I think I write one of these messages every year. It seems that, just like everyone else out there, I’m troubled by what Australia Day means, and what it means to be Australia. I’m not going to spend too much time on that in this post, though – I think more than enough time and effort has been spent by better writers than me on trying to explain something that I think is better acted upon than spoken about.
Instead, I want to talk about something else on this Australia Day. You’ll notice that, despite my obvious left-leaning political perspective, I’m still calling it ‘Australia Day.’ I’m sure you’re surprised that I’m not demanding that it’s called Ctiizen’s Day or something similar – because, surely that’s what all crazy lefties want, right?
Well, no. There’s a pretty scary trend in social media at the moment, where you post something suitably outrageous in the hopes of generating moral outrage and community anger. Think I’m kidding? There’s actually been studies showing that people from one group will post something designed to offend others from the same group, in order to generate this kind of anger. For example, a young Lebanese Australian might post something that is offensive to other Lebanese Australians (and him or herself) in order to concoct outrage and anger. Not surprisingly, this kind of behaviour can lead to repercussions well beyond social media – like the riots in Cronulla.
I’m not saying that every example of prejudice you see on Facebook is like this; I’m sure there are plenty of genuine bigots out there. But the point of my argument today is this: it’s easy for us all to read something that offends us, and then agree and like or share it. But – and here’s the thing – how do you know that it’s actually genuine? It comes down to that old internet chestnut: trust. And, to me, it seems like we’ve become far too likely to trust other people that we don’t even know, just because their thoughts or beliefs appear to agree with something that we feel, but probably don’t ever have the courage to say out loud.
This is true of the whole Citizen’s Day debate. As far as I know, there was a bit of discussion about 5 years ago about changing the name. For what it’s worth, I think that’s not such a bad idea at all. But every year, someone suggests that the PM is busy trying to change the name. Cue outrage and what quickly generates into thinly veiled racism and xenophobia.
I’m not sure that it’s a solution, but I think the first step is a critical awareness. Obviously, this is something that I think is pretty important- not an open acceptance of everything, but a fair, critical approach to information.