Notes on a Depressing Australia Day
The West is devolving into tribalism. And we all know how that ends
Balaclava-clad neo-Nazis marching through Sydney at the weekend was depressingly predictable.
Thankfully, the group of 60 men was intercepted before they got to the city where they had planned to confront an Invasion Day rally.
NSW Premier Chris Minns told media …
“There is no place for this kind of fascism, neo-Nazism or far-right extremism on this great day Australia Day and the vast, vast majority of people that live in this State will completely reject any notion or idea that this group of far-right extremists and neo-Nazis are needed on our national day.”
Minns is right. But our political elites might want to take a look in the mirror when wondering how we got to this point.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said:
“Well, I was horrified by those images. They have no role in Australia.”
Indeed. May I add, many of us wonder why he is horrified by “images” of a few dozen blokes who didn’t actually do anything, while being silent about thousands of protestors in capital cities chanting “abolish Australia”.
The ugly backlash against the constant demonisation of European settlement cannot come as a surprise.
Whilst most Australians sigh wearily at the culture wars, there are some who will react with a brutal logic that, frankly, we cannot afford.
They will conclude that ‘if you won’t respect our past, why should we respect yours? If you won’t honor our culture, why should we honor yours? And if you hate our society so much, why should I agree to you having a place in it? ‘
Along this path lies a huge amount of pain and probably violence.
Tragically, there are many who seem intent on pushing us to that point.
The racists in balaclavas whom the PM deplores and the so-called anti-racists declaring January 26 “Invasion Day” whom the PM ignores have a great deal in common.
Each group reduces the other to abstract color identities, thus legitimising the other and continually raising the stakes.
Caught in the middle are the majority of us who are desperately searching for some common ground. And yet we get eaten up twice - first by the anti-racists, and then by the racists.
The left and the far-right make race, sex and gender essential rather than incidental to identity, and so doom us to unending and increasing conflict.
The answer, as usual, is found in our Christian roots.
The Apostle Paul wrote:
“In Christ there is neither male, nor female; Jew nor Gentile; slave nor free.”
This simple sentence demolishes identity politics.
It argues that while ethnicity, gender and status are real, they are entirely incidental.
It argues that there is an identity which supersedes all inherited characteristics.
If the West cannot agree upon something more essential than race, gender and sexuality, then we are doomed to devolve further and further into tribalism.
And history gives us a bloody guide as to how tribal societies end.
We rejected the church because we wanted to enjoy our Sundays free from moral lectures.
So now we get a moral lecture from Woolies every time we buy milk.
The Left call this progress.
Word for the day: Oikophobia
It means a fear of your own culture or country.
Oikophobia is spreading like a virus around the Western world right now. Our educational facilities have taught a generation to fear their own civilisation as racist, hateful and bigoted.
My Sky News colleague Steve Price said on Friday that the fight to retain January 26 as Australia Day is now lost.
Pointing to huge crowds marching in Sydney and Melbourne to protest the day, he said it was time to “concede” that the argument was over.
“Today and this week convinced me that no matter what we do and say, the political activists … will just keep shouting, marching, waving incendiary banners and trashing the country that gives them the best standard of living in the world.
“January 26 in 2024 has finally broken me ... as you know, I'm no quitter, but I ask you, what's the point?”
I get his frustration.
But I would ask this - does anyone really believe that January 26 is the last thing we would be bullied into conceding?
It has never crossed my mind to stick an Aussie flag on my car for Australia Day … until this week.
So, on Thursday, I wandered over to our local shopping centre in search of the national flag.
Can you believe that The Reject Shop was the only retailer selling the Australian flag?
How apt. Because that’s exactly what motivated me to get one.
The Left have turned the celebration of Australia Day into counter culture move.
Where as once waving the Aussie flag around was a bit daggy, it is now the ultimate act of rebellion.
Perhaps that explains why my 18-year-old sons’ wanted flags for their cars too.
Postscript: We couldn’t get flags. The Reject Shop had entirely sold out!
Steve Price is speaking negative words of capitulation that the loud hateful banshees have won.
NEVER I say!! we must come in the opposite spirit and gather and enjoy celebrating our Aussie Day.
I was invited to a Asian (Connect group), bar-b-cue at a lake in Melbourne , we were also surrounded by many Asian & Indian groups/families, (where were the caucasians??)
We laughed, ate, prayed, sang our National Anthem, & waved our flags. Truth & Joy wafted into the area with people so happy to be in our beautiful country 🇦🇺🇦🇺
No humour in that post James.
I hope you don’t adopt the Steve Price attitude and give up the fight.
It’s a worry that he has adopted a defeatist approach. The bloke has always been like a bull dog getting his teeth into something and not letting go. Now he has thrown in the towel? Surely not?
We can’t let the perpetually disgruntled whingers win.
I won’t concede that they have won. They marched in tens of thousands, well that is only a minority compared to the rest of Australians who want to retain the 26th of January as Australia Day.
We don’t want violence to settle the matter but the silent majority need to get more vocal and visible.