Four very different views of Australia Day come from Paul Daley in the Guardian Australia, Miranda Devine in the Daily Telegraph, Dick Smith in The Age and Jack Waterford in the Canberra Times.
And let’s make it a quintet with this Inside Change post from one Rob Lancaster which includes this paragraph:
Rather than vapid parochialism, on whatever day of the year we devote to it, what is perhaps more interesting is a day that honestly explores all the competing narratives of what it means to be Australian, none of which we can deny (the good and the bad alike), and ask ourselves what we can do practically to reinforce the narratives that draw out the best in all of us, not just recline in a cloister of self-satisfied righteousness, together with all those ‘true’ Australians who agree with us. (emphasis added because that is the sort of sentiment HH likes)
And, to make it a septet, Andrew Markus reports on the Scanlon Foundation surveys of Australian attitudes to, among other things, Australian-ness, and Chelsea Bond calls for commemoration rather than celebration.
The disconnect I feel on the January 26 is not a rejection of my mother’s [Anglo-Celtic] history [says Bond]. Rather, it is a rejection of the privileging of one version of history at the expense of another. I simply cannot be part of the collective amnesia that sweeps the nation on January 26 each year. This amnesia is evidenced in our current prime minister choosing the arrival of the First Fleet as the “defining moment” of our national identity.
This nation has a history that extends well beyond the past 227 years, not to mention a few more inclusive “defining moments” since then.
And making it up to an octet is Amy McQuire in New Matilda. And our ninth and last but unmissable is from Liz Conor, also in New Matilda. Did you sing?
25 January 2015 and updated