As this Australia Day weekend gets under way, I am conflicted. There is much to be grateful for in this country, but I don’t feel like celebrating. I have friends who have received this country’s highest awards; they have contributed great things to a community that I love and cherish, yet that same community is turning its back on its most vulnerable. Amidst all the cheering and flag- waving, I will be quietly avoiding the public party and reflecting on ways to positively address what this blogger points out in the style of the ancient prophets in their ministry of nay-saying.
I won’t be celebrating Straya Day this year.
Not while there are children being held in detention centres. Not because they committed a crime but because they came looking for help. Because their parents sent them in desperation, hoping they may have a safe life.
I won’t be celebrating Straya Day this year.
Not while my fellow Strayan men are killing our womenfolk at a rate of at least one a week. Yet we were terrified of one insane gunman who used terrorism as a cover for his madness.
I won’t be celebrating Straya Day this year.
Not while we have a Government which refuses to recognise the very real threat of Climate Change. Instead they choose to promote policies which increase the effects of this Global disaster.
I won’t be celebrating Straya Day this year.
Not while we hold asylum seekers in brutal concentration camps on the pretext of…
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Wondering Pilgrim 
Thank you. This has put into words for me the uneasiness I always feel around the increasingly nationalistic and myopic celebration of what could be such a great day. I think of Einstein’s comment: “Nationalism is an infantile disease, it is the measles of the country”
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True love for one’s country seeks to advance its affairs through continuing appraisal and critique (Ryle)
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