Australian Identity

Australian Symbols

Environment and Australian Identity

Power and Inequality

Language and Identity

Australian Stereotypes

Racism and Egalitarianism

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For various reasons, a national identity has become a problematic subject for most western countries. One reason is that an influx of migrants has caused citizens to question the appropriateness of asserting a national character that migrants are not in comformity with. A second reason is that the internet has facilitated the flow of ideas so that likeminded subcultures based on music, religions, TV shows, cooking, and politics now operate in various countries around the world. These subcultures provide a more meaningful sense of belonging than that provided by vague concepts of a national character. Furthermore, many citizens realise they often share more in common with some people from different countries than they do with their own.

For the west, the erosion of national identities has not come without cost. Specifically, a national identity influences the motivation of individuals to support the ambitions of their compatriots. For example, most sports-loving Australians have a strong desire to see their compatriots achieve. Consequently, they support their tax dollars being spent to fund training programs. Furthermore, they pay money to enter stadiums where they can cheer encouragement. If individuals lacked affinity to other people from their country, then they would not have any desire to support anyone except themselves.

Aside from decreasing the motivation to help each other, the lack of an identity potentially contributes to alienation and poor psychological health. According to John Ralston Saul, "Alienation at its most essential level is not poverty or unemployment. It is the inability to imagine your society and therefore to imagine yourself in it." If individuals can not conceive of a community identity, then they cannot conceive of a role to play in a community. The outcome may be depression or suicide. Admittedly, minority or subcultural identities provide a subsitute for a national identity, but these identities are not always accessible to every individual.

Ironically, one of the biggest problems of western countries lacking a national identity is that their social policy is usually written on the basis that an identity exists. Specifically, almost all social policy in the western world is written on the basis that there is a majority culture in which there are minorities to be accommodated. Although the writers of the policy may not define the values, racial makeup, traditions, and customs of the majority culture, the majority culture is still referred to and policy made on the basis that it is influential.

Unfortunately, the policy documents become useless in areas of the country where a national identity is almost completely absent from the identity of the people of the region. For example, in many areas of Sydney and Melbourne, there are almost no individuals who identify as Australian. In these areas, a Korean kid may sit in a class surrounded by Vietnamese, Sudanese, Italian, Afghani or Lebonese kids. The Korean kid may be in fear that a gang of these kids will beat him up on the way home. The kid’s only real hope of protection is to join a Korean gang. When the kid is mixed race, or no gang is available, he or she is particularly vulnerable.

Teachers are ill equipped to deal with the conflicts because their training is on how to protect minorities from the racist majority. As a result, they may get the kids to make posters denouncing Adolph Hitler in order to teach the kids that it is wrong for majorities to repress minorities. While it is a nice message, it fails to deal with the racial conflict that is most relevant to the kid’s daily world.

Like teachers, police are also ill equipped to deal with the conflict between minorities. A kid may be beaten to a bloodied pulp by a racial gang but if the kid’s parents ask the police for help, the police are wary about any minority groups being over-represented in crime statistics, which would make it seem that the police are racist. As a result, they prefer to turn a blind eye or suggest a course of action that doesn't involve the police.

Because social policy is ill-equipped to deal with conflict between minorities, many areas of the western world are almost like scenes out of Mad Max. Individuals join gangs for protection, there is little affinity between people, and there is an almost complete absence of social policy designed to deal with the conflicts.

Governments of the western world are increasingly realising that their policies are not able to deal with the racial conflicts in their countries that do not involve the "majority" culture. Either the governments need to be more assertive in defining an identity or accept that no national identity exists in many areas of their country and write policy accordingly. The later option probably would never occur because it would necessitate that politicians give up some of their reverent power with voters and devalue the significance of their office.

European approaches

Different countries have reacted to the erosion of national identities in different ways. France has taken an assimilationist position towards migrants. For example, Muslim veils have been banned in schools, and the burqa (complete face covering) has been banned outright. Furthermore, to prevent any linking between race and culture, the French census does not ask citizens to declare their race - the implication being that all citizens are French. Despite its noble intentions, France has suffered significant ethnic riots as well as race-based nationalistic movements wanting to rid France of its ethnics. In other words, despite the public declarations that everyone is French and equal, different groups see their role in French society in very different ways. Some non-whites see themselves as outsiders while some whites see themselves as the true French.

