by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman
PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND
T
op tip for aspiring commentators: the first rule of successful column writing is timeliness. Write what’s in the now. Seek the knife striking sparks from the steel of the zeitgeist. Be relevant! Capture those eyeballs! Pew pew! Or not. The news cycle spins so swiftly now that unless you get your hot take online within hours of, say, the PM travelling interstate to wash someone’s hair, it lands as stale as yesterday’s cronut. Not only is haste inelegant, but it also traps everyone in a stimulus/response loop requiring no more analysis than a rescue staffy hurtling after a tennis ball. Throw it again! It’s hard to reflect when everyone is quarrelling forward. It tilts discourse towards shallow and hostile, a low-tide rock pool harbouring flesh-eating bacteria. Some topics – the complex, sensitive ones – require slow and ongoing consideration. Sometimes we need to sit back, listen and consider the bigger picture. About now, perceptive readers are sensing a trap. Waitaminute. Is this a justification for something past its use-by date? Correct. But in my defence, although 26 January has receded in 2022’s rear-vision mirror, Australia Day remains a 24/7/52 sphincter-tightening topic. Attention peaks in January, attended by discount shops deciding how much flag merch to clump enticingly in their windows. I don’t envy them. It must take seventh-dimensional maths to work out potential demand. Who still buys Aussie flag thongs, bikinis or giant sponge fingers? The tourists who aren’t here? Swathes of locals are well past embracing patriotism and/or amused irony. The flag is in demand for anti-vax rallies, so that’s good for the economy, but personally I’d no more wave an Aussie flag on 26 Jan than swim at Werribee sewage farm. I wish I felt otherwise. Recent migrants must be sorely confused – required on entry to answer questions about “Australian values”, only to find that history is contested, and the interpretation
of “official” values depends entirely on who you ask. Welcome to Australia, here’s your certificate, a wattle in a plastic tube, and good luck celebrating our purported national day. You’ll need it because there’s no right way to do it; how can there be? Whichever way you slice Australia Day, it contains traces of genocide. Increasingly, I’m finding the idea of any “nationhood” celebration awkward. When Triple J moved their Hottest 100 in 2018, it was peak #ChangeTheDate energy, and it’s an attractively simple solution, right? January 26 has been the official Aboriginal Day of Mourning since 1938. It takes a special kind of tactlessness to insist on the arrival of the First Fleet as settler Australia’s fun times BBQ how good are we beach party. At the very least, 26 January should pivot to a national day of respect and reflection. But even on another date, what is Australia Day celebrating? Taking a continent by force, attempting to erase a 60,000-plus-year-old culture, and mismanaging the environment. Ew. Frankly, there’s a lot of deep thinking, listening, humility and work to do before settler Australia deserves a holiday. I’ve been thinking about the wildly popular Reddit thread AITA, or Am I the Arsehole? People give their POV on a personal event that’s blown up, and ask, AITA? Thousands of posters weigh in. Sometimes the poster IS the arsehole, sometimes they’re not. Lessons are learned. It’s usually clear where the entitled behaviour lies. “Every year we have a national holiday to mark the anniversary of stealing our country. The people we stole it from don’t want to join in, and frankly are a real downer. We think they should just get over it, and be grateful. It was aaages ago. Like 250 years. Reddit, AITA?” Um. Yes Australia. YTA.
Fiona is a writer and comedian who’s never out of date.
18 FEB 2022
Use-by Date
Seek the knife striking sparks from the steel of the zeitgeist. Be relevant! Capture those eyeballs!
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Fiona
