What Does Australia Day Mean To You?

[Jase71]

The question was asked elsewhere: "What does Australia Day mean to you?"

It's a good question. To many people, it's just another day off work, often a long weekend if the calander is aligned as such. It may be an echo of the xmas debate, where less people are inclined to view the origin of the occasion, but simply love it for the paid public holiday that it is.

But patriotism can sometimes be more intrinsic that fairy tales, and it would be of interest to see how people view this day. The discussion started on this thread, being nought to do with Australia Day, so I think it's fair to channel it to a new thread.

So far, it's unfolded as thus:

jojai: What does Australia day mean to you?

NigeP62: Australia Day means a day off to watch the cricket.... heard that somewhere

Mark *******: What Australia day means to me: being half pissed on little creatures pale ale, james squire IPA, and barons black wattle ale, typing out a massive paragraph or nonsense, and then deleting it all and instead typing out that you were half pissed on lcpa, jsipa, and barons black wattle ale...

Goofinder: Australia Day means I get called up to help a mate out with something at his place which just happens to be in Broadview, meaning I miss out on heaps of free brewing stuff just down the road from my place.

Jase71: The destruction & decimation of an entire culture for Imperialist gain, and the supression of our forefather's bloodletting.

jojai: I totally agree, it pisses me off that they don't even mention anything along these lines when they have the inspirational TV features on all of the Australian sporting pride telling us to be proud to be Australian. I love Australia, but as you say, suppressing the disgusting and all too recent attempted/successful genocide of Indigenous Australian's is plain wrong. In my opinion it has lead to so called "Australian Culture" being accepted as being a yobo, a shallow culture that entails a love for big cars and making a drunken ass of yourself while you worship Australian sportsmen, if it were publicly accepted and dealt with that our history rests on the foundation of blood, then I think we could celebrate guilt free all that is great about Australia. Until then though, it's hard to feel proud - for me at least.

And so may the subject progress..... ..

 

[MarkBastard]

The poms killed the Abos. My ancestors were prisoners for stealing a loaf of bread to feed the starving family. We didn't have it much better to be honest. But then again I'm 26 years old and like everybody else alive today, I wasn't around during the so called invasion, and have absolutely no guilt over it, just like others have no guilt over other events that happened hundreds of years ago (including the treatment of the poor / the scots / the irish).

Everyone needs to stop crying and live in the now I reckon. I'll drink to that.

 

[raven19]

A day off is nice indeed.

It certainly is interesting the debate in the media that is happening in regards to moving Australia Day, as currently our indiginous aussies see it as 'invasion day'.

To celebrate our great Country, and way of life, multicultural, BBQ's, mates, and beers!

Beers! :icon_cheers:

 

[staggalee]

The poms killed the Abos.

Bloody pommies again
But I`ll tell you right now, I wouldn`t be chastising them too much, there`s enough of them on here to arm up and take the law into their own hands again if they get a mind to.

stagga.

 

[Jase71]

There are a lot of bloody pommies on this board, arent there ?

Some of which are my favourite AHB contributors!

 

[Pollux]

This year Australian Day managed to line up with Chinese New Year.............

I actually forgot it was australia day while at work, too much Kung Hei Phat Choi going on to notice really.

 

[MarkBastard]

Haha yes wouldn't want to get them angry... may ship me off to a tropical paradise

 

[white.grant]

I really don't like the kids running around with the flag as cape, bra, boardshort, thong (both kinds), boxer shorts, earings, fake tatoos, bumper stickers, stupid plastic crap jammed into car windows that snap when you hit 100km and waving a flag on a stick.

I was taught to respect the flag, you raise it solemnly and acknowledge it as a symbol of significance, you never let it touch the ground, and you only wear it if you are fighting someone. The current approach to celebrating Australia day leaves a lot to be desired atmo.

cheers

grant

 

[reg]

Australia day is a day to reflect on the opportunities we have in this great land, we also have rights that not a lot of other countries have, eg the right to vote, the right of free speech and the right to your own opinion.
I for one am glad to be Australian and welcome all people from other countries to migrate to Australia and add to the multicultural mixing pot.

Over the course of history there have been the rise and fall of countries through blood shed.
If it wasnt the english it may have the samoans or the malaysians.

Whilst I feel for the aboriginal people and the way that they have been treated in the past, I myself have never mistreated any of them and in fact I do a lot of free work for the homeless in general which entails a few aboriginal people in the inner city.
Society as a whole needs to recognise the wrongs of the past and move forward together.

