While Timor-Leste flies flags for a freedom it fought for, Australia still hesitates to claim its own, writes GJ Burchall.
THE FLAGS were all out and it was a joy to behold. They started to appear about a week ago. Or more. There was already an abundance of flags on permanent display here, on public and private buildings, a-flap from microlet buses and motorbike handlebars. But in the last few days, they have sprouted like roof leaks in the wet season.
All the special occasion flags had been plonked out in front of even the smallest of businesses, flying from sturdy, makeshift flagpoles set into concrete-filled black plastic flower pots.
Really, they began to emerge right after the week of half-mast mourning ended for Papa Francisco.
The flags were out in the lead-up to Timor-Leste’s celebration of Independence on 20 May.
Sort of. It’s complicated. This tiny country has a fraught history of being an uncared-for colony, a target of military invasion, an arena of conflict and the recipient of cruel inaction by its neighbours. As a result, 20 May marks Timor-Leste’s Restoration of Independence.
It went like this: following the Carnation Revolution of 1974, Portugal began to divest itself of its costly colonies. The people of Timor-Leste were happy to shuck almost 300 years of “benign neglect” and declared themselves an independent democracy on 28 November 1975.
It lasted nine days. Indonesia invaded and took occupation. Australia allowed it. Britain merrily sold weapons to the invaders to thwart any resistance.
Fast forward to 1999, when Indonesia, finding itself in a similar economic bind to Portugal 25 years earlier, agreed to a UN-sponsored referendum on the future of its erstwhile “Province 27”.
The Timorese people voted overwhelmingly for independence over any autonomy within the sprawling archipelago nation. The UN administered the half-island for the next three years until nationhood was granted.
Thus, the Timorese celebrate three distinct milestones to their independence. Original independence (28 November), Popular Consultation (30 August) and Restoration of Independence (20 May). They deserve each one.
No wonder the flower-pot flags come out. No forced patriot-stir dates, these. They are as meaningful as they were hard-won.
Of course, the place has problems. But they are their own. These people are so resilient, positive, tolerant and hopeful. There is a whole generation now who have grown up post-independence. They honour the past but embrace the future.
No flag flies in cynicism.
You cannot help but compare this to Australia’s lame national day. What was 26 January? The (second) attempt to pitch camp for displaced prisoners, gaolers and bureaucrats after an abandoned Botany Bay foray. Pitch camp on private property.
At least New Zealand – also still under thrall to the British – has Waitangi Day, when a treaty was signed between coloniser and land-owner.
Australia is indeed a most fortunate nation, never having suffered major wars – civil or uncivil – and not having a shared border. It is now far too multicultural to be declared “British to its bootstraps”. The royals don’t care if Australia becomes a republic; they probably wonder why it isn’t already.
In contrast, Timor-Leste is so proud of its culture and its emergence from many dark years of oppression, aggression and desperation. Hence the flags: from the hanky-sized ones on sticks waved by kids, to the bold, beach-towel-breadth banners outside the humblest home.
Australia will never have a truly relevant, inclusive national day until it becomes a republic, until it reconciles with an Indigenous past, present and future.
The Voice to Parliament shamefully failed recently. But now the Government has a clear mandate to put an Indigenous treaty and an Australian republic back onto the agenda.
Even Barbados took the step and became a parliamentary republic in 2021. And Canada got its own distinctive flag, back in 1965 — one without the conqueror’s brutal jack in the hoist quadrant.
Have some pride, Australia. Let’s debate a governance model and speed the republic. Then everyone can proudly plant a flag in a flowerpot. A new flag, that is.
GJ Burchall is a journalist, scriptwriter and educator who was born and bred in Melbourne and lives in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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