I’m not entirely sure the world needs another middle-aged white person adding to the discourse around Australia Day, but I’m going to go there anyway.
January 26 1788 is the day Sir Arthur Phillip raised the British flag at Sydney Cove to claim the land as a British Colony. It is a day that marks the start of a long and brutal colonisation process for Australia’s indigenous population.
Debates about changing the date surface every year (and have done since 1888 when Aboriginal leaders boycotted centenary celebrations) and I’ve always quietly agreed with the sentiment without actively doing anything about it, largely carrying on with whatever Australia Day activities were planned.
But the shine of ‘celebrating’ this day has dulled. There are many great reasons to celebrate being Australian, but we can do that any day of the year. It makes not a shred of difference to me when this should occur, but it would make a great deal of difference to a lot of people for whom January 26 is painful.
I applied the same logic when people were up in arms about Chicos becoming Cheekies, Redskins becoming Red Rippers and Coon cheese being renamed to Cheer cheese. I just don’t care (I’m not sure if this is being woke or apathetic), but if someone can now cruise the dairy section without seeing a horrible racial slur that has possibly been spat at them in hate, that’s a tick in my book. It is a sentiment I am proud to have passed onto my children, even if I had to cringe through my youngest asking loudly during a grocery shop, “Mum, why is that lady buying the racist cheese?”
When I think of what we celebrate about being Australian – equality and opportunity for example – we need to recognise that is not the case for all Australians. The chasmic gap between the lived experience of white Australians vs First Nations people has just recently been demonstrated with the vaccination rollout. 61.65% of indigenous people in the Wheatbelt were double dosed as at 24 January, as we hit the milestone of 90% double dosed amongst the general Western Australian population. I don’t think we need to be apologising for our ancestors, but we need to acknowledge we are still reaping the benefits of their actions – just as First Nations descendants are still experiencing the generational trauma of colonisation.
I’m not saying no to celebrating our great nation and I understand that change is hard…if you feel immediately opposed to the idea of a different date, maybe stop and examine why? I think changing the date is an inevitability and I’m pretty keen to be on the right side of history.
