draped Bogan pride element (not you, Nyngan) with the Southern Cross tattoos, the “Australia: love it or leave it” bumper stickers and all that rubbish. That part is not so good. Every man and his blog seems to be writing something meaningful or poetic for Australia Day. Let’s get this out there now: Personally I love Australia – both the concept and the reality. By comparison, look at the economic shambles and terrorist horror wrought overseas at the moment. Even though I have a United Nations worth of mixed blood flowing harmoniously through my veins, I can feel a teary pride when I hear I Still Call Australia Home. Gets me every time. And why not? It doesn’t matter what my racial background is. Where my mob comes from. I’m Australian and I’m allowed to love my country. To hell with the hippies who seem fixated on making me feel guilty for it. We need to be looking to the future, not bogged down in the past. Don’t we? Cant we all just get on with it and get along? So anyway I woke up early (hungover) a few days back and made the mistake of turning on the telly. As usual during the post-Christmas media doldrums, the “change the flag” debate was raging on one of the morning shows. Impassioned individuals pleaded their various cases for and against. Change the flag. Change the date. Change the constitution. Change the channel. A competition to design a new flag? What’s wrong with our old one? I like it. It’s sorta unique (sorry NZ), and men and women have given their lives for it over the years. It’s important, has a history, a gravitas. Now, some 22 year old herbal tea drinking, kale snorting, man-bunned hippie academic (or at least the one that was on TV) is in my face arguing to change such an important part of our culture and history. No way, man. Not on my watch.
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“We need to break away from our oppressive colonial past, cut our ties with Mother England, distance ourselves from the sins of our forefathers, repair the damage inflicted on the indigenous peoples and culture by the white settlement of Australia, so…let us know on the Sunrise website what you think. And up next? Man bites dog in Brisbane. Two things not to do first thing in the morning: turn on TV or read the Daily
PHOTO: AAP/David Moir
ly not enough to present Telegraph. ` an educated argument And so on the day went with various media for- The real messages to an overeducated permats getting in my shiz- are getting lost as son. And I learned a lot. But this isn’t it (the zle about Australia Day. people are turning educated argument). I raged on social me- off rather than That’s for another day. dia about the “change the flag” thing and then engaging with the I’m just saying “Hey! Inspewed some ill-thought issues. That’s a stead of ranting on Facebook, why not look at out rhetoric onto the in- real barrier to any the issues and do some terwebs. For some rea- reconciliation, isn’t research?” son an old friend who works with indigenous it? Disengagement. Think critically. Educommunities decided to cate yourself. Make inengage me and weigh in. formed comment rather than kneejerk reactions on social media and become Change the flag turned into an indigenous issue. part of the conversation rather that just contributing a narky social netword So I responded with “Don’t throw logic and argument into my rant”, and of post or Tweet. So where are we now? Change the course she presented a thoughtful and constitution; change the date; say “sorlogical argument into what was a nicely satisfying Facebook tirade. Amazing ry”; stop the intervention...and possibly the most divisive at this time of the lack of respect to have a different opinion, don’t you think? year: Invasion Day. The single fastest way to be un-friended on Facebook But it stopped me in my tracks. Her personal perspective had proposed conOr popping up on Australia Day or cepts that had never before occurred to morning television’s “change the flag” me. This was something new. A lonely debate, as a humbug killjoy laying on a neuron flickered to life in my mildly Catholic level of guilt to non-indigenous hung-over brain. Australians. Maybe this wasn’t as simple as I’d But I get it. I really do. I appreciate the thought. The lonely neuron then phoned pain January 26 causes the communia few friends. Maybe there are issues ty. The damage wrought to indigenous here so deeply entrenched in our culAustralians at the hands of European ture and so devastatingly divisive they settlers is still devastating today. can never be repaired. Wow. Deep. But at the risk of being politically So I deleted the post and hit up Googincorrect, I’m just not interested any le to quickly research “the issues” bemore. I’m over it. I used to have a social cause I knew little about them – certainconscience about these things but I’ve
become socially numbed by enlightened people arguing that I be ashamed of my past and feel guilty about my place in Australia (bathed in indigenous blood as it obviously is). I was born here too (that’s a fact, not racism). Australia is ours – there is no yours or mine. Lets just get on with it. This arguing is just exhausting. But I really think that’s a large part of the problem – the real messages are getting lost as people are turning off rather than engaging with the issues. That’s a real barrier to any reconciliation, isn’t it? Disengagement. So does it matter if we do nothing? Just carry on as we are. Probably not. The world will keep turning. My Pop’s opinion was that we could hand the country back and all sail away and it still wouldn’t be good enough. So how’s changing the flag going to help? Well it wont, not by itself. It will take time to move our society forward, but its important the momentum from Sorry Day isn’t lost. The simplest most positive step I’ve heard yet is to change the date. Make January 1 our new Australia Day. Separate our single day of dizzy, nationalistic pride from the dirge of Invasion Day/ Survival Day – a day of mourning from a day of celebration. It’s a no brainer and it gets my tick. I’ll still celebrate Australia Day on January 26, but if it changes to January 1, at some point it’s all good. As long as we get an extra long weekend!