If there’s one thing that it would be good for Australians to remember right now, it is that our national identity, history and political system is not the same as the United States. So many Australians, treating American politics and social issues as if they were reality TV, go out and attempt to copy+paste those battles and those sources of unrest onto our lucky country.
Whether or not you think America has a history to be proud of doesn’t change the fact that Australia does. As Tony Abbott said in his new book, echoing the formulation of previous Australian historiographers, Australia has “an Indigenous heritage, a British foundation and an immigrant character … and as we shall see, … a proud history all of our own”. (Abbott, ‘Australia: A history’, p. 19)
As much as those anti-patriotic revisionists, traitors and fifth-columnists would like to change Australia Day to ‘Invasion’ Day, insist we were a nation built on slavery akin to the transatlantic, and amp up Labor’s White Australia policy to be bigger than it was (though it was a blight on our history), the facts simply are not with them. Our country was not only brought into the modern world by one of the most fair and enlightened nations of the age, but we established independence from England without a war, just as we achieved equality before the law for all Australians without a war.
With all due respect to the States, Australia really is the beacon of what a free and liberal society looks like (granted, the cowardice and tyranny of worthless men like former premier Andrews has made this title a little harder to argue for).
Unfortunately, since the Australian social landscape and political establishment has been so free and friendly for so long, the warm heart of Patriotism and Nationalism has all but died out in many chests. Many of us won’t do more than watch and complain as others try to radically change our nation, all the while insisting that it’s racist to love Australia or to be Australia First. If we do not stand up for our nation, for our British and Christian heritage and for our free and compassionate society, those things will diminish and die. Australia can and should continue being Australian.
May God help us keep our nation as one where his name is proclaimed freely, until that day dawns where the fear and worship of the Triune God covers Terra Australis as completely as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).
Happy Australia Day!
Distilled Orthopraxy 