Unlike the French, the British have taken the post-modernist approach to a national identity. In short, they promote the idea that all cultures are different but equal. While nice in spirit, in practice, the theory advocates apathy in the face of offensive conduct. For British literary theorist Terry Eagleton, post-modernist theory is defective because it basically proposes that intolerant cultures must be tolerated. Similar ideas have been argued by Gunther Kress, a professor at the University of London. In Reimagining English: Curriculum, Identity and Productive Futures, Kress wrote:

“The voices which have been loudest in the UK over the past twenty years, and which continue to dominate, are voices which speak of  very different futures to the one I imagine.”

Both men have rejected post-modernism because it has denied them the right to speak while defending the right of those they oppose to speak.

Religious minorities in Britain have linked the rise in extremism to a lack of a national identity to hold onto, or to bind different cultures together. For example, Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, wrote:

"I have never known the British Jewish community, especially its university students, more anxious about the future than they are today. But I have heard the same from many Hindus and Sikhs…By dissolving national identity it makes it impossible for groups to integrate because there is nothing to integrate into, and by failing to offer people pride in being British, it forces them to find sources of pride elsewhere. 

Without shared values and a sense of collective identity, no society can sustain itself for long. I fear the extremism that is slowly but surely becoming, throughout the world, the siren song of the twenty-first century." 

Sweden, often seen as a model of democractic consensus culture, has also found some difficulties in reconciling the need for a national identity with the identities of subcultures that do not think the same way. This has seen the rise of the term "unSwedish", which is used to represent social conduct that is not deemed to be Swedish and therefore not belonging in Sweden. While some Swedes use the term as an insult, others have embraced the insult as a term of endearment and a mark of their cosmopolitan personality. According to Daniel Lampien, a Swedish blogger:

"The constant renewing and the self-hate is why there are fewer things that actually are swedish (sic). Except the things that are so swedish(sic) that we don't even recognise it. Like using the word "unswedish".(sic)"

The German government has tried to integrate migrants by working hard to ensure that the German people do not have supremacist attitudes towards the migrants. Mindful of what happened in World War 2, the German government has refrained from supporting displays of nationalism that could cause history to repeat. According to Oliver Marc Hartwich, a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies,

“In truth, modern Germany is still probably one of the least nationalistic countries on earth. The lessons of the Third Reich have truly been learnt and are not forgotten.”

Ironically, the lack of national pride might be replicating the conditions in Germany after World War 1, where low national esteem fuelled movements in favour of Hitler. Additionally, migrants have found little reason to embrace anything but the welfare system of their new homeland because there have been few positive stories being told about Germany. According to Hartwich,

"Germany's lack of national pride and identity made it harder to integrate migrants. Why should they integrate anyway when Germans found their own culture so hard to love?"

Australian approach

Although the Australian experience shares some commonalities with the European one, it has some significant differences. Specifically, European countries have defined identities. Their chief dilemma is whether they should assert them. For example, it is possible to define the character of a refined Brit, refined German, refined Italian or refined Frenchman. It is basically a person from the country who exhibits the "typical" traits in a manner that commands the respect of others. Unlike in the European countries, in Australia, the identity is not defined and it certainly isn’t possible to speak of a refined Australian. A "stereotypical" Australian is possible, but not an Australian that could be defined as aspirational for the majority of the population. Each year, the government tries to create the aspirational model with the Australian-of-the-Year award, but their winners usually have far far more critics than supporters.

Australia is different from Europe because the identity is split into two distinct forms. One form is typically referred to as boganism. It is often expressed by putting Australian flags on the car, sporting bumper stickers like "real Australians drive utes" or getting a South Cross tattoo. The identity tends to also have elements of defiance because the inhabitants of the identity feel they are breaking taboos by identifying themselves as Australian. This was evident after the 2003 Cronulla Riots that involved bogan and Lebonese gangs coming to blows on Sydney’s southern beaches. The bogans involved saw themselves as “fighting back” and asserting the pride that others wanting to deny from them.

