If Australia Day is illegitimate, so are we, by Greg Sheridan.
Australia should celebrate Australia Day on January 26 because it is right to do so. It is the day modern institutions, in our case British institutions, entered Australian life. They have brought with them the entire institutional and indeed ethical framework of modern Australia. They brought the rule of law, individual human rights, independent courts, free media, multiple centres of power in government. …
The arguments against changing the date from January 26 that were used last week — that it would be hard to achieve consensus for change, there is no obvious alternative date, changing Australia Day would imperil the cause of constitutional recognition for Aborigines, it won’t create any new jobs and won’t solve Aboriginal disadvantage — are all second-order arguments at best. …
The arguments of the activists are anti-western, postmodern, and regressive:
One of the greatest achievements of Western civilisation over the past 2000 years, since Christianity introduced the radical notion of every person possessing an immortal soul and free will, has been the acceptance of the doctrine that human beings are not guilty of anything by virtue of their membership of a race or any other group. Nor, logically, can they inherit special rights. …
Don’t be held hostage to rent-seeking activists:
One of the many problems mixing identity politics with history and civic symbols is that absolutely nothing is pure enough to pass muster. The result is a salami slice assault on a nation’s legitimacy, and debilitating symbolic battles without end. …
The most circular and depressing argument for change is that a given date or symbol is not unifying because it does not have 100 per cent support. Logically, this gives virtually any activist group, certainly any group claiming to represent designated victims, the power to destroy symbols and institutions simply by making a noise, and preferably by producing a few violent demonstrations to showcase the “passion” of their cause.
