january 26 is known & celebrated as 'australia day'. this is the anniversary of the 'first fleet' of nine ships which arrived in australia in 1788, carrying the people, officials & convicts who comprised the first (recorded) european inhabitants of australia. they came ashore in a bay in what is now the greater sydney area, and claimed the colony of new south wales for the british monarchy.
many indigenous inhabitants had been living in australia for approximately 30,000 - 40,000 years or so. many of them got killed, raped, and/or seriously fuc#ed over in the coming years & decades and in some cases, right up to the present day.
anyhow, a full one-quarter of the current australian flag is the union jack, the flag of the united kingdom of great britain & northern ireland. this is now pretty much just a historical relic or artefact; a hangover. it reflects only one aspect of australia's cultural heritage. in recent times it has been used by some to incite not only fervent patriotism but in some cases, racism. in my opinion the austrlian flag, and nation, would/will seriously benefit from some changing, some updating; enhancement. other nations have done this, and moved forward with it - just look at south africa less than twenty years ago, when they finally dumped the racist apartheid government & policies, dumped the afrikaaner flag with them, and adopted their excellent new falg. here's a few options/improvements i'm proposing for the current australian flag:
here half of the australian aboriginal flag, and it's central yellow sun, shares the top corner with the union jack:
here we've got the famous southern cross flag used at the eureka stockade (a seminal moment in autralian histroy over 150 years ago), plus the sun from the australian aboriginal flag, in the top corner:
my favourite - here the australian aboriginal flag is central, and also it's red stripe together with the navy blue strip below it are key (british) colours in the current australian flag. the green strip at the top represents not only the irish heritage - irish settlers & convicts played crucial roles in initially establishing, then developing the colonies which later became states of australia, and now about 1 in 3 australians have some irish ancestry - but it also is the green which togehter with gold (as in the central sun) are our national colours which are worn by our sporting teams. and of course the southern cross (a constellation in southern hemisphere skies) is retained on the flag:
i am very happy, and often proud to be australian ... but we haven't reached some state of perfection; we haven't got it all right by any stretch of the imagination. some (rednecks) would suggest that the above content may be deemed un-australian. in my opinion this view is neither constructive, democratic, nor forward-thinking.
anyhow, i'm going to the beach for the australia day long weekend! i look forward to body-surfing, relaxing, and family time there ... ;-D
~
many indigenous inhabitants had been living in australia for approximately 30,000 - 40,000 years or so. many of them got killed, raped, and/or seriously fuc#ed over in the coming years & decades and in some cases, right up to the present day.
anyhow, a full one-quarter of the current australian flag is the union jack, the flag of the united kingdom of great britain & northern ireland. this is now pretty much just a historical relic or artefact; a hangover. it reflects only one aspect of australia's cultural heritage. in recent times it has been used by some to incite not only fervent patriotism but in some cases, racism. in my opinion the austrlian flag, and nation, would/will seriously benefit from some changing, some updating; enhancement. other nations have done this, and moved forward with it - just look at south africa less than twenty years ago, when they finally dumped the racist apartheid government & policies, dumped the afrikaaner flag with them, and adopted their excellent new falg. here's a few options/improvements i'm proposing for the current australian flag:
here half of the australian aboriginal flag, and it's central yellow sun, shares the top corner with the union jack:
here we've got the famous southern cross flag used at the eureka stockade (a seminal moment in autralian histroy over 150 years ago), plus the sun from the australian aboriginal flag, in the top corner:
my favourite - here the australian aboriginal flag is central, and also it's red stripe together with the navy blue strip below it are key (british) colours in the current australian flag. the green strip at the top represents not only the irish heritage - irish settlers & convicts played crucial roles in initially establishing, then developing the colonies which later became states of australia, and now about 1 in 3 australians have some irish ancestry - but it also is the green which togehter with gold (as in the central sun) are our national colours which are worn by our sporting teams. and of course the southern cross (a constellation in southern hemisphere skies) is retained on the flag:
i am very happy, and often proud to be australian ... but we haven't reached some state of perfection; we haven't got it all right by any stretch of the imagination. some (rednecks) would suggest that the above content may be deemed un-australian. in my opinion this view is neither constructive, democratic, nor forward-thinking.
anyhow, i'm going to the beach for the australia day long weekend! i look forward to body-surfing, relaxing, and family time there ... ;-D
~
posted by fergal at 2:31 PM
4 Comments:
wow what a very interesting and a very Australian post! Loved it mate.
Love the various Aussie flags.
**some (rednecks) would suggest that the above content may be deemed un-australian.
yeah there r always some smart asses ha :)
I somehow believe that the current Aussie flag stands for all the Aussies including immigrant and aboriginal Aussies. Ultimately what matters is what's in ur heart...not what's in the flag.
Have a great Aussie Day and slow down on the beer ;-)
Keshi.
very interesting ideas mate.
personally i would do away with the union jack all together (once we become a republic) and go with the aboriginal flag with the southern cross in the middle of the yellow sun.
i don't know if you saw the story or i told you but in the two autumn internationals vs england (that's rugby everyone else) there were south african sections of the crowd at twickenham flying the old south african flag. it caused uproar over here and the south african players, apparently, almost refused to play because of the racist connotations that that flag now represents.
i can't help but think that for all the good changing our flag would do, the old (current) flag, particularly with the union jack and all the mistreatment of aboriginals/immigrants that that represents, would give that disturbingly large bigoted element of australian society something to rally around, cling to...as evidenced by those knobheads in cronulla and people getting their postcodes tattooed on their arms etc
I've not been well today, and just now getting a chance to stop by!
Happy Australia Day! Thanks for posting about it to inform me on it!!
hmmm-this flag issue -what to make of it.It's a tricky subject isn't it? In a way to change it would be an admittance of wrong doing - you can just imasgine how the flood gates would open.
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