Morrigu wrote:BUT Mug IMHO they were invaders in the true sense of the word - " an army or country that uses force to enter and take control of another country"
Had this been a country without people then different - BUT there was already people inhabiting this country and force was used to take control. If I was an indigenous Australian I would most certainly see it as Inavsion Day.
I agree with suggestions that "Australia Day" should be the day the Australia Act was passed in 1986!
That way people can remember and celebrate what they believe and feel has made this country what it is including the ancestors as you described, the indigenous population and the plethora of migrants who call Australia home
You may disagree but I think the current date is actually diminishing the legacy of what the first white people did achieve in making this country great.
Feel free to disagree, that's what this board is about. If you disgree with me it is either because we value different things or I am not making my argument well enough. Of course they were invaders technically, as were the various inter-tribal warriors who ranged across Aboriginal Australia. Aboriginal Australia was an interesting set of micro-cultures, important in the identity of this land, and eventually history overtook it, as it has most cultures since time began. Aboriginal tribes frequently invaded one another, as far as we can tell. Were those invasion days too ? Or is that term simply an attempt to claw sectional power in this century through a dodgy, anhistoric and simplistic narrative ?
If you want to describe it as an invasion you can, because in one sense it was. The point, however, is that this aspect is only the most important thing about it to a small section of the population. The migrants who came here afterward did not come for Aboriginal culture, interesting and significant though it is. They came for democracy, the rule of law, liberty, free speech and the modern legacies built by Australians from the British constitution. I suspect those who still have an historical memory of why they came here will recognize why 26 January matters immensely. 1986 was an administrative and bureaucratic technicality. Call it lawyer's day, if it is worthy of commemoration, for it changed nothing important in practice.
The Han consolidation in China and the Norman invasions of England were also invasions. So, of course were many US settlements. None of those countries are so cringeing as to define a key national day as "invasion day". It's far too reductive for a mature nation. Anyway, no opinions were harmed in the making of this thread, more's the pity, and it's time to retire. Australia will still be here tomorrow, fortunately, lying amid the luxury of its ill-gotten gains.
