Australia Day 2026 violently exposes deep national divisions

If the purpose of Australia Day is to promote national unity and social cohesion, then it is not working, writes Dave Donovan.

There is an old story that tells how tourists in Ireland approached a local villager on the side of the road to ask how to get to Galway and received the following reply: “Well, I won’t start there.

It’s the same on Australia Day. If the purpose of this annual holiday was to promote national unity and that new buzzword, “social harmony,” then we certainly wouldn’t start where we are now. Because clearly, as a nation, we’ve gone a little off track and are lost.

This week’s Australia Day “celebrations” were a sure sign of that, and were, to use the vernacular (dutifully imported from America), “a complete shit show”. Nazis arrested while performing Nazi salutes Spouts anti-Semitic hatred -most Anti-immigrant “March for Australia” demonstrations and attacking peaceful anti-racist protesters. all over the country.

This fascinating day was attended by a number of politicians, including white supremacist One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. Interviewed celebrities broadcast drunk Karl Stefanovich used the opportunity Defending Australia Day as a “wonderful event”, mocking “woke culture” and telling naysayers to “lighten up”. This led to social media chants of “Love It or Leave It!” It received widespread approval with its slogan. The crowd is accompanied by millions of Australian flag emojis and even more exclamation points and typos.

The sun finally set on all that family fun in Perth when shrapnel and a nail bomb were thrown into the crowd at a locals’ “Day of Mourning” event. A 31-year-old white man was arrested. Fortunately, the “device,” as the authorities calmly described it, did not explode. nor Was the incident reported? It was considered a domestic terrorism case by investigators, probably because it was not directed at whites.

Looking back at the holiday, it’s clear that Australia Day didn’t do a very good job of bringing us together; except perhaps that those who love Western civilization share insults, fists, spiked boots and potentially lethal ammunition with less pale Australians and their supporters. So many troops it could literally explode.

Of course, if you wanted to make Australia Day one of widespread social engagement and national unity, you certainly wouldn’t celebrate it on the 26th.^This It’s the anniversary of January, or rather, the Founding Day of the British Convict Colony of Botany Bay, 1788.

This was, of course, the day that the Colony of New South Wales could trace its birth, but it was the day that Australia could not. Australia was federated as a dominion (not a nation) by an Act of the British Westminster Parliament on 1 January 1901.

Since then, various events have occurred that have convinced most people that we are now a nation; for example Gallipoli, Statutes of Westminster And Australian Law, among others. But actually we’re not exactly like that, because we still keep the British monarch as our head of state and we keep the Union Jack in the corner of our flag. This flag is technically a blue British ensign There are some stars on it. In fact, it is almost identical to the New Zealand flag and was once described by comedian Jerry Seinfeld as “Britain at Night”. Just the thing to wave at in our “national” day.

In any case, for a national day, you certainly wouldn’t celebrate the anniversary of a day when the occupying imperialists attacked one of the six Australian colonies by chaining up several boatloads of petty criminals, captured it in the name of the King, and planted that flag we still have in the corner.

Especially considering that this day was seen as a day of dispossession by the original inhabitants of the area. A day of disaster that subsequently led to the collapse of their ancient and deeply spiritual 60,000-year-old culture, calamitous genocidal wars, heinous massacres, and continued abuse, deprivation, and oppression. If you want to promote healing and national unity, it’s hard to imagine anything worse. Completely disrespectful and openly divisive.

Especially considering that this day isn’t even the day we always celebrate Australia Day, and in fact it was only in 1994 due to the monotony in Australia. This isn’t even traditional! So, if you wanted to achieve national unity and social integrity, you would not start on January 26.

But let meA. I’m going to let you in on a little secret that you probably already know. Those who love that day the most and want it to be celebrated on January 26 have nothing to do with social harmony. In fact, they want less national unity, not more.

If you want national unity, you don’t want the Federal Government to appoint an antisemitism ambassador with close links to a group lobbying against Indigenous Voices in Parliament. And you cannot pass laws that specifically ban anti-Semitic hate speech while ignoring other forms of hate speech that are clearly much more prevalent in our society.

This focus on Jews has made them more targets, not less, because of the perception that they hold a privileged position in the corridors of power in our society. Of course, as discussed in last week’s editorial, these laws led to the breakup of the Coalition, at least in part because many in their group wanted the option of making vitriolic speech against those they viewed as enemies, such as Indigenous Australians and immigrants, especially those of the Islamic faith.

This was amply demonstrated by the arrest of the Nazi who produced anti-Semitic hate speech at the Australian March. This has also been demonstrated by two former Australian Prime Ministers. Tony Abbott And Scott MorrisonLast week he made hateful anti-Islamic remarks. Of course, both of these pro-British Christian preachers were noted for their brutal persecution of immigrants in their office offshore detention facilities.

It has also been seen this week by criminal con artist James “Ashbygate” Ashby, Pauline Hanson’s deputy in the anti-Indigenous, anti-immigrant One Nation party, praising Trump, denouncing Islam as a hateful ideology and calling for hundreds of thousands of Muslims to be deported from Australia. (Read Dr Abul Rizvi’s article on this “national unity” exercise HERE)

If these people want a united nation, they want it to be a united White Australia, as it was before the 1970s. But this will never happen, so what they really want is not “One Nation” but a divided nation where they can voice their own rhetoric and draw the ignorant into their divisive dog whistle exaggerations and harmful rhetoric.

If you want a united nation, you don’t start with politicians expressing these hateful views for cynical purposes, displaying a complete lack of civic responsibility and good will. They don’t like Australia. They love power. And they will tear these lands apart to come to power.

We cannot easily achieve national unity from here. But the first thing we need to do is to move towards changing history. From now on, let’s take out the map, not listen to chattering idiots on the roadside like we have been doing lately.

This is an extract from an Independent Australia subscribers editorial. Subscribe HERE to receive all of this content and links to all the other stories published throughout the week in your email inbox weekly.

Follow IA founder Dave Donovan on X/Twitter @davrosz and Bluesky @davrosz.bsky.socialIndependent Australia on Bluesky @independentaus.bsky.socialX/Twitter @independentaus and Facebook HERE.

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