How to erase Australia Day

With calls to erase Australia day, we ought to ask, what are we trying to achieve? Should we inherit the guilt of our ancestors and chastise ourselves for our past wrongdoings?

Time and time again, Australia Day is seen as a ‘day of mourning’, ‘regret’ or  ‘invasion day’. Some claim that Captain Cook’s arrival in 1788 was a moment of historical trauma, tragedy, and genocide. I may be antiquated, but there’s something not quite right about this recollection of history.

Australians are being asked to show remorse for the sins of their fathers. And it’s worse, too. Every culture needs a narrative to base its existence on. We are asked to rewrite our national story in a murderous, genocidal, or dispossessed light. What are the consequences of conceding that the first fleet’s arrival was a day of invasion and mourning? How should Australians process this?

Aboriginal Activist Michael Mansell  has claimed “Australia Day is a celebration of an invasion which celebrated the ethnic cleansing of Aborigines. To take part would be to abandon the struggle of my people. “

While Aboriginal activists like Mansell feel they are part of a collectivist history, meaning they see themselves as a pure extension of the lives, experiences, and sufferings of their ancestors, the rest of us do not have to feel this way. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the Aboriginal world view has created a power vacuum within the Australian public’s consciousness, and it is quite attractive too. We are being asked to accept that we are guilty of the transgressions of our past ancestors, that Australians should feel shame because they are partly responsible, and that present-day Aboriginals exist in a long line of colonial oppression often exacerbated by days like “invasion day.”

But when on the national stage Kevin Rudd issued the famous “ I am sorry speech” Australia went down the rabbit hole of collectivist history. Rudd was unwittingly admitting that he was part of the unbroken line of oppressive Colonial rule over Aboriginal people. He admitted that he was partly morally responsible for the sins of his “white ancestors.”

We need to unwrite the rewriting of history, all of this is harmful, untrue and false. As one of the great Western nations, Australia was founded upon the notion of the individual. We believe in the notion of individualism, not collective guilt. Imagine a world where a person is persecuted for a crime committed by their ancestors? Such places exist. We do not want to partake in the dangerous game of ancestral sin.

Guilt by association only harms us.

We should not kowtow to the Aboriginal worldview. It clashes with the Australian individualistic worldview. Both cannot be right and the former will take us down a very dangerous path. Australia day is and should be a day of national pride.