Australia Day..what are we actually celebrating?
January 28th 2009 14:18
It occurred to me the other night, while passively listening to the ABC overnight talkback, that maybe we should challenge the idea of celebrating Australia Day on January 26th?
Why? Well, what are we actually celebrating? To know, you must go back to the reason it first started, and therein lies one of the main problems the Australian Aboriginal community has with this date itself.
On the 26th of January 1788, Captain Phillip had raised the Union Jack, at Sydney Cove and thereby symbolically usurped authority and ownership of the ancient lands belonging to the Aboriginies, who had continually inhabited this continent for 40,000 years or more, now known as Australia. Because the Aboriginies had kept their balance with nature, it apeared to the ill-informed white "invaders", that they lacked government, territorial rights, laws or any established society. This rather bioted and self-serving view, by the English, later proved demonstratively and totally untrue!
Captain Phillip took this step, proclaiming Australia for England, because he was instructed by the English Government to find a dumping ground for their convicts, and that is all. So, what we are really celebrating is, this land being made a penal colony, for harsh servitude, by members of the British Empire!
Is that really what we want to celebrate? I don't!
So this, then, is a good reason for everyone to get behind finding a better day for national celebration and unity. What would be an appropriate date? Maybe the day Captain Cook first set foot on mainland? That date was the 20th of April 1770 and would appeal to some, but again, not the Aboriginal community, for that date was the harbinger of physical doom for most of the Aboriginal population, in one way or another.
Photo Credit: by John Hill, taken of the Endeavour ship, a replica of Captain Cook's ship, which helped him discover Australia, among many other places!
Photo is in the Public Domain, as released by and courtesy of, Mister John Hill.
The only date I can think of, that is technically relevant, would be the day we actually became a nation, a Federation of States, and that was 1st January 1901, proclaimed in Melbourne.
I say, we vote for January the 1st to be our true day of celebration, our Federation Day.
I also say, that we need to celebrate a Day of Reconciliation, for the Aboriginal Australians, so we may learn to bridge that terrible historical ravine, through which so many tears and so much blood has flowed, the cries for humanity lost in history's tidal wave of change.
The Australian Distress Signal
Why? Well, what are we actually celebrating? To know, you must go back to the reason it first started, and therein lies one of the main problems the Australian Aboriginal community has with this date itself.
On the 26th of January 1788, Captain Phillip had raised the Union Jack, at Sydney Cove and thereby symbolically usurped authority and ownership of the ancient lands belonging to the Aboriginies, who had continually inhabited this continent for 40,000 years or more, now known as Australia. Because the Aboriginies had kept their balance with nature, it apeared to the ill-informed white "invaders", that they lacked government, territorial rights, laws or any established society. This rather bioted and self-serving view, by the English, later proved demonstratively and totally untrue!
Captain Phillip took this step, proclaiming Australia for England, because he was instructed by the English Government to find a dumping ground for their convicts, and that is all. So, what we are really celebrating is, this land being made a penal colony, for harsh servitude, by members of the British Empire!
Is that really what we want to celebrate? I don't!
So this, then, is a good reason for everyone to get behind finding a better day for national celebration and unity. What would be an appropriate date? Maybe the day Captain Cook first set foot on mainland? That date was the 20th of April 1770 and would appeal to some, but again, not the Aboriginal community, for that date was the harbinger of physical doom for most of the Aboriginal population, in one way or another.
Looky Looky here comes Cooky!!!
Photo Credit: by John Hill, taken of the Endeavour ship, a replica of Captain Cook's ship, which helped him discover Australia, among many other places!
Photo is in the Public Domain, as released by and courtesy of, Mister John Hill.
The only date I can think of, that is technically relevant, would be the day we actually became a nation, a Federation of States, and that was 1st January 1901, proclaimed in Melbourne.
I say, we vote for January the 1st to be our true day of celebration, our Federation Day.
I also say, that we need to celebrate a Day of Reconciliation, for the Aboriginal Australians, so we may learn to bridge that terrible historical ravine, through which so many tears and so much blood has flowed, the cries for humanity lost in history's tidal wave of change.
| 61 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog