Australia Day (part 1)

I hate Australia Day.  It's my least favourite holiday.  If it wasn't for the fact that you don't have to turn up to work, I'd boycott it.  But this year Australia Day was rehabilitated for me.  It was actually okay.

First, what do I hate about Australia Day?  I hate the fact that sometime in the last ten years it changed from Let's-Take-It-Easy Day into some kind of Thuggish-Anglo-Pride Day.  I feel angry when I see people flying multiple Australian flags off their cars for the preceding week as if it's some kind of competition.  I feel incensed when I see people proudly wearing shirts saying things like, "Welcome to Australia.  We eat pork.  We drink beer.  We speak English".  I realize that idiots like that aren't (quite) the mainstream view and that there are lots of innocent Australians getting tarred with a big ugly brush by me, but I can't help it.  It's a visceral, immediate reaction.

But this year we did something we've never done before - we went to a citizenship ceremony.  It was held in one of the suburban town halls up in Adelaide.  About 45 people from a bunch of different places around the world were all taking Australian citizenship that day.  There were as many people there, friends and family, to watch and congratulate.  It was a great atmosphere.  It was warm, friendly, welcoming, excited, generous, proud and happy.  The closest feeling I can think of is the buzz you get at weddings.

Everybody had little flags on their seats, and when we all waved them from time to time it was tangibly different from the way the teenagers wave their flags out of the windows of their revmobiles down at the beach, which sometimes feel like they are waving a club at you.

(This is a short post sorry - I've got more to say that I've been sitting on all week but haven't found the time to write it up.  So I've decided to just blast up fragments of it when I can.  Hopefully it'll all make sense when it comes together!)