My Australia Day thoughts

I did something yesterday I can never really remember doing.

I did something celebratory on Australia Day.

Normally, I usually just sit at home and watch Australia play someone at cricket, occasionally flicking over to the tennis. If the day is a Monday, it may coincide with the Championship Games in the NFL. In short, I'd probably give the answer about Australia Day that the little kid in the BigPond ads does.

However, yesterday I went to one of Rose's school chums' places for a barbeque and some fun in her pool. Despite all attendees being required to wear Aussie Flag temporary tattoos, I somehow got out of that. And Skye's family house is a testament to pretty much all that is good about Australia: her father is caucasian, probably of British heritage, while her mother is Muslim. All over the house are posters promoting Australian flora and fauna, a very kitsch "Advance Australia" rug in the hall way, pool and barbeque out the back. It was, on all accounts, a very good day.

I'm not really comfortable with overt displays of patriotism. While I deplore the word "jingoism", I like to think that Australia has always embraced an understated patrotism, one that doesn't surface during while the National Anthem is being played (an ordinary, but fairly inoffensive anthem by international standards), but does surface after events like Black Saturday.

Australia is moving towards more overt patriotism: there's not much doubt about that. This can manifest in something as benign as wearing the Australian Flag as a cape, but can also move towards racism and intolerance, which is actually when you stop celebrating Australia Day. After all, almost everyone in Australia is from someone else. While I would like to think we could stay as respectful and dignified about our national pride as we were before, we are becoming a little more like the US in wearing our patriotism more obviously.

There is also the unease many people feel with celebrating a day such as January 26, when the white man landed and never left. However, the fact is that most any date that Australia Day could be celebrated, would be problematic. And there are no dates of national significance in August or September, when people (especially in Victoria) really need a day off.

In the final analysis, we need to accept, celebrate and acknowldge who we are and where we've been. We're a country that has a national broadcaster who has the same post office box in every capital city because it was a cricketer's final test batting average. We have another national day which commemorates one of the greatest mistakes in military history, but we see it as the birth of a national spirit. We have a holiday for a horse race. We've had a Prime Minister almost encourage people to take the day off work, and another who crowd surfed while in office. We have highways named after footballers and lanes named after rock bands.

I don't know what you'd call that, but I call it pretty close to the best country in the world. Hope you had a good one.