Hey people, please be tolerant of us Aussies tomorrow ((26/01/09). It’s Australia Day And we may be incoherent with drink. We do tend to drink a bit.
We’re pretty low-key about our national day but we will have the barby, the seafood and the beers (XXXX), maybe even the meat pie. It’s not huge here but it does mark the end of the summer break and the start of the school year and, for many, back to work.
Happy Aussie Day fellow Australians.
BTW, do you agree with the Australian of the year going to indigenous stalwart, Mick Dodson ? Fine by me and he’s an Australian, thank christ.
I like the public holiday an’ all, but the whole Australia Day thing isn’t really doing it for me at the moment. There’s people all over the place with little Australian flags stuck to their cars. Our flag lost something for me around the time of the December 2005 Cronulla riots. Now I associate it with drunken, bigoted, white trash laying into anyone vaguely non-anglo, for no good reason. Since then, so much use of the flag and the southern cross (the constellation as seen on our flag, not to be confused with anything Confederate American) motif seems to be by angry, white, lower socio-economic people. I just get a whole bad vibe thing from it now. I don’t feel the laconic, egalitarian atmosphere any more, everything seems somehow meaner spirited.
I still like the country of my birth, and I’m grateful for all the good things we have here. Nationalism is iffy at the best of times though. If you have to wave the flag to prove your attachment to the place, you’re probably not my kind of Australian anyway. We’re supposed to be understated, fercrissakes!
I hadn’t heard anything good or bad about him, so it seems as good a choice as any. His call for a national debate about moving Australia Day made me roll my eyes, though.
Never heard of the guy, but on the other hand I’ve never heard of most of the “Australians of the Year”. Makes me wonder how they decide these things. His “request for a dialogue” on moving Australia Day made me roll my eyes and groan as well, but I was very glad to see Uncle Kev’s response was basically “LOL No.”
Like Chicken Wire?, I too tend to now associate the wearing of the Australian Flag and the Southern Cross constellation motif with a certain angry, poor, racist class of people and that makes me sad, since all Australians- by birth of naturalisation- should be able to feel proud of their country’s flag and not ashamed that it’s being hijacked and misappropriated by intolerance and hatred.
I went out and had a very nice steak sandwich for lunch and will be cooking some delicious Tasmanian Salmon and Australian Tiger Prawns for dinner. I also have a bottle of Bundaberg Red Rum sitting in the sideboard that is crying out to be drunk, and seeing as it’s incredibly smooth and tasty I just might oblige.
FWIW, It’s people wearing the Australian Flag as a cape and having the Southern Cross Motif tattooed onto themselves (or displayed as window decals on their cars) etc that have the negative connotation in my mind, not the Flag itself.
I dislike the Eureka Stockade Flag being used for industry purposes. It was initially a sign of social change. Most of the flags are incorrect anyway.
Pssst- we are losing at the cricket.
Well, a depressing end to the cricket and an unimpressive No.1 on Triple J - but otherwise I had a fun day. Although after a day of burnt sausages, we decided to be un-Australian and have a big Indian dinner at a restaurant. That was 4 hours ago and I’m still feeling full.
I agree that the Australia Day ‘debate’ he has bought up is cause for some ocular exercises. I’m very pleased Rudd has said that he will not be persuaded to move the day and hope he can remain steadfast is the issue is pushed.
