Friday, January 26, 2007

Yay! Us!



It's Australia Day - and a public holiday. The weather is warm and humid, with a little breeze, the tourists are down the beach, people are having barbeques and enjoying the great outdoors for which this country is famous for.

Cars have Aussie flags flying, as do the flag poles and it's draped across balconies. There are concerts being held, citizenship ceremonies and more sport than you can shake a whippy stick at.

In 1770, Captain James Cook 'discovered' Australia and it is that landing we celebrate today. I say 'discovered' because the New Guinea and indigenous peoples had been plying the Timor sea for thousands of years. And the Dutch had dropped in, too - William Dampier and Abel Tasman - but they found the Northwest a dry, arid and inhospitable land.

There are, of course, those who don't celebrate today. Certain politically motivated indigenous groups who call it 'Invasion Day'; when a military expansionist invaded native land and declared it 'Nullis Australis' or empty land.

Today, land titles have been given back to the indigenous population, agreements on land use have been signed and cultural heritage protected. For those minority agitators, all I'm going to say is 'suck it up, build that bridge and move over it!'

As the song goes: We are, you are, we are Australian.

And it's a day for celebration.

Oh, and I've put up another story over at The Takeaway should you feel the need for a quick read.

3 comments:

Pandababy said...

Yay! You! Congrats on your founding day.

And hooray for another takeaway story (great way to celebrate). off to read it now and thanks :)

Anonymous said...

At the risk of sounding uneducated and ignorant, your countries history sounds a lot like America's history. The indigenous people living here, getting their land taken, getting land back. It was very interesting.

Happy Australia Day, Jaye!

Jaye Patrick said...

Thanks, y'all.

And Jason, you're right: it is similar. One day, I'll do a post on how this history is being taught to make the colonists look like greedy, grasping, abusive asshats, rather than the truth.

Panda, I hope you enjoy it.