As much as I would like to, it seems impossible to avoid Australia Day. It’s sights, noises and smells waft in through my windows with the breeze, it’s plastered over most sites on the interweb, the public holiday stares back at me relentlessly from my calendar and, for some reason, people have taken to wishing me a “Happy Australia Day”.
I’m with Mungo MacCallum: who cares? The 26th of January marks the day Australia was turned into a penal colony. It marks the beginning of what almost brought about the end of the Indigenous population inhabiting this continent. Who, in their right mind, celebrates that? Not that the Australia Day celebrations wafting in through my window have anything to do with that.
No, the shouts of “Woo!”, “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!”, “Yeah!” have other reference points in mind. We could speak of some sort of disguise for banal racism, of exaggerated patriotism, ethnocentrism and blind nationalism. We could equally speak of national pride and joy. But really, for most of these yahoos, Australia Day could probably happen any day of the year, so long as it continued to be a public holiday. Drinking, barbequing and hanging out (preferably at the beach) hardly relate to the 26th of January. For all the commentary, punditry and pontification espousing the virtue or iniquity of Australia Day misses the point: all the fuss has occurred predominantly since the 26th of January became a properly observed national holiday in the 1990s. I can’t help but feel that the years of the Howard government have helped to feed the demons lurking around on Australia Day.
But we shouldn’t underestimate the timing of the public holiday as being more significant than the history it seeks to celebrate. Every public holiday in summer in Australia follows exactly the same rituals: drink, eat (barbie) and go to the beach. Christmas, New Year’s Day and Australia Day. Drinking, eating and going to the beach, on each of these days, is granted legitimacy and even virtuous status by the events marked by each of these public holidays. But really, everyone just wants to get pissed, gorge themselves and float around the pool or the ocean in the sun. This is what we aspire to as Australians on Australia Day and it is what we celebrate – a way of life revolving around beer, barbies and beaches. When compared against the lofty proclamations of politicians, pundits and commentators Australia Day appears to be quite the sham. Not to say real national sentiment isn’t present amongst the celebrants. Not say the 26th of January is merely an excuse or pretence for drinking, eating and going to the beach. Not at all. It’s just that when it boils down to looking at the things we are supposedly celebrating, it seems as though we are not aiming very high.
So, it’s not like I’ve got anything wrong with drinking, eating and going to the beach – I engage in all three of these things myself regularly throughout the year. It’s just that on Australia Day, I’m all of a sudden made to feel like there’s this club that has a monopoly on these things and that I don’t belong. 
Mostly because I don’t hop into my Australia Day uniform – the Australian flag. I was never one for uniforms. You might say I’m paranoid and being irrational – that I am part of the club. Some might even say I perhaps don’t deserve membership for even thinking I’m not part of the club. None of this alleviates the conditions that give rise to this sense of discomfort. There are the well-worn criticisms of Australia Day I mentioned earlier – it’s chauvinistic patriotism, the disguise it provides for racism, ethnocentrism or blind nationalism. None of these hold up empirically as solidly as their critiques believe – it’s hard to prove the structural or even prominent presence of such vices. But they don’t need to be in order to have their desired effect. The new uniform of Australia Day acts as a palimpsest for all these vices – real and imagined. The new Australia Day uniform and ebullient celebrations in which they are witnessed are too easily aligned with the vices.
Let me explain with some examples. It’s easy to imagine how the person proclaiming migrants should ‘fuck off’ identifies their sentiments as patriotic rather than racist when shrouded in an Australian flag on Australia Day. Even as the racism is attempted to be lessened by an appeal to patriotism, it is still racism disguised as chauvinistic patriotism – it’s still fucked. Around the internet, comments on Australia Day stories are littered with reproaches to criticism of Australia Day because this should be a day of pride. But when it comes to offering what it is we ought to be proud of, very few substantive suggestions are offered, but the flag would have to be the most consistent one. In any case, these idiots speak as though pride exists in its own sentimental universe without being able to feel shame. And one needn’t look far for images of Australia Day redolent with white, Anglo icons draped in the Australian flag. Even the attempts to ‘ethnicise’ Australia Day feel a little patronising in the face of so much awkwardness around seeing such Australianness out of context on a migrant body.
But, to put it bluntly (and be prepared to call me a snob, or some variation on this disparagement), there is no dignity in what we celebrate on Australia Day and the way in which we celebrate it. Walking the streets and reading people’s comments about the many citizenship ceremonies taking place today (even though this is old, here’s an example), it feels as though citizenship is a competition – a race to the bottom in our attempts to reduce ourselves to the pure Australian, to not simply wear the flag, but be the flag.
I speak of it as a race to the bottom because rather than enriching and expanding what it means to be Australian, we are climbing down the evolutionary ladder and heading fast towards an amoeba-like state of simplicity, stupidity, of being less than ordinary, of unsophistication. Not that this in itself is bad, but along with it we have lost a sense of dignity that respects the dignity of others because what we call pride does not come from the same place that we can also feel shame. But, then again, on a day like today, shame does not have to be felt. One only has to look how hard it was to say sorry to Indigenous people to see what I mean about a lack of dignity. Our pride is not tempered by a sense of humility that is considerate of the sentiments and thoughts of others. This is why the Australian flag is now worn as a uniform – like other uniforms, its presence is rather unremarkable and benign for the most part, but the devastating force that lies dormant in the wearing of the uniform lurks uneasily below the surface.
Mind you, if we really want to stick it to flags and what they have come to symbolise, then we should also be having a look at the debate raging (here, here, here and here) over Google vs. Howard Thomas as to who is to blame for the Aboriginal flag being dropped from the google.com.au logo for today.