Much of the bogans' identity flowed from a perception that they were fair game for commentators to belittle. It also flowed from a perception that the police were not protecting their rights against infringement from other social groups. If allowed to fester, it would eventually create a very large pool of individuals with great hostility to the justice system and lacking all faith in the legitimacy of government.

Australian pride after the Cronulla Riots

The other form of the Australian identity tends to be formed in opposition to the bogans. It is basically any Australian of Anglo-Celtic heritage that has no identification with that heritage, but derives status from insulting those Australians (bogans) that do.

It is Australians with an anti-bogan identity that chiefly write and comment on Australian social policy. On the basis of their commentary, they clearly believe that Australia has a majority identity which the majority of Australians identify with.  However, exactly what that identity is and how they personally fit into it is somewhat ambiguous. Their behaviour seems to indicate that they see themselves as prison wardens who need to protect minorities from the bogans, who they presume are the dominant social group in Australia. As prison wardens, they don't really see themselves as part of the prison landscape or the prison community. They are just the managers of it. Examples of the identity at work include left-wing commentator Catherine Deveny, who said "An Australian Flag in your front yard tells everyone you're only a couple of Bundy and Cokes away from lynching a wog, slope or Arab." It also includes the authors of the book, Things Bogans Like, politicians like Paul Keating, historians like Henry Reynolds and journalists like Kerry O'Brien.

Unlike the bogans, the anti-bogans have significant cultural and legal power. To retain this power, it is in the anti-bogans' interests to convey the message that the majority culture is fundamentally flawed, has "popularism" as its vice and is not worth identifying with. As long as there is widespread belief that the majority culture is flawed, the anti-bogans have legitimacy to protect minorities from it.

It would be fair to say that the bogans and anti-bogans who comprise the social grouping referred to in policy documents that mention a “dominant Australian culture” really don’t have much of an affinity for one another. In that regard, the concept of a dominant Australian culture is somewhat obsolete and detached from reality.

Benefits of a weak national identity

Australia as a whole suffers from a lack of an Australian identity; however, there are some benefits for individuals who appreciate freedom from conformity pressures.  Arguably, Australians are the most free people on earth. While the rest of the world wallows in fear of cultural loss as a result of globalisation, Australians are assimilating foreign ideas and becoming stronger in the process. Such behaviour makes it easy to be optimistic about Australia's future. As Charles Darwin once noted:

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most intelligent, but those most adaptive to change."

Aside from being free to able to adapt to new ideas, Australians are free to criticise their government without being accused of shitting on the flag. Likewise, they are free to wave the flag however they want. Not only does this mean they can let the flag's corners touch the ground, the entire flag may even be used as a blanket to sit on at the cricket. Australians can relax. "No worries" is Australia's mantra because on the whole, Australia's lack of culture, and the conformity pressures associated with culture, frees it of the worries of other nations.

The Challenge

Even though a lack of a defined culture gives individuals greater freedom, individualism has some downsides. For example, even though individuals may want to be defined by their own individual actions, they tend to be defined by the actions of those who conform to group identities. Internationally, Australians tend to be defined by boganism because bogans are among the few people who want to define themselves as Australian. Just as a molehill is a king on a flat landscape, in the absence of alternative Australian identities, the bogans have a monopoly on what it means to be an Australian. In short, social policy has been written on the basis that the Australian identity exists and bogans simply filled the empty void. They might only comprise 10% of the population, but they perhaps comprise 90% of the imagery used to describe the Australian stereotype.

