An Australia Day For Us All

The heart of reconciliation lies in acknowledging wrongs of the past but not dwelling on them and then working together to make Australia better for everyone.

This is what we have lost from our shrivelling Australian identity – the spirit of mateship that once defined us as a fledgling nation. We built a country on it; we fought wars with it, and we should be proud of it.

From the moment British boots first set foot on these shores girth by sea, we have been a land of immigrants, and we can be a powerful country if we fully embrace that quality. Ancient Australia most certainly belongs to our Indigenous cultures, but contemporary Australia belongs to us all.

Australia is no stranger to strangers.

Even before the iconic British landing in Botany Bay, the Dutch had broached the western coast of Australia;  Going back far enough in time, the Aboriginals themselves are theorised to have settled here by traversing an ice bridge from South-East Asia some 60,000 years ago.

Historically speaking, in the fervour of the age, the colonisation of Australia was inevitable and though we must live with a dark history, it is ultimately and undeniably ours. Australia Day should not be an excuse to revel in or relive that history but an opportunity to both atone for and begin to move toward a united future.

For descendants of the First Fleet, primarily the convicts unceremoniously exported to a strange and distant land against their will, Australia is the only place they can truly call home. There is no going back for them, no motherland to which they can return or think of as theirs. There is only Australia. It’s all they know. England didn’t want us, so here we are.

There was no need for an extremely divisive referendum to acknowledge Indigenous Australians as natural citizens of this ancient and beautiful land we all call home. It required the strong hand of a competent Federal Government to make that constitutional change without offloading the responsibility to voters at the taxpayers’ expense and further inflaming racial tensions. In all conscience, only the truly heartless few could deny Indigenous Australians the same basic rights we all enjoy.

But many were uncomfortable with footing the bill for a vaguely described special-interest advocacy body that would only further line the pockets of lobbyists and already overpaid politicians while ignoring the essential needs of regional Aboriginal communities.

These kinds of governmental antics have become all too common in Australian politics serving only as a distraction for the masses while deferring responsibility to the voting public. At this point, it’s apparent that any government we vote into power is intent on profiteering from populist social causes while eschewing any real prospects for positive change.

The human race are wanderers by nature, we are all just travellers inhabiting an intimately small portion of space-time in the grand scheme of the Universe. Australia should be united in the diversity of our shared cultural heritage, embracing it as our greatest national trait and endeavouring to transition from a case study in the fallout of decolonisation to a shining international example of support and cooperation.

Indeed, I speak from a place of privilege as a white, middle-class male who has inherently benefitted from my social position and has never been subjugated, oppressed or denied basic human rights based on my race.

And maybe it’s easy for me to envision an Australia free of bias and disadvantage where we’re all afforded the same level of health and social comfort regardless of skin pigment or heritage because I’m not burdened by the intergenerational trauma of our Indigenous community.

But maybe I am in some way. After all, by virtue of my ancestry and DNA I am a relative newcomer to this land – my ancestral family were forcibly removed from their homeland having been deemed as criminals during a time when stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family guaranteed you a one-way trip to a penal colony thousands of kilometres across treacherous seas.

My family were exported and implanted in a foreign land where we were lucky enough to eke out an enduring existence. This is my home; if I don’t belong here, I don’t belong anywhere.

I am by no means a great patriot – I feel uncomfortable singing the national anthem and I don’t even know the second verse. I don’t wave a flag or chant nationalistic slogans, but I am grateful to live in a country unafflicted by pointless civil wars, a land blessed with the longest surviving culture on the planet and housing an international diaspora that have only enhanced our national identity.

On Australia Day, we should celebrate that, along with all the cultures that call Australia home and have contributed to our unique culture.

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