It is easy to forget how young Australia is. Many look to 1788 as the source of national identity, but Federation is actually a closer approximation of birth. Given that the creation of the Commonwealth was driven in part by a movement that sought to formally distinguish what is Australian from what is British, 1 January more accurately captures the beginnings of nationhood than 26 January.
If we thus take 1901 as our birthyear, then our country turned 111 on New Year's Day. A mere drop in the ocean, in a world where China, Egypt, India, Iran and Mexico have histories that stretch back uninterrupted into antiquity. Our own Indigenous history is at least 500 times older.
Even the US, the closest comparable country in terms of genesis, is far ahead in maturity. By the time the First Fleet pulled into Sydney Cove, 12 years had passed since the American Declaration of Independence. When our first Federal Parliament was inaugurated, the US Constitution had been in place for over 100 years. We have been singing our current national anthem only since 1984.
This youthfulness contributes to the ongoing tensions around what being Australian means, or indeed who we ought to be. Like many adolescents, Australia is going through a protracted identity crisis.
It is caught between its immature past and burgeoning potential, longing for prominence yet lacking confidence, struggling to make sense of the varied aspects of its identity. It obsesses over its flaws while denying them in public, swinging between pride and resentment.
These are normal hallmarks of adolescence, but Australia must also contend with a troubled background and few guiding lights. Not only is its early history marked by violence, the institutions from which it draws its sense of self are shallow and murky.
Its national day is inextricably linked to the dark consequences of those first boat arrivals, and will continue to be for as long as injustice characterises Indigenous lives.
Its founding document (the birth certificate, as it were) codified discrimination, and still does. The constitution which had empowered our founding fathers to restrict immigration against 'Asiatics' or 'coloureds' and exclude Aborigines from the census, still contains a provision that grants federal power to make 'special laws' based on race.
Its other foundation story,