We need to celebrate our own National Day!
Good idea. What about 1st January? That’s the day when Australia actually became a Nation!
No way – we all have hangovers on 1st January!
Has to be 26th January.
Because … ?
It’s the day that a bunch of British troops established a correctional facility on aboriginal land on the shores of Sydney Harbour! Cool, eh?
But for our National Day shouldn’t we be celebrating something that we Australians did?
Those Poms were white and they all spoke English – that’s close enough!
But shouldn’t we be celebrating something more praiseworthy or heroic for our National Day? Like the French, who celebrate storming the Bastille?
The Poms had just sailed halfway round the world – give them a break! But they did chop down a few trees, pitch a few tents and run up a Pommy flag!
Hang on! Most countries celebrate their independence on their National Day: when they stopped being someone’s colony. But isn’t 26th January the day Australia started being a colony?
Shows we don’t just mindlessly follow the majority!
Shouldn’t we have first tried to negotiated a treaty with the indigenous people, like in New Zealand?
Waste of time – we were going to take all of their land anyway, whatever they said.
Ian Robinson
Ian Robinson is a proud fourth generation Australian. He is a former tutor in Logic and in Political Philosophy at the University of Melbourne and President Emeritus of the Rationalist Society of Australia.