CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
I WILL HAVE FUN TODAY! After years of protest, the Indigenous community have made it clear that they view January 26th as a day of mourning – and that our national day should be changed.
Due to the work of our historians, those who oppose this position can no longer argue that Indigenous Australians are exaggerating the horror that their people faced after the British arrived – and the generational suffering that followed.
There is no right or wrong to this debate anymore. You either sympathise with the Indigenous perspective or you don’t want to hear about it.
Local patriot Dennis Esposito (38, Betoota Heights) is one of the latter.
With a barbecue roaring and a backyard full of likeminded family and friends going through the paces of wearing Australian-flag themed costumes, Dennis is committed to having a good day.
As someone who is inherently opposed to change, Dennis isn’t a protestor – and he’s not big on getting to the bottom of issues like this one. In fact, he’s just sick of it all to be honest.
But unfortunately for Dennis, the messages from Australia’s Indigenous community have reached him. He knows what they are upset about – and he’s beyond the point of being able to ignore it.
Every half or so, a feeling of dread overcomes him. He finds himself spiralling. He’s thinking about the gunfire in Botany Bay, the families pushed off cliffs, the disease, the stolen children, the jail cells, the deeply engrained disadvantage that he can still see every time he goes bush.
Even turning on the TV to watch the cricket isn’t an escape, knowing full well the Australian captain has his own opinion about the appropriateness of celebrating the date that the British arrived in this country with rifles and vials of smallpox.
Dennis had hoped the majority NO vote in the referendum would shake this feeling off, he thought that he was going to be able to formally reject and erase the experiences of others. But he can’t. It sits there, in the back of his mind, as he looks at his loved ones cheerfully celebrating a country that never treated them that way.
He fights off the feeling and wins, but only momentarily. It comes back.
He sighs.
“Anyone need another beer?!?”
