Approaching Australia Day 2019 Post #01

"Lucky Country" Midnight Oil live at "Tanelorn" October 1981 (courtesy MOMO)
All my mates went... I had too much Uni work to do and no money!!

A mature country would understand a day that's equal parts celebration and lament!

The celebration of how fortunate we are to live in the best country on the planet is a worthy moment for reflection, fun and dressing up in your third world sweat shop pluggers and bikini/boardies adorned with the nation flag so you can sit your backside on the Union Jack all day!! 

BUT seriously, how good is our: climate; natural geography; coastal and rural life; flawed but peaceful democracy (where even the currently sad bunch don't seem to be able to completely ruin everything); cultural richness; diversity; and overarching values!! 

How gloriously some are getting it so wrong in the current neoliberal age... 

Our own PM was banging on about Citizenship Ceremonies and Dress Codes and him wanting it to be about us 'all coming together.' It's like telling someone that's fallen over that you want them 'to have a pain free knee.' 

Now comes the $7 million plan to commemorate Captain Cook's (apparently airbrushed in) circumnavigation... it was Flinders who did that wasn't it? It's like an episode of "Yes Prime Minister," seriously!! Incidentally, how many of us knew that on Flinders third journey he was accompanied by Kuringgai man Bungaree, an accomplished indigenous sailor from the Broken Bay area? 

At the same time "the great southland could be as great as the one it could have been" if by 1988 (at least) we had properly addressed our history of colonisation. It is 'history' BUT we second peoples continue to benefit from this land without appropriate recognition of the first peoples. There has been progress, but it's not up to the dominant culture to decide how free, valued, or appreciated an invaded people are or should be. 

Everyone has their story but surely the 'big story' is one where colonisation has brought great change and massive problems along with it. The scar on the soul of this country needs legitimate action, words and power to reflect the rich culture, wisdom and relationship that existed tens of thousands of years before we came, yet has been at risk ever since!! Still, we can't fix what we don't understand, except by listening and then responding appropriately!

Acknowledgement

Reconciliation

Recognition

Truth telling

Treaty

Self determination

Resources

Celebration

I'll celebrate but also lament and commit myself to do more and be more in relation to reconciliation!!

Instead we all have our own preoccupations!!

"Lucky Country" Midnight Oil

Speed, and this

There's a feeling I get when I look to the sun

Love, it's so tough

Cause it raises your hopes and then it makes you run

We're all looking for a shorter day

We're all looking for an easy way

Even when the debts are dead and gone

Down, the stairs

And an eight mile drive waits for you to turn on

Hear, the time clocks sing

And the smoke in the distance reaches the eye line

We're all working on a shorter day...

No conversation as you go

There's so much space the heat moves you

Terracotta homes, backyard barbeque and eucalyptus smell

It's fine on the clothes line

It's fast food and slow life and red roof

My silence, comic interruptions

Surely there's some relief from atomic art

And the fragile state of world events

With clowns who love the kings and power and the mutant media babes

Wanking on dreams and fashions and toilet paper flowers

Don't talk to me in this backyard - it's clandestine, it's nuclear

Smell of space and now forever I want to go

Straight down the exit eight mile attraction

you-turn is up and the time clock sings lets go

Lucky country...

Where the geckos are paid to live in the sun

On and on there's a ribbon of road and a mile to spare

Lucky country

Lucky country...

Songwriters: James Moginie / Martin Rotsey / Peter Garrett / Peter Gifford / Robert Hirst
Lucky Country lyrics © O/B/O Apra Amcos