Events occurring last week and in the lead up to Australia Day will be the subject of this letter, which I felt necessary to write. It would seem that there is a huge range of opinion on all matters pertaining to Australia Day, and as Australians, we are completely free to think whatever we like.
At risk of being labelled anti-Australian, I must confess feeling revolted by the overwhelming display of “patriotism” shown in the prolific exhibition of Australian flags on cars, faces and everywhere one looked. I certainly am not anti-Australian, in fact am very proud to be Australian, though this pride does not manifest in wrapping myself in the flag or in public inebriation. My grandfathers and great-grandfather fought for Australia in World War II and an ancestor was transported here for stealing food to feed his starving family during the Irish potato famine. For these things I am proud. Do the rowdy youths beeping horns and waving flags know anything about their family history or how they came to be in Australia? It is very convenient to forget that unless you are Aboriginal your family did, at some point, cross an ocean to get here, whether two years or 200 hundred years ago. It is not the Australian flag I have a problem with, it is what it has come to represent – the banner of self-serving bogans who are unable to see the bigger picture of the country they live in.
The extent to which public feeling varies towards Australia Day became apparent on Thursday when violent protesting in Canberra led to Julia’s rather entertaining Cinderella moment. This piece of news has surely been interpreted in a multitude of ways, but whatever your interpretation, freedom of speech is fundamental to being Australian. It wasn’t the protestors who dragged Ms Gillard bodily down a flight of stairs.
Scenes the following day were less amusing, and somewhat saddening. The children who burned and spat on the Australian flag, or rather the adults who encouraged them, should be ashamed of themselves. This behaviour is reprehensible. It may seem that I am approaching this issue from different angles, however I see disrespect in any form of abuse of our flag.
In celebrating Australia I believe that we must truly consider what it means to be Australian, not flaunt a bunch of symbols like flags, thongs and pies. There is a lot more to this wonderful land than that. And to put things into some perspective, 224 years is a drop in the ocean compared to the 40 to 50,000 years Indigenous peoples have been here.
Mark Mitchell
Armidale
