Australia Day 2022

Australia Day 2022

I

As a kid in the 1970s, Australia day was a day off and did not think much more about it. When I was young teacher in the 1980s, I did not pay any attention to Australia Day except that it was day off around which school would start. Australia Day became a fun day out for my teenage children in the 2000s. More recently it has become a day of mixed emotions for me.

So, I have started building my awareness and connecting with people who know more than me to build my understanding.

II

But first, I studied History and Geography at Sydney University, starting honours in both and eventually settling on Geography. I focused on US and Late Modern European History and topped it up with racial theoretics with Dr Bob Dreher.

When it became thesis decision time I could not let go of history and did my thesis on the historical geography of Strathfield in the 19th Century. This is partly because the History Department did not think my idea of “geographical history” had any academic merit.

A few years later my Master’s degree was on Nonformal Education in South East Asia and the Pacific which involved research into literacy, health, rural development and women in indigenous communities.

I can see a pattern of interests here which I could not see at the time.

III

Although I did not study Australian history, my academic training provided the framework for my reading of Australian Colonial History. I never linked any of this to Australia Day. The focus was on explorers and their feats of endurance. I liked them because I see ultra-runners as modern day explorers of endurance.

I have developed a particular interest in Charles Sturt. He has a university, a desert pea, a highway, a national park and I am sure much more named after him. I also read he was a religious man and, with guidance, related well with the aboriginal communities.

Above all I was fascinated with his explorations because they opened up in my mind’s eye what Australia was like in this period.

On my Kindle, through Guttenberg books I read his original journals of his exploration to the New England region in the late 1820s, his trip down the Murray river to Lake Alexandria and back in the early 1830s and then his central Australian explorations through current day Broken Hill and Tibooburra in the 1840s.

I followed this up, through biographies and secondary sources, following his life in Norfolk Island in the 1830s, his land ownership in Camden, Mittagong and the ACT, the driving cattle from the east coast to South Australia in the late 1830s and his time in Adelaide before he returned to England.

I read all this on face value not thinking about revisionism or the history wars about which I am now more informed and a little more engaged. I have written in the past about my small contribution via to the submission to and presentation at a public hearing for constitutional recognition for Aboriginal peoples in 2018.

IV

This brings me to Australia Day. For some reason I have been thinking more about the significance of the day as I approach next week. I have read about and spoken to a few people concerning the varied ways in which we can approach Australia Day moving forward.

I am a non-aboriginal, white Anglo Saxon, baby boomer, grey headed male, with Irish colonial heritage who wishes to hear all the stories to be more informed.

Meanwhile on the other side of my family tree is Swiss heritage. I guess this is where I get my desire to strive for balance.

Moving forward.

In my research I read that Charles Perkins said. “We don’t live in the past but our past lives with us.”

Then I read about the three dimensions of what it means to be Australian with an Indigenous Heritage, British institutions and our multicultural gift. I think this is attributed to Noel Pearson?

This Wednesday I will be approaching Australia Day as a personal day of reflection while I go on a long run.

I believe we can work together moving forward in a unified manner. I will contemplate my background, experiences and research in the context of reflecting on the above two quotes.

cheers Martin