Skip to main content

The Global

 I thought that 'ban Australia Day' thing was pathetic.

What ever happened to reconciliation?

I see the young non-initiated Aboriginals (who are highly Westernised, let’s face it) saying “I can’t understand why someone would celebrate.”

Really? Can’t understand or won’t. Empathy extends to all.

Maybe some people are celebrating summer, a holiday, time with family and friends, celebrating democracy, good living conditions, successful multiculturalism, relative freedom?


There’s so much to celebrate.


I don’t mind people having different attitudes -- that’s how democracy works. I understand the pain and suffering that First Nations Australians live with.

It’s in the stats: reduced life expectancy, exponential incarceration rates, young children incarcerated, deaths in custody.


There’s a lot to be aggrieved about.

But denying the rights of others to celebrate is misguided.


Perhaps it’s good that the day is marked, meaning different things to different people?


Our history is stained with blood. Like all nations.

But I think one would better off celebrating the present -- survival, & the fact that the nation has made improved strides on Indigenous recognition finally. To celebrate survival would I believe inspire us all to keep making strides. 


To feel is good. As J.J. Rousseau put it "our feelings come incontestably before our thoughts." So let people feel something on that day! Don't tell them they can't feel something. The neo-Victorian wowserism/naysaying of our current generation is stifling. & we know from history, if you suppress people's joy, it goes underground for a time & then erupts.


Reconciliation only works if we listen to one another and are tolerant of one another’s practices.

And recognise that everyone is entitled to feel joy. Stop stealing people's joy.


Are we gonna say, you can’t celebrate Eid or Christmas because they’re celebrations of cultural imperialism?


People need to celebrate. I remember only a few years ago going to an Australia Day celebration event and it was overwhelmingly a celebration that Australians have come from all over the globe and generally get on really well. It was a celebration of our successful multicultural society. It was wonderful.


I guess if I’m honest I think the thing that’s turned me off this unthinking idealization of Indigenous people as ‘perfect’, was Bruce Pascoe saying he believed in a small population Australia.

Sounded dangerously close to “stop the boats” to me.


When the biggest humanitarian crisis facing the world is the millions of displaced people fleeing war, famine & persecution, to be talking about keeping the population low here seems small minded at best.


We are going to have to let go our sectarianism and learn to share land with people from other groups.

Remembering that we’re one humanity and this should trump all political posturing on single issues.


We need a new global outlook, not an insular one.



Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“I didn’t know!”

  “I didn’t know!”   Don’t get me wrong In a Two Party preferred system  I have no choice but to give preferences to Labor The Coalition are scum But Jacinta Allen, Victorian Premier Claimed in a Truth Telling Commission that she never knew about massacres Of Indigenous people in the state She’d never looked up The history of her country The history of the state she leads She’s Premier! She leads a department that ‘manages Indigenous affairs’ We are currently in the process of negotiating a Treaty What did she think happened to all the Aboriginal people?! They went up to live up the Magic Faraway Tree? “No one told me!” No one ever told me either I fuckin researched It was really easy Took 10 minutes There’s this new thing called the Internet & you search stuff up Like History A subject no longer taught in many schools past year 7 I deduced a lot from observing the place & how allergic we are of looking at ourselves ...
2 comments
Read more

‘The Garden of Love’

  ‘The Garden of Love’ (after William Blake)   Some young punk Tryin to be ‘hard’ Pussyole! with his mate Said “no flowers!” I was holding some wildflowers To put in my vase at the apartment I asked him “why not?” He said nothing That’s right keep walking bish! To bloodclot! I don’t walk around defensive So I’m not quick to attack I’d rather they think about it themselves ‘Without flowers there is no life’ He dreams Try that on for size ‘You say “no!” to flowers & you say “no!” to life’ Echoed on the wind 'You can’t eat money!' Unity & Devision He hears across the wires 'Not that way!... ... why have you forsaken us?' He feels the ancestors   & again I am reminded of Blake’s ‘The Garden of Love’*   Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.   * The Garden of Love By  William Blake I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Though it made me a poet

Though it made me a poet   This is a superior microwave to the last if  everything has to be a competition I guess it does! In the Kafkaesque vortex Where one is trying merely to ask a question Instead one is sold something I’m monastic or have acute anxiety Anxiety is pretty cute Like a decapitated bleeding brain Covered in snails turned carnivore By the wrack & ruin of a child’s innocence The fist in the sister’s face The knife in the wall Did I imagine the latter, dream it or see it? Who threw it? Must have been the bowie Still life goes on So I went to school the next morning & got my mouth taped up For being a chatterbox Such is the life of a privileged 5 year old It made me a poet     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.  
Post a Comment
Read more