‘Our Lady of the Southern Cross’ – Paul Newton (Australian artist)

This Friday we celebrate Australia Day. Technically this is a secular rather than a religious holiday. Nonetheless, the Australian Bishops have for many decades invited the Christian faithful to use this day to pray for the nation and give thanks to God for the abundant blessing we have received. In recent years Australia’s national holiday has become a contentious and fractious point of national controversy. This is a sad development. The attempt of a small band of radicals (who influence has been amplified by an ideologically aligned media machine) to transform a day that ought to unite us as a nation into a cultural warzone is, frankly, despicable.

Every nation on earth has its own troubled history; many nations have been belligerents in scores of wars, have been internally devastated by bloody civil wars and unrest, have been familiar with large-scale starvation, famine and plagues, have been economically crippled by corrupt governments, have languished under protracted dictatorships, or have faced various other national strife. By comparison, Australia is almost unique among nations for its relatively peaceful and prosperous history. One compelling piece of evidence in favour of this view is the fact that for the past century Australia has remained one of the most highly sought out nations in the world for immigration, and it also has the highest rate of immigration per capita of any Western Nation. According to the Australian Government statistics a whopping 28.2 percent of Australian citizens were born outside Australia. As a point of comparison, foreign-born citizens in China make up less than 0.1 percent of the population. Australia is a model of a flourishing multicultural nation: we have a relatively low crime rate, and among the highest standards of living anywhere in the world. There is a good reason why so many people dream of calling Australia home.

Although Australians have much to be proud of as a nation, there has been a sustained attempt in recent years by the cultural Marxists who influence our public institutions and the media, to hijack Australia Day and use it to inculcate a sense of national shame. The  ideological colonisation via ‘critical race theory’ of the institutions of the West is being used as a wedge to divide our nation on the basis of racial identity groups. Countries like Australia that have long been celebrated as models of multiculturalism are now, (so we are told) actually hotbeds of latent racism. The rebranding of Australia Day as “Invasion Day” is historically absurd (the arrival of the First Fleet was not an armed military assault, by any of the standards of international warfare) yet there is something more sinister at work here: namely, the wilful attempt to incite division for political motives. This is extremely damaging to the psyche of the nation. Any psychologist can explain why ‘self-hatred’ as a psychopathology is a serious mental illness. People who cannot love or respect themselves will slide down the path of self-neglect or self-destruction. This is as true of the individual and it is of a nation. A nation that has been taught to loath itself is headed for trouble – it is a sign of deep societal sickness.

There are many subtle indications that this is increasingly the case. People are less inclined to fly the national flag. The education system at every level (primary, secondary and tertiary) is especially committed to the ‘black-arm-band’ view of Australian history. When I attended primary school in the 1980’s we began every weekly school assembly by standing and singing the national anthem – and everyone knew the words. I suspect this would be a rarity today. Olympic athletes would frequently express pride in representing their nation. Today athletes seem to compete primarily for themselves. The phenomenon of athletes ‘taking a knee’ during the national anthem is another disturbing trend, that seems designed to incite national division and resentment. Fortunately, this has less currency in Australia than in the USA. The flagging desire to serve one’s nation in the defence force is also a marker of decline in national pride. At the outbreak of World War I Australians queued up in the thousands, eager to serve their nation. If such a situation were to repeat itself one can hardly imagine a similar enthusiasm. The old attitude of “how can I serve the nation” has been largely flipped to an attitude of entitlement: “How can the nation serve me?” Indeed, very few Australians would have any sense whatsoever of owing a debt of gratitude to their nation.

That Australian history includes historical wrongs is not in question. Name one single nation that doesn’t have its own historical skeletons (real or metaphorical!). It is important for any nation to be honest in confronting past wrongs, and where possible strive to correct those wrongs. A revisionist history that seeks to cover up the past is clearly unhealthy. However, it is equally unhealthy to rewrite history in such a way that ignores or denies the extraordinary achievements and sacrifices of our forebears. Every citizen ought to feel a debt of gratitude to their homeland, and a healthy sense of pride in their nation. For Christians especially, the love of one’s nation should come very naturally. One can consider love of one’s country under the broader sense of the fourth commandment: “honour thy father and mother”. In fact, the parallels are worthy of reflection. Most people would recognise that there is something deeply disordered and unnatural in a child that has been taught to hate his parents. This is not to say that one’s parents are perfect and beyond criticism. However flawed one’s parents might be, most people recognise the love and sacrifices that parents make for them, and therefore they rightly respect, honour and cherish their parents with deep affection. So too for our nation: Australia as a country is not perfect, and has even a few serious blemishes in its past. But taken as a whole we should also be able to recognise the incredible civic and national achievements of Australia, and that we all ought to consider ourselves incredibly blessed to be able to call ourselves Australian. May God continue to bless this great nation and guide us along the path that leads to peace, prosperity and authentic human flourishing.