Australia Day has become jingositic, nationalistic, racist
Australia Day nationalism walks in the footsteps of ugly precedents, The Conversation, Robin Tennant-Wood, 14 Jan Assistant Professor, Faculty of Business and Government at University of Canberra “……Australia Day has always been problematic as a national day of celebration. The “Est 1788” line only serves to emphasise this point. Apart from being offensive to indigenous Australians, it is, quite simply, historically incorrect…….
Although they colonised the land, the British did not discover Australia. That occurred with the arrival of the Aboriginal ancestors. …….
Australia, the country, is the oldest landmass on the planet and has been inhabited for at least 70,000 years. This is where the celebration of Australia Day has always been – and, I would argue, always will be – divisive. The indigenous community regard Australia Day as Invasion Day, and more recently,Survival Day.
Celebrating the First Fleet anniversary legitimises the now legally discredited notion of terra nullius. It marks the point at which the British government took possession of a land that was already occupied by a people who could have claimed sovereign rights, had they been consulted. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established on January 26, 1972, in protest against the denial of Aboriginal land rights……
Sometime around the mid-1990s the anniversary started to become infused with nationalism and its accompanying racist undertones. It is no accident that this coincided with the election of Pauline Hanson and her maiden speech in which she stated that Australia “is in danger of being swamped by Asians”. “Hansonism” and the establishment of One Nation, along with the Howard government’s extinguishing of native title, the “Fortress Australia” approach to refugee arrivals and Howard’s 2001 election speech in which he said, “We will decide who comes into this country and the circumstances in which they come”, opened the door to tacitly sanctioned racism. This has manifested in Australia Day becoming a nationalist focal point……..
It is time for Australia, as a mature nation, to acknowledge its past, atone for its mistakes, repudiate jingoistic nationalism and move towards a national celebration inclusive of all Australians. http://theconversation.com/australia-day-nationalism-walks-in-the-footsteps-of-ugly-precedents-21951
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