Terribly sad that in our history's pages, not every stage has advanced Australia fair

Australia Day approaches and I am starting to feel quite anxious about this day.  Having lived in England for over 15 years now, my favourite Australia Day is one that I completely forget - it just passes by and I haven't noticed any nonsensical racist statements about who "owns" the country or who "belongs" there, whether you should be proud of your flag or whether you should just "get out and go back to where you came from".

I'd love to just post my favourite "Lammy" (Lamingtons for the non-aussies out there) recipe and be all patriotic, but being a child who was born to parents who arrived there on a boat, this is not so easy for me to do.  That, and the fact that I still cannot get married there, and if I did get married somewhere else, say England (who will probably allow me to marry before the end of this year is up) it wouldn't even be recognised back in the country of my birth.  Oh, and that anti-discrimination bill, which actively discriminates against me and allows bigoted folks to pathetically hide behind their biblical interpretations and continue to spout homophobic nonsense to try and hurt, stamp out and destroy me and my family with their anti-family statements....

Here is a picture of Australia as it probably once was - when I first saw this, I nearly cried.  It moved me in ways that I had never thought possible. I say it probably once was because, to be honest, there is no way to be absolutely sure about very much of Australia's past because after the "invasion" of the white settlers and convicts, there was a mass genocide that nearly drove the original inhabitants to the brink of extinction.

When I was still in prep (short for "prepatory" a sort of pre-primary school class that isn't quite kindergarten, but it's not quite "school" either), my parents received a visit from a German couple and their son (who was quite a bit older than my brother and I) and they stayed with us for a good few months.  My parents had grown up with this couple together back in Germany and soon after they had arrived we all took the most amazing roadtrip around Australia.  I say around but if you look at the map I've displayed, we sort of started in the bottom right hand corner of the mainland (which I call "home") and then went up and followed the coast before turning left just prior to reaching "sydney" (about the end of the first yellow 'state') and then went inland after hugging the southern coast for a short distance.  Once we got to the dusty centre, we started to encounter the indigenous Australians.  They lived in "camps", often near modern day watering holes (pubs) and because my parents were rather beautiful in their innocence, I had been made aware that the descendants of the original inhabitants were "poor".  At least that's what we believed back then.  It was like my parents had fallen prey to believing in the meme of the "noble savage", which is far better than what some of the locals actually felt about these wondrous people.  These folks wanted to live in the desert - it was their way of life and they chose it.  This is what my parents believed.  I was, of course, dreadfully concerned that the children did not have any toys (being so poor) and as I had a bunch of toys that I neither wanted nor needed, I packed them all up and intended on giving these to the poor aboriginal children.  I've asked my mother about this since and she assures me that this was actually my idea.  I was about 6 at the time.

We had super 8 footage that my mother had taken of the event.  Although I believe this footage has now degraded and therefore discarded (a little too hastily, I'll add, but my mother went through a phase of eradication... of "clearing out the clutter" and I cannot blame her, really, as my parents downsized their accomodation to a small holiday cottage and there just was no room for anything anymore). Before it had we used to view it so many times that it has indelibly imprinted itself upon my mind's eye and I can still see those smiling faces, the teeth so white in contrast to their skin as I handed out these charitable "gifts" of bits of plastic to these kids who really didn't need any bits of plastic in their lives.  However, it was obvious to anyone, even me at the time, that they really loved them.  I also remember the three women (mothers, no doubt) who were supervising this process and muttering to one another all the time.  They really were not  particularly happy with this blonde-haired blue-eyed boy (as I actually was back then - my hair and eyes have since matured to a nice jewish/gypsey flavour - clearly we were of tainted stock - ironically, like Hitler himself was). I now have come to understand just how representative of the invasive pushy nature of white-might I was doling out toys to their children but at the time I just could not understand why they were being so indignant about it all.  Now that I am older and ergo wiser, I am actually mortified with shame that I did what I did back then. It's like when my mother filmed a bunch of "Aborigines" as we used to call them in our ignorance (Aborigine is actually the plural!) in Alice Springs.  They were angry and shouting and raising their fists at the camera.  My mother sent my brother (he was about 10) to them with $5 because she was quite taken aback by their rage and wantedt to placate them.  On receiving that, they all smiled beautifully and posed for him as he took their photo.  Then they went into the supermarket and bought a six pack of beer.

