AUSTRALIA DAY: Celebration or whistling in the dark?

There was a time not so long ago, probably up till about 1988, that Australia Day was treated as most other Australian holidays were, with the exceptions of Easter and Christmas. That is, along with such other non events such as Labour Day and the Queen’s birthday, the main thing was that it was a holiday – no real reason to enquire further, although some may have languorously asked just what the nature of a welcome addition to the weekend in a working week was.

Flag waving and exhibitionistic patriotism was looked at askance – something best left to the Septics who had created an art form out of it. No, our patriotism was more of a type best kept to ourselves along with the deeper types of thoughts and emotions that most Australian men would rather keep out of conversations with their mates. We all knew, almost instinctively what it meant to be Australian. We were secure in that – something sporting commentators call being ‘quietly confident’. Asking the question: what or who is an Australian, or what is meant by it? wasn’t the party game that it is today. We just knew. Australian patriotism had been too emphatically demonstrated when it had needed to be for us not to know.

That’s not to say that the dreaded cultural cringe wasn’t with us then – it was, as it always has been and presumably will be. But at least the cringe was related to other white nations. That that may change some day though is not outside the realms of possibility. One is tempted to say that the cringers would be found more heavily populating the middle classes but of course the working class is not off the hook if the proliferating slavish parroting of Americanisms is any indication.

Is Australia Day, as it’s been repackaged since those far less ostentatious days, itself an Americanism? Were we exposed to too much imagery of Independence Day parades and the concomitant in-your-face celebrating and flag-waving we once sneered at?

Since we are becoming American in so many other ways, (not least the shameless scrambling after money that was once viewed as peculiarly American) that is not such an outlandish suggestion. A curious coincidence though suggests another motivating force, and that is that the Australia Day production seems to have grown parallel with the burgeoning multicultural industry. What better opportunity for a grand demonstration of ‘inclusiveness’? Do those suspicions harboured by many that Australia Day is becoming more and more Multicultural Australia Day have any foundation? Perhaps not. Perhaps it’s just an excuse for a good day out to be celebrated however one likes.

The dancing dragon in China Town is probably just as legitimate a celebration of Australia Day as a beach barbecue with plenty of Tooheys, even if a government grant is needed to lure the dragon out. But does the dragon dance with just as much gusto as it would on, say, Chinese New Year? (Who knows? There may even be a government grant quietly greasing a palm to get that dragon fired up as well.) Even so, who could begrudge our ethnic neighbours celebrating and having a good time like everybody else? But the question still lurks, do they really have any idea of what is actually being celebrated? Birth of a nation? Who cares? Let’s party. Anyway, wasn’t that the bad, old Australia – the one of invasion, genocide and almost two hundred evil years of racism? If there is any achievement mixed up in all that, it might best be forgotten, with the rest of that whole unfortunate period. Besides, trying to inculcate pride of white achievement into non-whites is nigh on impossible – ask any Aborigine. It’s a little like asking an acquaintance to feel the same pride in your great grandfather’s outstanding achievements as you do.

If there is a contradiction embedded in instant Australians celebrating Australia Day, it pales into insignificance in comparison with the flag-waving and patriotic dress of those who can call themselves simply Australian without a hyphen. One can imagine their political masters smiling upon this perfectly harmless, pressure-valve patriotism. Good god! If the fools only knew, they must be thinking. As the multiculturalist who passes himself off as a dyed-in-the-wool Aussie patriot drones in his song, True Blue, ‘you’re just another dying race’.

Forget this traitor and his mediocre music. Just focus on those words: you’re just another dying race. Did he pen them with a malevolent, gleeful grin twisting his face? If so, his death wish will be answered if the mindlessness of Australia Day is never converted into real nationalism which, unlike the state sanctioned, innocuous form of patriotism, politicians fear and loath. Stroking the dog lovingly, they lead him to the vet with the syringe in his hand. Wave those flags, drink your beer and celebrate your wonderful nation-state while we’re busy doing something else– selling it off. It’s the world stage for us; the nation-state is a quaint idea whose time has passed.

So revelers revel and sausages sizzle while what is being celebrated quietly disappears under waves of mass, third world immigration and the tearing apart of enforced multiculturalism. Hammer blows of globalization, free trade, out-sourcing and imported ‘skills’ pound the dark new world into shape. This is no mere fiddling while Rome burns; it is a rock concert with fire-works!

But Australia Day is celebrated determinedly. Is it because, like the mystic’s still, small voice, something within the Australian psyche murmurs of a great and terrible danger? This danger though is so overwhelming, so unbelievable, that perhaps, like reality itself, the human mind can deal with only so much of it. And just like reality itself is ignored by the alcoholic and the drug fiend, the great danger is muffled and blocked out by consumerism, sport and hedonism.

As the danger grows, it is more than likely that the celebration of Australia Day grows in direct proportion.