How can we have an Australia Day without a flag debate?

[i-need-a-martini]

We still have a flag that confuses the world - to the world our flag says we are still an English colony. So why oh why is it so hard to get Australians to change the thing?

After having had the misfortune of living in the midst of the Cronulla riots some years ago, I have come to hate what our flag now symbolises to many (that we are a white nation with anglo saxon ties) and would dearly love to see it changed.

I read Peter Fitz.s article this morning and couldn't agree more. Your thoughts?

I AM, you are, we are, Australian.

So why on earth, in the 21st century, do we still have a flag that reserves 25 per cent of its acreage proclaiming our allegiance, first and foremost, to Great Britain!?

Settle, Professor Flint, settle! You too, Jonesy. Settle, petals, I say! Whatever fatigue the conservative forces might feel at this subject flaring up ever more often, there is no way around it. Having a flag that declares to the world that we are Britain in the South Seas, a living relic of our colonial past, is as ludicrous as it is embarrassing.

Typically, Paul Keating said it best just over a year ago, when he noted: "We get around with the British flag in the corner of our flag. Great states do not do these things."

Who, seriously, can argue? (Apart from you, I mean, Professor and Jonesy.)

Against this most basic and obvious of assertions, a range of old chestnuts are thrown.

It is unpatriotic to speak out against the flag. Really? We want an Australian flag to feature uniquely Australian symbols, as opposed to the flag of another nation, and we're the unpatriotic ones?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It is bloody well broke. These days, the ostentatious display of the Australian flag outside a house, on bumper-stickers or the like, is more often a statement of political conservatism than patriotism pure. The Australian flag is no longer a symbol that unites us - it divides us.

It's our history. Really? Or is it just your history, as in your Anglo history? The fact that the Brits had a large part in forming Australia as it was in 1901 is reflected in the flag that was chosen then. But where in the flag is the representation of our now recognised indigenous citizens, or of the wave after wave of postwar immigrants, come from all parts of the world who have also since built the nation?

You can't believe in multiculturalism and support a flag that asserts the primacy of the Anglo race. We need a flag that reflects the equality of our citizens, not vaunts one lot over other.

Our forefathers and mothers served and died in wars under this flag, and so it can't be changed. This is the greatest chestnut of them all, and simply wrong. In the first place, in all the military books I have read, and written, I have never come across an "Iwo Jima" moment where our troops raced up a hill, or the like, to plant an Australian flag, let alone actually defended one to the death. That stuff is great for American movies, but not actually the way our wars were fought. They fought for Australia - and I honour them for it - but not specifically the flag. Besides which, the current blue ensign was only adopted at the insistence of Robert Menzies in 1954, to replace the red ensign which had broadly been our flag since 1901.

All up, is it really such a terrible thing to want an Australian flag to boast uniquely Australian symbols? For me, the answer is Eureka, but anything that does not have the flag of another nation upon it would be better than the one we have now.

Where will it all end, you ask? How about standing proudly on our own two feet, with a flag and a system of government entirely uncluttered by embarrassing proclamations of piety to another nation …

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/our-flag-should-not-be-girt-by-british-history-20130125-2dc64...

[daydream**believer]

without that so called shabby past you would not have a future & Australia would not be the country that it is today, you judge our forbares by todays morals, based on your life experences & the modern view of the world, in doing so you do  a very big diservice to all that have gone before.

if you are going to judge our past do within the context of what was considered right & wrong in that time judge it based on the fact that, we as a society have moved forward to build the nation as it is today, a great nation where the abilty to change our views & our destiny our ours, this is only posible because of those who lived in what you call our shabby past.

right or wrong the combined history of both aboriginal & non aboriginal walks sided by side & intemingled it is what mades us strong both the good & bad.

to deniegh what has gone before is & to say it should be swept away, forgoten with the focas only being on the future, is an insult to both aboriginal history & white history a like.

if you were to have a flag only for the future you may as well not have one at all , as it would never be relivant as it would always be lodged in the past for tomorows future is the day afters past

Brilliant post

BRAVO

[daydream**believer]

the difference between you and me vintage is you have given into the narsayers who tell you you must feel guilty about the fact you are white & that your forbares do bad things and you must answer for them, this is evident in this statement

I won't lecture you on the past but we "settlers" have a lot to answer for.

where as i  can except our past is some thing i am niether responsable for or can change, full great moments that make the heart sing and great lows bring tears flooding forth.

this enables me to believe that change is posible and that together we have been given the tools to do it & the experance to find the best way forward 

and another brilliant post

[kilroy_is_here]

 thanks amy

  I say it as i see it & only if i beleive what im saying

[mtnlane]

I stand and applaud your posts kilroy! 

[lakeland27]

like a lot of people i want the butchers apron gone. but i don't think it worth going to any real lengths to do it.

[izabsmiling]

Kiroy_is_here wrote;

right or wrong the combined history of both aboriginal & non aboriginal walks sided by side & intemingled it is what mades us strong both the good & bad.

to deniegh what has gone before is & to say it should be swept away, forgoten with the focas only being on the future, is an insult to both aboriginal history & white history a like.

Doesn't part of the reason for discussion of a flag change involve recognition (not denial) of our history ? An attempt at trying to include it all.To recognise the combined history ?

So as not to insult either Indigenous nor Non Indigenous Australians?  

[kilroy_is_here]

not from what i see and read, its all about removal of the union jack, now the union jack is not just english, it in its self is a combination of counties