ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR

CW: racism, refugees, war crimes, rape, mental health

In Boolean logic, a proposition takes a value between true and false.

The corresponding relations between these propositions are: and (&), or (V), not (–).

This poem incorporates the national anthems of australia and Vietnam. australia was born of violence, and the screams continue to this day. Everything below is true.

( i was born australian & – i am proud of myself )

V ( the night gnaws at the rafters

& the sea girts idyllic around the shores of our hearts )

V ( there are 10 australian detention centres & half of them are offshore )

V ( – we do this for them & – we do it for their own sake )

V ( For those who’ve come across seas, we’ve boundless plains to share, a1901 - now )

V ( boat people brave the bastard seas & – we share our boundless plains )

V ( i learned what resignation syndrome is & – i understand what they go through )

V ( – they are illegal & – they are breaking the law )

V ( my grandmother was a political refugee &

– she believes we should welcome them with spread hands and open smiles)

V ( i was born in the April between better legislation and endorsement )

V ( boat people are almost never white )

V ( i am white & – i am white & i am & – i am )

V ( we could call them people )

V ( i have spent a year indoors & they do not know when the moon will next bathe them )

V( we are One Nation under the second Pauline Hanson &

a second is not unfamiliar but unwelcome )

V ( – there’s now a world of difference between my grandmother’s yellow

and boat-skin boat-baked boat-brown )

V ( at least that’s what her white christian friends tell her )

a ten-year interlude in Vietnam

V ( – we do not have a word for mass burial &

– we did not loot the dead before an Engineer Burial )

V ( we write the word boat people for the first time in 1975 & two thousand souls,

excuse me boat people, drained from a mine of a million &

– fifty six boats in six years will tear this fair country apart )

V ( Our steps resound on the long and arduous road, NV1954 – 1976, SRV1976 - now )

V ( Their steps are muted by the soft sand at the bottom of the ocean &

– they didn’t have to use boats & – we offered them help )

V ( – a war for democracy is just & – we did not mistreat their dead )

V ( – we do not mistreat boat people )

V ( – Brereton says we probably didn’t rape too many of them )

V ( Brereton says one half of his speech while the second is redacted &

a redaction is not unfamiliar but unwelcome)

V ( – we do not still use boat people for people who aren’t these boat people )

V ( these boat people are not like we were, my grandmother says &

– we fit in, we are good christians, my grandmother repeats )

V ( I was baptized into a heartless faith )

a return to lands that we claim are ours

V ( we were the first boat people to huddle at these undiscovered shores )

V ( for we are young and free, a1871 - 2021 )

V ( excuse me, what was i thinking: for we are one and free, a2021 - now )

V ( – this is a poem & – this is poetry & – this is all I can do & it is missing most its limbs )

V ( I watched a doco about Nauru & – I did something )

V ( Nauru detention centre has two and a half stars on google reviews )

V ( You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave* )

V ( – people who are not boat people are safe )

V ( I know how to say Biloela &

– I know how to say Nadesalingam ) V ( I do

not know any of the innumerable names of murdered Aborigines,

mined from a dwindling million )V

( Peter Dutton won’t answer questions about the Nadesalingams & maybe he

didn’t know how to pronounce it, no one else says their name )

V ( – boat people have such difficult names for white people & at

least this way we don’t need a name for the face, nor indeed the face itself)

V ( just meat for the defense-industrial abattoir )

V ( I always hoped that it was always Christmas on Christmas Island )

V ( boat people set themselves on fire to boil off the water &

– they do it because they wish to show how hopeful they are )

V ( they hang like strange fruits^ in moonless rooms & they

bloom after an uncountable number of days &

– a day without sunlight is still a day )

V ( we are so proud to be white we had(ve) a policy &

– it was not called White Australia )

V ( i am white & – i am white & i am & – i am )

V ( i was born myself & – i am a proud australian )

V ( we do this to them & we do this to ourselves )

* Hotel California – The Eagles

^ Strange Fruit – Billie Holiday

Notes:

The australian national anthem has had several sets of lyrics. It was recently updated to attempt include the Aboriginal peoples of the land, changing young to one, instead of any changes to the inherent systemic disenfranchisement or racism they face.

The Brereton Report, released to the public in November 2020, is a report into war crimes committed by the australian Defense Force (aDF) in Afghanistan, and includes a historical account of the war crimes committed by australian forces since the Boer War. The second half, comprising six volumes, is fully redacted and the general public does not even know how much material is missing. The nationalized news service ABC news was raided by federal police over the unclassified version due to reports of this misconduct.

The Nadesalingam family with their two-year old and nine-month old daughters, more widely known as the Biloela family, was forcefully removed from australia and placed on Christmas Island in March 2018. They are still there.

Christmas Island detention centre was closed in October 2018, and reopened in August 2020.

Nauru remains operational.

Cody B Strange is a particle physics researcher based in Germany. His work has a home with GutSlut Press, The Winnow Mag, Analogies& Allegories, Backslash Lit, and Lot's Wife. He can be found @cbstrange1 on Twitter or cbstrange.com.