Australia day is a celebration of the whole of Australia, which is a very multi-racial society. Everybody is welcome to join in. And many do -- usually by the totally innocuous process of getting together with family for a BBQ.
The Left have however seized on the fact that the date commemorates the arrival of the British in Australia. That arrival was the beginning of processes that produced the peaceful and prosperous nation that is Australia today so is a fitting date for a celebration.
But the Left focus on the fact that Australia's Aborigines were largely disposessed by the arrival and spread of British settlement. They focus on one racial group instead of on modern day Australia's multicultural society.
And that is typical of the Left. They are obsessed with race. And they use the gross oversimplifications that such a focus requires. They show no recognition that Aborigines themselves are culturally diverse. Perhaps half of Australia's Aborigines are fully integrated into mainstream Australian society. They have normal jobs, live in normal houses etc.
Which shows that generalizations about them as as one race simply ignores complex reality and is in fact grossly offensive. It ignores the real social and economic progress that many Aborigines have made. By all means be charitable to distressed people but injecting a racial focus into the discussion is evil and stupid. Racism begone!
Some excerpts below from a Leftist discussion of the matter:
There is an obvious practical case against January 26 remaining an official date for celebration: it divides the country. But this is not nearly as important as the straightforward moral case: we should not celebrate a day on which land was stolen, and which led directly to the murders of many people. It is unjust. If we accept the truth of these descriptions in any meaningful way – “theft” and “murder” – continuing to act in this way is plainly unacceptable.
But, as many Indigenous Australians have pointed out, this is not only about the past. Those injustices continue to cause suffering, both in Indigenous experience – through the lasting trauma of violence, of languages and knowledge gone forever – and, just as importantly, in the habits of white people. It is obtuse to insist there is no connection between the ongoing racism and neglect this country shows towards its First Peoples and the defining role those attitudes played in the establishment of the colony.
And so, there is an emotional logic to the fact many Australians continue to avoid, as far as we can, talking about both the past and present honestly – as though to acknowledge the wrongs of either would force us to confront the wrongs of both. Responding to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Morrison repeatedly turned to sterile language about deaths in custody – they were mentioned, but for the most part blandly, as “issues”.
Similarly, in a speech for Australia Day in 2019, he described in detail the ordeal of his family arriving on the First Fleet, but referred to Indigenous pain in abstract terms. Morrison is not unique. In this paper two weeks ago, John Howard made a convincing case for the importance of the National Archives. He dealt in detail with Australia’s democratic achievements: the secret ballot, votes for women. The horrific chapters of our past received a single euphemism: “blemishes”.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/to-tell-the-truth-our-flawed-emotional-logic-must-be-laid-bare-20220122-p59qdb.html
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