Happy Straya day all

[Wokko]

Nah, 26th of January is fine. The guys who landed here didn't want to be here either, where's the hand wringing for them? Dragged away from family and friends and transported half way around the world. It's not like the day of the landing is some celebration of a glorious invasion and conquest. Take it for what it is, the start of our wonderful nation.

[ronrat]

[David]

It's not about some person out there having a whinge � as you say, anyone can do that about anything � it's about us, as rational and compassionate people, weighing up the pros and cons of having this public holiday on this particular day and what it represents.

What does it currently symbolise?
a) that Australian history began on 26/1/1788
b) that the landing at Port Phillip Bay is an event to celebrate
c) that, in a multicultural society, the day that best represents the country is the day that British people planted a British flag on our soil.

There are plenty of objective, unemotional reasons to think that this particular milestone are no longer the centre around which Australian national identity should revolve. But for many Indigenous people, points a) and b) are not just, like, 'politically incorrect' things to have a sook about, they're a total denial of their own existence and cultural history.

This is not just about a state of mind; Australia Day on the 26th of January actively excludes them. We talk a lot about reconciliation and ending the feelings of disenfranchisement and exclusion that so many Indigenous people have. Wouldn't this, changing the date, be a great place to start?

[Wokko]

Reconciliation is a two way street, maybe people accepting that the first day of British settlement is a big deal and is the reason that we have the wonderful country we have today, in spite of whatever troubles happened between our people in the past there would be something like a coming together rather than the constant white guilt bullshit that we're expected to carry like original sin forever.

Like I said, the convicts didn't want to be here either.

[think positive]

[David]

They are excluded because the national holiday represents their dispossession. Not just the many who were shot, hung or infected with diseases in the early colonial days, but the government policies that treated them as second-class members of society up until the current day (including the stolen generation, not being given citizenship until 1966, the recent NT intervention) and the living conditions that many find themselves in today as a direct result of the dispossession.

You have to understand that exclusion isn't just about forcibly locking people up. It's about policy, about behaviour and about the language and symbols we use. Nobody was randomly locking up African-Americans in the 1960s or black South Africans in the era of Apartheid in the manner you glibly refer to, but I'm sure you understand that they were obviously treated as second-class citizens. Policies like that are our heritage too, not in some distant century but in the lifetime of people still around today. And the current conditions Indigenous people face are at least in part a direct result of that history. So it's a bit insulting for someone who's never been through that to tell them to "just get over it".

As for the people who came with the First Fleet not wanting to be here, you both seem to have forgotten that it wasn't just convicts on those boats. The people in charge of those ships formed the same line of authority that ran Australia in that first century or so of colonisation, authorising any number of atrocities. And that line of command continues through our own governments since federation. We've inherited the same system that was founded upon invasion and dispossession, and we need to ask ourselves whether it isn't time to push for a more inclusive sense of national identity.

[Mugwump]

The Australian indigenous people did suffer, and a great wrong was done to them ; so I think their reaction to the present Australia Day is understandable. However, the arrival of British settlers in Australia is obviously the start of modern Australia's national and political history. I'm clearly pro-British and proud of my joint nationality, but I would be fine with canning the Queen's birthday holiday and substituting another day as an aboriginal celebration / memorial day. That would not negate the fact that the 26th of January is the defining, founding event in modern Australia's history, and the source of the institutions which gave us stability, democracy, prosperity and an independence without bloodshed. Of course it should be commemorated, with some historical honesty as well as some quiet patriotism over what has been achieved since that fateful day.

[pietillidie]

^Good post. There's nothing odd about something becoming dated and of minimal relevance in a new epoch; that's just changing with the times, and it's no affront to the now non-engaged, no-longer-significant party.

This sort of stuff really does draw a line between sane, small "l" liberals, and the gut-based religious ones.

Hence my support and anticipated vote for Turnbull, despite some rotten Glib party policies infecting the space in which he has to operate.

=====

As a complete aside on politics and the Australian situation:

Broadly, choose general sanity first and take the better overall platform second. In the hysterical and prone state of politics across developed nations at present, sanity is the best we can get for now, and I certainly don't trust a sleazy, reactionary ALP under Shorten to do anything but dream up shitty, arbitrary nonsense to win wedge votes, much like an Abbott-light.

In a calmer environment, I'd be weighting specific policy more carefully, but things have gotten so bad that general sanity and maturity brings more to the table for now. (And a dead possum brings more to the table than Shorten).

[think positive]

[pietillidie]

^How do you know it's time to "stop pushing the hurt"? Because those words sound good to your ears, or because you know, from your time counselling these folks, or working with these folks, or taking advice from serious experts who do, that this would be good for their individual and social psychologies?

My advice is the individual and collective PTSD requires extremely sensitive, and extremely specific care. My advice is the "hurt" is very, very real; that blundering distant judgements constitute a negligent guesswork below the level of professionalism people expect from their hairdresser.

We're still discussing very fragile and very traumatised lives and communities here, and like it or not that warrants a level of seriousness beyond empty, detached political slogans.

[David]

[King Monkey]

Without the British colonising parts of the continent, none of us would be alive today. None. Including those that prefer to refer to the date as "Invasion Day."

Does anyone think the Aborigines would have been left alone to live by the laws of their culture until this day if it weren't for the British arriving??????

We've got it bloody good here in Australia, more people should recognise that IMO.
It's getting really irritating being told how terrible we all are.

Past mistakes will not and cannot be erased, but lessons have obviously been learned and these mistakes will not be repeated.
Learning from mistakes I would've thought to be an excellent starting position for any individual or body of people, including a whole nation.

Choose another date and someone will have a problem with it for some or another reason.

"Get over it" is definitely the incorrect sentiment, but pointing out that past atrocities have been acknowledged and attempts to rectify these have happened and are continually happening is falling on deaf ears.
The right to not celebrate the day is up to the individual, but the right to celebrate what it means to be Australian in 2016 is afforded to all and should never be compromised by a few vocal protesters and bloggers.

Being Australian regardless of one's heritage is about the best birthday present anyone in the world could wish for.

I'd like to finish my (somewhat disjointed ) post with some glib clich�d quote about moving forward instead of looking backwards, but that'll do.........

[pietillidie]

^Fair enough; I can understand those sentiments.

The great thing you've done there in that post, which I really rate, is you've targeted your objections not at the vulnerable folk concerned, but at the political commentary you disagree with. And you haven't fabricated shite arguments and mal-educated everyone to do it.

I don't have a problem with that. That's all-fair-in-love-and-war stuff; well played.

[think positive]

[watt price tully]