Not many people like to consider the reasons for why alcohol is a problem for the indigenous population of Australia.  For some actual 'facts' try this site for more information on the subject.  It's not nearly as widespread as people like to make out, but those that do abuse alcohol are often easier to spot, as they tend to hang about our drinking holes and town centres.  Alcoholism is a disease and it's one that i am now coming to realise is pretty much widespread in nearly every community.  We like to think it is safe to drink 7-8 units a night (or even more sometimes - hey, it's PARTAY TIME!) but in truth it is probably only safe to drink 1 or 2.  I spent a great deal of my life drinking to excess and becoming uglier with every drink.  When everyone around you is slowly degrading as well, you don't even notice it's effect.  Once you stop, you realise how terribly damaging and wasteful it all really is.  The most AMAZING thing about it was that I truly believed that I couldn't really enjoy myself without it - and I know Australians (and Germans) think it is almost unpatriotic if you DO NOT consume massive quantities of alchohol regularly (with them).  Since stopping the booze (and it's only been quite recently so I'm hardly confident that I have really stopped)  I realise of course that this is patently ridiculous.  In fact, I enjoy myself even MORE now and can actually hold some of the most amazing conversations... that I also get to remember the following morning.  I know I will always struggle with this disease because I believe my family have a genetic disposition to it and I also know that I have been socially conditioned to not view it as a disease for so long.  I hope that it will not kill me as it probably did my grandfather.  I CERTAINLY have never judged others for it and CERTAINLY will judge the Australian indigenous population who are suffering from it.  If you manage to wake up from this nightmarish hell without hurting others or yourself, then you are very lucky indeed (I was not so lucky).  You are even more lucky if you never fall prey to the demon of drink in the first place, but hey, I digress......

A few years back, Australia caught the attention of the international media when it was noticed that it was not allowing boats filled with refugees to land on it's shores.  A frenzy of interest occurred when one boat, after being met by Naval Vessels and forced to turn around, apparently showed footage of the refugees "throwing" their children into the water, supposedly so that the Navy would be "forced" to pick them up. Many of the children (and parents) actually drowned as a result.  The Australian population were naturally horrified and completely disgusted with this behaviour.  How could these inhuman parents do this to their own children?? The prime minister at the time (a right arse, if I do say so myself) even used this as an example for the heavy handed policy that Australia was raising against the refugees.  Of course, it all turned out to be completely untrue.  The boat was sinking, the parent's were desperate but there was nowhere else these folks go go but the water.  The Navy was aware that the boat was sinking but refused to actually allow the people to come to safer waters due to the orders from their 'superiors'.  As repulsive as this policy actually was, I had people in the UK actually congratulate me for my country's effective response to the refugee crisis.  I would die a little every time somebody did this - somehow, these refugees had become something that wasn't quite human, there was something about them that meant that they just did not deserve our compassion.
 
Over the years as I was growing up, I never understood why Australians were so racist towards every new wave of immigrants that arrived on their shores.  We were a massive country with massive resources (often poorly managed, but that's another terrible story altogether).  There was even a time when Australia was desperate for immigrants to come.  They actively canvassed (at first whites only.... but later they extended this to the some near-white races) for people to come and emigrate there.  Every wave faced a new onslaught of "unacceptance" from the local (white) population.  This policy was progressively dismantled from around 1949, but only by 1973 was it completely dismantled in its totality and then, the Asian populations from nearby countries were allowed into this "lucky" coutnry.  Up the road from our house in Nunawading, there was an actual refugee camp - I thought it was amazing and also a little exciting.  In round roofed tin sheds, masses of Vietnamese and Cambodians all lived.  All sorts of nonsensical stories were made up about these folks - some of them had smuggled in gold from their homeland, so they were ALL rich and raping the country with their claims of refugee status.....  At school, the "nips" as they were collaqually called, were pretty much ostracized to one quadrangle only.  Only a very few outcasts (like myself, but not really EVEN myself) actually befriended them.  When we finally learned in year 10 the history of some of these places, what these people had gone through, the stories they told of having seen members of their own families (sometimes babies) killed, impaled on spikes, the horror of it all - I could not believe that even afterwards, these folks were still hated purely because of the shapes of their eyes and the colour of their skins.  Maybe the whities just thought these refugees were making it all up - but even today the truth of what these people went through is still not widely acknowledged.  If you've seen a movie like the Killing Fields, or pictures like that infamous shot of the girl running naked through the streets screaming, burning, you surely would realise that this is not the case.  It's like pretending there is was no Jewish holocaust in Germany during the second world war.  It is utterly inhuman to do so and a total disgrace.

Australia has much to be proud of but to hold a day to celebrate the nation on the day that the largest genocide of the indigenous population began is, quite frankly, disturbing and incredibly insenstive.  To show pictures of a flag that represents this and to tell people that if they don't respect and love it, they'll be shown the door and helped to pack is equally disgraceful.  I hope one day Australia truly becomes a democratic peace loving republic that embraces all races and cultures that have had the luck and good grace to be able to reside on its soill.  I hope one day to be happily married with my man and to live and grow old gracefully, accepted by all the people around me.  I know that this is unlikely to actually happen anytime soon and probably will never happen but I can dream, can't I? I can have hope AND I can still love.  I wish that all Australians experience that love within themselves one day and that those who currenly spout this putrid hatefulness become enlightened.  And then on THIS day, when we all learn to love, THIS day becomes our special day.  Our Day to be AUSSIE and BEAUTIFUL and PROUD.  And we all celebrate it as Australia Day forevermore.