Over the last 20-25 years I've been celebrating Australia Day over here in the UK (sometimes in Oz), I've noticed how it's become a more nuanced affair over the years. Less bombastic and more self-aware. Not quite to the extent of calling it 'Invasion Day' or being all morose and sullen. But nevertheless I think with more awareness of the context of settlement and the downsides to those displaced, especially in the last 5 years. Probably just a superficial nod to aboriginal culture really, I guess, but still - a change. For instance, one of my aussie friends cooked everything in 2019 with a traditional Aboriginal earth oven in her garden. We'd probably be outliers though.
Like Christmas, I've always considered the history of how it came to be, pretty much irrelevant to the day's celebrations.
In the present day, for me at least, Australia Day is about barbecuing with your mates, making some new mates, and listening to the Triple J hottest 100 countdown.
I don't care to celebrate the day that a bunch of colonial dickheads brought their problems here and started setting up shop on someone else's land.
I was born here and feel that makes Australia my home, but I can respect that my home is built on land that's been taken care of for 80,000 years by a group of people who didn't put a fucking dent in the place. The people who came here on that day in 1788 have been the worst tenants possible; Pulling uranium and lead out of the ground, carelessly poisoning the earth, the rivers and the reefs.
The thylacine, one of the most intriguing species, wiped out for eating sheep: the same thing we do. Fences apparently didn't exist back then. The platypus, another unique as all fuck specimen, barely surviving in the polluted waters here. For those that don't know, we have about 20 different types of tree kangaroo (seriously, kangaroos that live up trees). You won't see them though, because they're all on the verge of extinction.
Which brings me back to January 26th, I want to celebrate what we do have, while we still have it - I don't want to celebrate a day that some pirates seized a bunch of land and then fucked the place up. Any other day is fine. January 26 has bad connotations.
How about first week of March, I think we only have 8 public holidays that month, might as well bring it up to 9 to match every other month in this country.
Seriously though, kangaroos in trees, check it out if you haven't already.
