Don't call me an invader.

According to some people Australian constitutional documents should be altered to refer to the 'invasion' of Australia, not the 'settlement.' I can see the logic there, because in factual historic terms that is what actually happened. But I will not personally apologize or hang my head, because personally I'm not an invader and neither are thousands of other non-Aboriginal Australians. The reasoning goes further than some people realize. Obviously, anyone born in Australia and into this nation's citizenship does so by the design of others. We don't choose where to be born, even if we're quite glad of it when we're old enough to understand. The counter argument to that is,our ancestors chose to come here, and that makes them invaders. When they argue this, they forget the convicts.
Some 160000 people were transported to this land, sent by the government of the time and without wishing to be sent. Once here, many were unable to return to wherever they came from. Either their banishment was for life, and they were forbidden to return to Britain; or they simply could not afford the passage, and their children knew no other home. To go to Britain once colonially born did not always have a happy outcome either. Some young men born in what was then the colony of New South Wales enlisted in Governor Macquarie's New South Wales Corps, went to England when the Corps was recalled home and died in a measles epidemic in England. Those hapless souls would have done better to remain here, and besided, many people had to. They were sent here against their will, unable to leave and their children had no say in where they were born. This was the only home they knew.
Ten of my ancestors were convicts. They did not choose to come, and even though in retrospect they were glad of it they cannot be blamed for their presence in this place. I respect the claim of the Aboriginal people to be recognised as the original, traditional people of Australia. We should not deny that they were invaded and the land and life they knew taken from them. But not every individual who found themselves here is in any way culpable for that. It is ostentatious breast-beating for people to guilt induce people who live where they do and are who they are by virtue of circumstances they did not control. It is inaccurate to describe every non-Aboriginal Australian as an invader. Indeed many of them were and are victims of history just as much as the Aboriginals.
That I'm Australian was first decided in the 1790s, when two of my great-great-great-great grandmothers were transported to Botany Bay aboard the Lady Juliana. Shortly after, the Second Fleet conveyed a convict man who subsequently became one of my great-great-great-great grandfathers. The rest, as the cliche goes, is hisory. Ten of my ancestors were convicts who did not personally set out to take away other peoples' land and homes. We cannot be indicted for the fact of the invasion. Simply being honest and factual shows that to call all non-Aboriginal Australians invaders is a clumsy generalization which has more to do with self-righteousness than sensible analysis.

The expanding forum

Everybody has opinions, if they think or feel at all. They're part of being human. The problem is getting a hearing. The old Greek tradition of meeting in the market place to discuss things, was easier when the population was smaller. There were fewer people waiting for a turn. We have to have representative democracy rather than direct democracy because there are too many people to all have a turn at speaking, so we have to deputise, or delegate, someone to speak for us. The problem there is that the group chooses a spokesperson who does not necessarily represent everybody. So we have to find other ways of being heard. Talking to friends in a group can be an outlet but then the opinion only goes around that group. Letters pages in a newspaper help, but the more literate people wanting a place the harder it is to get a space there. So good on the internet! We might not get a big readership, but at least we're out there in a public forum having our say.