Australia Day sucks.

Well I seem to be having a good week for opposing different aspects of various holidays.

My latest whinge topic is Australia Day.

There is so many things wrong with this day, I don't even know where to begin. 

January 26th 1778. The day that hundreds of European settlers arrived in Botany Bay on the First Fleet. This was also the day that many, many Aboriginal people lost their lives by being murdered, simply for existing. Our ancestors marched right into someone else's home and killed these people for absolutely no good reason. 

A large majority of the Aboriginal or Indigenous community of Australia refer to Australia Day as 'Invasion Day' and I think that's pretty spot on. It's disgusting the way these innocent people were treated by the Europeans. We shouldn't be celebrating our country on this date. It's like celebrating the fact that our ancestors came in and killed for no reason.

The way people celebrate it also gives me something to complain about.

Australia Day celebrations have turned into a VB drinking/meat eating/flag wearing/other race hating competition. Being Australian shouldn't be about how many beers you can skull, or if you wear thongs or watch the Cricket. Being Australian should be about being thankful that we live in a pretty peaceful environment, that we have a good health and schooling system (these don't even exist in some countries), that we have social security and that we don't have bombs dropped on our heads each week. 

Unfortunately, Australia has quite a number of bogans. The sad thing is that the individuals which engage in such seedy behaviour are proud of it. How is this something to be proud of? Wearing tshirts bearing the slogan "We grew here, you flew here" or one with "F*ck off, we're full" inside the outline of Australia is apparently considered 'cool'? People need to learn respect, humility and appreciation for how lucky they have it and how worse off they could be.

Back to Australia Day being on such an inappropriate date, it's such a tough debate as to which date it should be shifted to. 

January 1st is an option as it's the anniversary of when all the states federated to become one nation in 1901. People argue that this shouldn't happen because January 1st is already New Years Day and a public holiday in itself.

Anzac Day (25th April) has also been suggested but many don't believe it's a good idea as this day belongs solely to the ANZAC's who fought so hard for our country. 

 

I like the idea of having Australia Day on 13th February. The anniversary of the date when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made the formal apology to the Stolen Generation of Aboriginals. It was such a day of cultural awareness and reconciliation and it felt like everyone in this country was on the same level. The Government will never change the date to this though because unfortunately there is such a huge population of individuals who were totally against the formal apology.

I understand that Australia Day has forever been known to fall on January 26th and we're all used to it, but surely we can compromise a bit and try and empathise with the Aboriginal community because of what happened on that date all those years ago. 

Also, on a side note- how do people get away with wearing flags as capes or how do companies even get away with making thongs, bikini's, shorts etc with the Australian flag on it? It's considered an offence to have the Australian flag touch the ground when being pulled down from a flagpole. This isn't even logical if people are allowed to wear the flag as a bikini. 

What do you think? Should Australia Day be changed? If so, what date should it be?