Navigating the tensions of our national holiday
Welcome to 'Stray Thoughts', where the Eureka Street editorial team muses on ethical and social challenges we've noted throughout the week.
I have been casting about all week for an idea for this column that might avoid mention of Australia Day, that might skirt the subjects that loom at the end of January. I thought about giving some coordinates to ChatGPT, the ‘chat bot’ that has been causing consternation over these summer months. On Wednesday, as staff regathered at the school where I work, I was engaged by conversations with educators considering how they would incorporate and teach given this new technology.
But not addressing Australia Day somehow feels like squibbing it. Which is something that will be lost if we change the date of our national holiday. Which is not an argument for leaving it on 26 January, but points to the value of the current tension. A tension that exposes pain and so evinces the dark history signified by the day. But any considered celebration of Australia must take account of that shadow side of our history. It must take account of headlines that foretell grog bans in Alice Springs, fifteen years on from ‘The Intervention’.
I was at Mass yesterday amongst mostly migrants. Amongst people I know who feel a visceral gratitude for being here. Because it had become untenable to be where they were. It doesn’t do to obscure the experience of First Nations peoples by highlighting the stories of displaced peoples and refugees. But those stories are part of the tapestry of what has come from 26 January.
In a way what Australia Day now brings forth for me is mostly stray thoughts. Amidst concern for the painful experience of First Nations peoples on this day, and a desire for justice I find myself bouncing between question of moving the day, and all the strands of what the day means and represents. Considering the injustices visited upon Firsts Nations peoples. Considering what it means for my family, mostly Irish migrants from different waves through 100 odd years. The last my paternal grandfather who could not foresee much of a future in the mother country after the Second World War. Like many migrants he often pined for home but was immensely grateful for the opportunity Australia afforded.
Of course, the Irish were as brutal as any of the early settlers in their dealings with the land’s inhabitants, just as they were largely on the