Straya!

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If you’re like me then whenever you think of Australia Day, you think of bogans dressed head to toe in the Australian flag and drenched head to toe in beer. If you’re like me, then this also makes you cringe.

However, I would like to propose the notion that being a flag-wearing, beer drenched bogan is actually a good thing. “What?!” I hear you scream. “How could this possibly be a good thing?!”

Being a bogan is most commonly associated with being white and a bit of a xenophobe, which easy to be, on a day like Australia Day…if you’re a bogan…and a prick.

However, what would the alternative be? Imagine this fine country without any sense of national identity or something, any-thing, that fills us with pride.

What are we left with? A culturally desolate wasteland lost of a sense of belonging.

Yes, it’s healthy to cringe at bogans. Yes, it’s more than fine to want to punch any Australian that thinks it’s ok to reduce our national identity to something like Vegemite or a corked hat.

But if we don’t have any sense of inclusivity or community that comes with a cultural identity of any kind, then we are left with no one really feeling the need to be a part of one.

What does that create? It creates a bigger world. A world in which we all feel like an individual disconnected from the people around us, rather than national citizens or local citizens.

Of course, I’m not saying that this excuses xenophobia or even just generally being kind of a prick. But it’s a sense of national pride that every citizen of this country, no matter how new, or what creed or colour or what plot of land your parents happened to fuck on, can grab onto when living here.

Nationalism shouldn’t be used as an excuse to exclude, but as a platform for inclusivity.

So, don’t cringe when you see a bogan turning snags on the barbie. Join in and invite everyone you know or see. Because if you can’t make mates on Australia Day, when can you?