AT LONG LAST!
WHY DID IT TAKE US SO LONG TO GET TO THIS DAY?
I look forward to a day when it will be perfectly normal for
this flag to be flown side by side with our Colonial flag.
A day when no athlete will face a media furore for
wearing it such as Cathy Freeman did.
Imagine if one day it were the ONLY flag, i.e. we get out of the Commonwealth !!!!
ReplyDeleteI don't think it works like that Bill, we could possibly exit the Commonwealth but we would most likely still retain that Anglo-colonial flag. After all the only reason we are here is because our forefathers, the people who stole the land from the indigenous owners of the land, were a powerful military and colonising force, and our current flag tells that part of the story:
ReplyDelete"The flag has three elements on a blue background: the Union Jack, the Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross. ... Below the Union Jack is a white Commonwealth, or Federation, star. It has seven points representing the unity of the six states and the territories of the Commonwealth of Australia."
So if the "commonwealth part was removed we'd still have the Union Jack!
That the Aboriginal flag is now available to anyone to fly for free is wonderful. I have some hope for the future since I'm sure most of us have seen the newspaper reports saying that the majority of people under the age of 26 are in favor of changing the date of Australia Day or scrapping it altogether. Sadly, it seems most Baby Boomers (the generation to which i belong) and those of the generation before them are in favor of keeping it on January 26. Like the young people, I see January 26 as Invasion Day and refuse to celebrate it at all. Have done so for many decades now. During John Howard's tenure, Australia Day seemed to go 'over-the-top' with people wrapping themselves in the Australian flag etc. I'm glad that horror is over.
ReplyDeleteThe good thing is that change is in the air with the release of the flag and the sentiments of the majority of young people.
David, I heartily concur! I can only hope that those newspaper reports you mention are accurate. But it's an incredibly slow process. In terms of my life experience it has been very close to 60 years since the efforts of Charlie Perkins and many others came to the forefront. And while in those days Senator Neville Bonner was a rare example of a first nation's person in Federal Parliament, now we have a few more reps and senators up there. So there is change. But these changes have taken a very long time.
ReplyDelete