 

[Jase71]

Whilst I feel for the aboriginal people and the way that they have been treated in the past, I myself have never mistreated any of them

Well, isn't that because there's (by & large) none left ? Thy're all ******* gone.

Im not suggesting that we should all be shamed by how this modern Australia came about, but to a white-patriot who says that Middle Easterns, SE Asians, Polynesians, Europeans, Americano's, Latino's or whatever else shouldnt live here because 'This is OUR COUNTRY'.... well I suppose I find the white racist element in this (ie the "aussie") society very hypocritical, considering the history of this great brown land.

 

[warra48]

Doesn't mean much to me, but then neither do any of the other public holidays or celebrations.

I'm really a clogwog by birth, born 20 km from the centre of Amsterdam, and I'm only an Australian because I have a certificate somewhere to say that I am.

Mind you, my wife is a dinky dye Aussie, as are my offspring, naturally. Certainly my granddaughter is.

 

[RobW]

"I really don't like the kids running around with the flag as cape, bra, boardshort, thong (both kinds), boxer shorts, earings, fake tatoos, bumper stickers, stupid plastic crap jammed into car windows that snap when you hit 100km and waving a flag on a stick.

I was taught to respect the flag, you raise it solemnly and acknowledge it as a symbol of significance, you never let it touch the ground, and you only wear it if you are fighting someone. The current approach to celebrating Australia day leaves a lot to be desired atmo."

Too right. I hate the Cronulla cape.

There's a good argument for Australia day being May 9. Not that it'll ever happen.

 

[Jase71]

I was taught to respect the flag, you raise it solemnly and acknowledge it as a symbol of significance,

As we progress through life and start to become people with our own ideas on right & wrong, it's often fortuitous to evolve from much of what we were taught to view as 'the way things are done'. Just because you were told to respect a modern-day totemic symbol, doesn't mean you still need to. FFS the official Australian flag has a Union Jack on it. What does that relevance mean anymore ? All I can think of is that we (tax money) get to pay a "Governer General" to be installed for those moments when legislative process may become disageeable, and the firm hand of England (or it's installed representative) take precedence over the decisions? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the only instance of the GG's intervention been the Gough Whitlam "Constitutional Crisis"?

Is there any reason in 2009 that this country needs to have an afilliation with Ol Blighty ? In all reality, that Union Jack should be replaced by the star-spangled banner, for it's America that drives the market here (financial, social, fashion, music)

 

[schooey]

*Prepares to be tarred an feathered*

I grew up in a town that had a 40%+ Aboriginal population. I'm proud to still call many of them my friends. For me, I think the answer to discrimination comes when you don't judge by colour or race, in fact, you don't judge at all, you just let the measure of the man speak for itself. Face it, if a kid grows up with parents that have morals and scruples, theres a good chance that kid will too. If a kid grows up and his parents have no morals or scruples, theres a fair chance that kid will have less, as will it's kids.... yatter yatter...

There is no doubt that what the early colonialists did in this country is wrong. Go argue, it would be interesting... Some would argue that if we hadn't of landed here first, and the Japanese did, they would have annihilated the Indigenous Australian population... Some argue that the Indigenous would of lived on for hundreds of years in happiness... there is no right answer.

As for the here and now, I try and see it from my side. I say to my self sometimes, I wasn't here, I don't know, I have nothing to be sorry for. then I think 200 years wasn't that long ago really, imagine if my people were invaded, shot on sight for simply not understanding the law of a foreigner in my own country.. Bit of a double edged sword hey. Sorry, still don't understand what the answer is... but I know it's not ignorance.

<end soapbox moment>

As for what Australia Day means to me, I guess it means that I feel very freakin' lucky to live in what I think is the best country on this planet. That even though we have our troubles and our differences, we find a way to make it all work, to stick. It is a land of opportunity, and without the wank factor, a land of mateship. the fact that we ARE so new and we don't fight over 300 years of religion appeals to me. the personalities, the cheekiness, the persistent mongrel, the pride, the banding together; you have to love the good of it and love how you shake your head at the bad of it. Plus it's what my parent's previous generation fought and died to protect, and I own a piece of it.


Anyway... as above, I'm a traditionalist, I hate the way some people treat our flag, don't get me started on people that burn it. But thats a whole different argument...

