Next week, on Tuesday January 26th to be precise, is Australia Day.
In my very humble opinion this is a strange holiday. People love it, hate it, are indifferent to it or a mixture of all three (like Taswegian weather often all on the same day).
This wasn’t what i intended to write about today. I have been looking at basal melting (which even i realise is a topic of limited interest). I have also been less than impressed with emergency relief efforts to Haiti. Not to mention i feel pretty strongly about all the young people getting killed on our roads. It is just that i had some comments directed my way email/facebook/twitter. It really got me thinking about how strongly people feel about this national holiday.
[ For info try: http://www.australiaday.org.au/experience/
and the only truly democratic source of information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day ]
I am not going to list here the pros and cons. Nor am i even going to detail anything at all about the history or back story. I do not wish to delve into Australian history about settlement, invasion, immigration. Like most aspects of history it all depends on your point of view and i find that limiting. I do like to read history, don’t get me wrong. I just prefer to make sure i read from differing perspectives.
Considering how little i put into celebrating Christmas, Easter, Valentines day or even my own birthday you can probably imagine how much effort i am willing to put into this event. I will say that i quite like the Queens birthday long weekend. Which we celebrate not on the queens birthday. I think this is because it is for a different queen than the current one. I could be wrong. I just can’t be bothered to google it. But i do like the long weekend holiday that it offers. Just call me shallow.
What i do think is that Australia day is what you decide to make it.
Perhaps that is what the day should mean. A time for reflection about this country. Or not, if you prefer. A time for thinking about where it has come from and where we would all like it to go. If all it turns out for you is that you appreciate your life with a BBQ with friends than that is fine. If you wish to protest about some aspect of current policy and behaviour then i think you should also do that.
For me Jan 26th is when my Nanna passed away 25 years ago. I still remember it as if it were yesterday. Not really the reason i am probably ambivalent about the day. Probably doesn’t help though. I always feel disinclined to celebrate when some members in the community can’t or won’t celebrate.
It is just a date. For some a good day for others not so much. For many valid reasons. What i do know is that i have been trying to talk my father out of putting up a flag pole in the front yard. He is not doing it out of patriotism more likely just to annoy the council. You are suppose to get a permit or something to put one up but he thinks it should be his right to put a flag pole up without asking anyone. You can just imagine the joy he is going to bring to the rest of us this Australia day. Kind of like my sister and the whole “i am not going to pay the council money so i can water my garden, they don’t own the rain!”. Which it turns out, after several notices, she did have to pay.
Besides, who has a public holiday on a Tuesday?
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