Remember when Australia Day was a relaxed event?

Australia Day.  A day to, in essence, celebrate Australia and being Australian.  Seems pretty straight forward and for many years it has been.  Get a day off work, have a BBQ and a beer.  Catch up with a few mates – all very uncomplicated.

But now we have the internet.

Every year Australia Day seems to become more and more ‘obsessive, angry fragger on social media shitstorm day’.  Don’t dare log on to Facebook or Twitter or anything else because this is what you will see:

The Far Left: “It’s Invasion Day!  It shouldn’t be held on January 26th!  It’s a racist day!  We should all feel shame for something we have 3rd hand knowledge of!”

The Far Right: “If you don’t like Australia then f*ck off.  If you don’t like our customs then f*ck off.  If you don’t conform to our norms then f*ck off back to where you came from!”

Muted in the Middle

 

Well guess what – I’ll bet a lot of you who are not indigenous or listened to mainstream media talking about asylum seekers didn’t give a crap about all this 15 years ago!  We have yuppies who have never stepped foot outside a capital city thinking that ranting on Twitter will make a difference to Aboriginal communities, instead of maybe actually jumping on a train to go visit one and lend a hand.  Conversely we have yobbos yelling on Facebook that if you don’t like Australia Day and were not born here then piss off back to your own country, trying to somehow pass off blatant racism as patriotism.  Seems like for the most part its Caucasians with too much free time and no real multicultural experience that are the actual problem.  And most of these folk seem to be on social media trolling for someone to disagree with them so they can fly off into self-righteous tirades – oh yes, very Australian indeed.

 

For the record, if Aboriginal people have a problem with Australia Day and the date it’s held on, I reckon it’s probably valid.  Most of the actual Indigenous commentators I’ve heard on the subject tend to be articulate and well spoken rather than simply screaming “INVASION AND MURDER!” on the streets.  Let them have their say because at least they are saying it in an intelligent way.  And for those who are not of indigenous heritage but are trying to highlight their issues and the inequalities inherent in society without trying to slam it down my throat I will happily listen to you as well.  If the arguments are cogent I may well end up agreeing.  For those that feel pride for being an Australian and want show it by hoisting the Aussie Flag on their front lawn and singing the national anthem on Australia Day, I don’t have a real problem with them either.  If you aren’t bothering anyone or engaging in a ‘my country is better than yours’ mentality, go for ya life!  I may even sing along with ya.

 

But for the Far Lefties screaming “Invasion Day” and the Far Righties screaming “Love Australia or get out!” all I can say is “Why don’t both sides shut the hell up!”  Stop ruining the day for the rest of us!  Many of the people that are yelling the loudest are screaming about issues that they have never been involved in and have never directly impacted on their own lives.  It’s just a damn excuse for the right and left of politics to slam into each other in a big bitch-fest yet again.  People that have never said two words to an Indigenous person in real life screaming about what happened to them centuries ago and conversely people who have never been personally inconvenienced by an immigrant or asylum seeker yelling that this is our day and our country and they should all piss off home.  Here is an idea, why don’t both sides go out to a big paddock somewhere armed with padded bats and beat the crap out of each other for the day, preferably causing at least enough damage to render all their hands too swollen to type and their throats too sore to rant.

 

You wanna know what I’ll be doing on Australia Day?

 

I’ll be happy I have the day off work.  I’ll be happy that I live in a country that, even though it has a splotchy history and is by no means perfect today, is still pretty damn good.  I’ll cook up some Aussie-style burgers with fried eggs from my chookies and some tomatoes from my vege patch along with some beef and beetroot.  I’ll enjoy these with my family and maybe have a few beers from one of the smaller Aussie brewing companies.  Might even chuck on JJJ’s Hottest 100 on the radio while I do some farm work.  I won’t bother anyone, I won’t scream at anyone, I won’t get angry on the internet at anyone who doesn’t agree with me.  In short I’ll relax, chill the hell out and enjoy that I live in a country where I have enough to eat and no one is shooting at me. Because a f*ckload of people on the planet – far too many – don’t get to enjoy those two simple luxuries. 

 

I suggest you all do the same and maybe give the self-righteousness a rest eh?  Happy Australia Day!

 

Do you agree or have a different opinion?  As long as you can state it without a bullhorn I’d love to read it in the comments below.

5 thoughts on “Remember when Australia Day was a relaxed event?”

  1. Yep, nothing’s perfect! Extremist rants really frustrate this little fence sitter 😜 but I’m happy to keep scrolling and honestly I just like the day off!!

  2. You posted this on my FB four years ago ;

    “Now Maddy, I know in the past you have been mega un-Aussie on Australia day, and perhaps instead of bagging all it means to us and acting like a heretic I think you should reflect on all the good, like what we have done for the Indigenous Community. People say we have not done enough but think about it:

    Think of all the remedies we brought them for European diseases! Yes admittedly those remedies did not work and they died by the thousands, and yes admittedly the non-working remedies were only given to indigenous people who seemed to serve a purpose such as farm hands, but without us, they would have had NO non-working remedies to the European diseases at all!

    We gave them housing! Before us, all they had were the caves and dwellings they made in the vast, unspoiled Australian bushland. I’m sure all the Aboriginal people in Coober Pedy that get to live in commission flats really pity and mock those who had to keep their native land outside the town and live in the caves, which while admittedly providing far more protection from the heat and cold than other structures, don’t have wonders like electric can openers and lava lamps!

    We offered unparalleled baby-sitting services! Why, we took the burden of a whole generation of children off their parent’s hands. And we did not wimp out and only babysit them for a night, oh no! We babysat them until they were adults, and whenever the parents repeatedly asked for them back we said ‘No no, we will hang onto them so you can have a rest” Now that’s being supportive!

    We gave them foxes and rabbits to hunt and brought guns for them to hunt them with. We brought cane toads to entertain their children. We brought tobacco and alcohol for them to enjoy at the end of the day. We brought our religions, without which how would they have known that if they did not live our way they would burn in hell for all eternity?

    So buck up your thinking Maddy – God Bless Australia Day!”

    1. I’m kinda honoured you kept that for four years – good to see I was as subtle back then as I am now 😉

  3. Facebook did a ‘on this day’ reminder for me.
    Evidently I’ve been pretty angry on this day , since the inception of facebook. And long before that too. In 1988 when every school kid got a medallion coin in a little white folded card I wrote on mine ‘I will not celebrate on this day. 60,000 years of Dreamtime, 200 years of nightmares. White Australia has a Black history’ and I handed it back to my school principal and said ‘I don’t want this’.
    I got detention for that.

    1. Just when I think you can’t rock any harder! You were back then and remain to this day both the ‘mack’ and the ‘daddy’!

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