Nevertheless, the images of a female Prime Minister having to be dragged into her car to escape the mob and people burning and spitting on the Australian flag are not ones that most Australians want to see. They show a lack of respect for the Prime Minister and for the flag which represents the nation. More people displayed Australian flags this Australia Day than before indicating a growing desire to affirm our Australian way of life and our nation.
When I lived and studied in the USA I was very conscious of not being an American citizen, especially on 4 July, their Independence Day. It is celebrated in a very nationalistic way with flags, parades, songs and much affirmation of what it means to be an American. In contrast I was an 'alien' as they require you to indicate on official documents. In more biblical terms I was a 'resident alien,' someone who was living in the USA but whose citizenship was elsewhere.
My citizenship is a dual one, though I only have Australia as my home country, the Walker family having lived in Australia since the early 19th century. I am 6th generation Australian. My family heritage in this country goes back over 200 years which is significant enough, though tiny by comparison with the 40,000 or more years indigenous Australians have been in this land.
So I am an Australian citizen. But as a Christian I am also a citizen of heaven. In fact for me my first allegiance is not to Australia but to God as revealed by Jesus. I am first of all a disciple of Jesus Christ seeking to live according to the values of the reign of God. My desire is that the reign of God might come more fully, not just to Australia, but to the world. So while I value being Australian, and am pleased when Australians do well internationally, I am also prepared to be critical of Australia and Australians on the basis of the higher allegiance I have to God's reign and the values God desires to be shown such as compassion, justice and peace.
So I am critical of our recent treatment of asylum seekers and refugees which often lacks both compassion and justice. On the same grounds of God's concern for the least, I want Australia to do better at enabling indigenous Australians to achieve a better quality of life. I do not want Australia to follow the USA into military ventures that in reality do not advance the cause of peace and reduce the possibility of terrorist activity. The underlying issues in places like Afghanistan need to be resolved by negotiation not by violence and warfare that results in so many deaths.
I am however glad to be an Australian and readily acknowledge that this land has shaped me, its culture formed me, its humour I appreciate, and it is where I want to live. I would also like to see some changes. In relation to Australia Day, in my view we would do well to change the date we celebrate it, so that it does not correspond with invasion day. Indigenous Australians will never be able to enter into the celebration of Australia on the day that represents so much negatively for them.
From my perspective it would also be desirable to change our Australian flag. While it might take some time before we are willing to vote in a referendum to become a republic, it seems anachronistic to me to have the Union Jack as part of our flag as though we were still part of the British Empire. I have no difficulty affirming our British heritage having come from English convicts, though with our increasingly multicultural society fewer people relate to Britain as their original homeland. Surely we are a nation in our own right now and the Union Jack on our flag is no longer appropriate. So I would like us to have a new flag with the Southern Cross and the Aboriginal flag utilized in a newly designed Australian flag. That would be a flag I would like to see raised at the Olympic Games.
Australia Day is meant to be a celebration of what it means to live in this fortunate land. My hope is that we change when it is celebrated and the symbols we use. Then we could go to the beach, have a barbeque with family and friends, join in festivities and hopefully all Australians could feel part of it. To me that would also be something of a sign of the reign of God, which is indeed multicultural and inclusive and full of people praising God for God's goodness and grace freely shown to all people.
