In a prelude to the upcoming celebration of Australia Day I wish to extend this quote. Although it pretains to another country the sentiments within are felt by me towards my own land. To the Australia we celebrate.
"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."
Though it is trendy, if not demanded by culture that we wave judgemental fingers at America for the actions of its Government. Finger waving that is indeed well earnt at times. Let us not from our high horse over look the consistant and entrenched failings of our own land. For we all know, deep down that Australia day to some is a day of boasted liberty, nationalism and hollow mockeries. We are still a land that denegrates our fellow citizens, through apathy and ignorance allows the dictim of 'liberty for some, limitations for others' be presented as a norm. That continues to care only for the gathering of wealth at the expense of the people. Then have the audacity to complain when the system works against it. A country that supports growing conflicts and savagery in far flung corners of the world, then become hostile towards desperate people that seek to flee them. A land in which the Southern Cross bespeaks not greatness but a shallow form of nationalism that would make even a member of the SS blush.
I ask you this Australia Day, when you are surrounded by people clad in Australian flags and songs of swagmen. Ask yourself, 'what are we really celebrating?'