 

[sinkas]

I think that if you live here and dont feel any sense of shame or guilt at the decimation of the Australian indigenous race, then you are actually living in Egypt, on a river called De Nile. It means not whether you arrived by boat yesterday or in 1788

This awful marketing of Ozzie day as some sort of short-handed self-congratulation for absoloutly nothing is farkking scary.

Western Australia is responsible for the mindset that was used to create South Africas apartheid policy and to me it still feel's like its here today.

 

[Jase71]

Of the 40% Aboriginal township, how many were 100% indigeounous ?

Thanks to Wiki Images, here's a shot of Australia Day celebrations in 1908, 'on the riverbank at St. Lucia, Brisbane'.

No aboriginal Australians seemed to make it in happy-times photographs back then either - a whole 100 years ago. Although what are all those lousy Italians doing in the shot!?

Is there any historical evidence that 'the Japanese' would have taken this pre-colonial country if the motherland ships had not came forth ? If I was around back then, my bet would have been the Spaniards. We can speculate all we want, yet the facts are clearly stated in texts of history.

White man came across the sea, he brought us pain & misery........
He killed our tribe, he killed our creed...............
He took our game for his own need...........

I also have nothing to be sorry for (my blood ancestors were Irish thieves), but I cannot wave the flag of my birthplace -and my parents, and their parents, and their parents parents etc etc- in vacuous, blind, patriotic pride.

 

[porky]

Is there any reason in 2009 that this country needs to have an afilliation with Ol Blighty ? In all reality, that Union Jack should be replaced by the star-spangled banner, for it's America that drives the market here (financial, social, fashion, music)

Mate,
It doesn't only drive it, it owns it. Holden, Ford, The electric company that gives most of you power.
Shame on Aussies that let that happen. Oh, I forgot Vegemite, heaps of other food products as well.
WTF?

Bud

 

[schooey]

Hey dude, I never ran a poll on what percentages they were, and as far as I know, they didn't care either. To them, they were just Indigenous.......

and like I said....some would argue... you go argue for the Spaniards all you like, still not going to achieve much hey? But you acknowledged the point that;

someone would have came across the sea, brought us pain & misery........
killed our tribe, killed our creed...............
took our game for his own need...

I also have nothing to be sorry for (my blood ancestors were Irish thieves), but I cannot wave the flag of my birthplace -and my parents, and their parents, and their parents parents etc etc- in vacuous, blind, patriotic pride.

and you keep on existing in your non-belonging vacuum, old son. Sucks to be you....

 

[Jase71]

Hey dude, I never ran a poll on what percentages they were, and as far as I know, they didn't care either. To them, they were just Indigenous.......

Yeah, we're all indigenous to somewhere.

and like I said....some would argue... you go argue for the Spaniards all you like, still not going to achieve much hey?

I'm not specifically argueing towards a Spanish Invasion if England hadn't marked this land as a dumping ground for recalcitrent, poverty-driven petty thieves, then later a 'new start' destination for the young, well-to-do old-money Colionialist trendsetters, but Spain could well have been the dominating force that drove the society. Look at the history of sea exploration. Heck, it could have been the French. It's as speculative as saying the Japanese may have taken this huge island. But the fact is, it was the English.....

But I should make an admission. My gripe is not with the occupation of this country as such. It's with the people, mostly of UK bloodline (like myself), but also of recent times (ie the late fourties on) who came from Greece, Italy, the Balkan/East Euro states, who think that Australia is exclusive to certain cultures because of the way it was established, yet those people will be genuinly, totally, completely derogatory & racist to some of the more recent migratory influx. To me, that is beyond the Aryan Master-Race concept that Hitler was dictating.

and you keep on existing in your non-belonging vacuum, old son. Sucks to be you....

Well, this sort of open discussion amongst peers is keeping me from being sucked into that vacuum, yeah? But thanks for feeling the need to rip into me a bit. It adds to the overall candour & colour of this conversation.... :icon_cheers: .



.

 

[schooey]

To me, that is beyond the Aryan Master-Race concept that Hitler was dictating.

yeah... ok :blink:

I don't know what your tipple is tonight, dude, but to compare any form of modern racism to the Hitler model that saw 11 million men women and children wasted, is just a tad of a big call

Well, this sort of open discussion amongst peers is keeping me from being sucked into that vacuum, yeah? But thanks for feeling the need to rip into me a bit. It adds to the overall candour & colour of this conversation.... :icon_cheers: .

Well if you are going to roam the forums like you have for the last week or two like a yapping little terrior, looking for a bite, eventually someone is going to smack you on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.