Welcome to the twenty sixth day of January, 2013. It is today that Australians world wide celebrate a kinship with their native land; a mateship felt toward fellow Aussies; and a love of being proudly knows as Australian.
Of course the original meaning given to this national holiday is in commemoration of the British First Fleet, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, landing at Sydney Cove in 1788. And their subsequent proclamation of sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia (then known as New Holland). That is, white settlement into what was millenia of aboriginal living.
My fourth Australia Day in a row has been spent not Down Under, but in the thoroughly modern landscape of Dubai, where the flying metro whizzes past skyscrapers, and an urban park becomes the cooling verdant salve of this city built on desert sands.
Happy Australia Day, World…