There are definitely some positive attributes in the bogan identity, but there are also some limitations. These limitations affect how other Australians are viewed when they try to engage with the international community. They also affect the motivations of migrants to engage with their new homeland. The challenge for Australia is to create a national identity that is adaptable to change, inclusive of new migrants, not based on race and encourages individuals to identify with it by choice. Most importantly, it needs to be defined and be accorded some legal protection. At present, it seems to consist in two distinct forms. Firstly, there are the bogans who see it as a celebration of driving utes or drinking beer. Secondly, there are the anti-bogans who don’t identify as Australian or ethnic, but see their social role as one that involves acting as a prison warden protecting ethnics against bogans. The later identity is arguably the most problematic because it is ill-equipped to deal with the reality of Australia. It is a nothing identity that inspires little community spirit and has virtually no conception of the areas of Australia in which people like themselves or bogans do not exist and even if they did, would be obstacles in the way of solving very severe social problems.

"A nation is an act of the imagination and will. In this act we create a place to which we belong. A part of the earth for which we have collective responsibility. A place of memory and tradition."

1)Stephen Gibbs, Wannabes and ethnicity, Sydney Morning Herald April 26, 2005

2) Editorial: Speak up, Robert!We can't hear you through the mouth gag June 13, 200 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21894980-7583,00.html

3)http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/printpage/0,5481,7974207,00.html

Timeline of the Australian identity

Prehistory

Aboriginal tribes

Aboriginal tribal identities were based around an animal or plant totem. Each Aboriginal person believed they had three forms which gave them a continuous life form. The totem was the form after human and then to spirit. As the cycle continued, so did the Aboriginal cultures.

There was no concept of an Aboriginal identity or Australia as one land. Each tribe was very much its own unit and reserved hostility to other tribes. This hostility to an outgroup helped maintain a strong ingroup identity.

Because Aboriginal identities were not defined along racial lines, there was more hostility between different Aboriginal tribes that there was towards the colonists that arrived in 1788. Furthermore, the prestige of the tribe was not defined according to land ownership, but according to the number of people in a tribe. For this reason, the tribe was both open to new inductees, but also intent on destroying all rivals.

"Whenever he recounted his battles, "poised his lance, and showed how fields were won", the most violent exclamations of rage and vengeance against his competitors in arms, those of the tribe called Cameeragal in particular, would burst from him. And he never failed at such times to solicit the governor to accompany him, with a body of soldiers, in order that he might exterminate this hated name. " From Watkin Tench – 1791

Expression -Paintings, customs, songs, myths, stories , war

Colonial era

Convicts, Legitimates and Emancipists

After gaining their ticket of leave, Convicts started referring to themselves as Legitimates. Their thinking was that since they had been chosen by the finest judges in England, they were of the few Europeans with a legitimate reason to be in Australia. Later they referred to themselves as Emancipists because it implied they had attained liberty and strove for the liberty of others. The Legitimate/Emancipist identity was maintained with hostility to the Exclusives.

Expression - Songs, flash language, tattoos, convict women mooning wowsers or 'exposing her person.'

"From distant climes, o'er wide-spread seas we come, 
Though not with much eclat, or beat of drum,
True patriots all, for it be understood, 
We left our country for our country's good:
No private views disgraced our generous zeal,
What urged our travels was our country's weal:
And none will doubt that our emigration
Had prov'd most useful to the British Nation."

George Barrington

W.B Gould
The Landlord

The Landlord, by Convict artist W.B Gould, shows an early expression of Australian egalitarianism. It depicts a suited man with a toothless grin. Strict convention amongst noble man of the time was a deadpan expression; especially if one's teeth were missing. Without doubt, Gould had painted an ex-convict whose desire to conform to social prestige had been surpassed by a self-effacing personality.

Note - Identity not defined along racial lines. As a consequence, hostility to Exclusives was far greater than any hostility to Aboriginal tribes.

The Exclusives

The Exclusives were free British settlers, or military officers who had left the service. The Exclusives advocated confining all offices and civic honours to Emigrants with the total exclusion of Emancipists and their offspring.

The Exclusives were extremely pro-British and maintained their identity with a strong hostility to the Legitimates/Emancipists.

Unique class system keeps the colony divided against itself.

Jan 31 Deep divisions exist within New South Wales, greatly adding to the burden of being a people isolated at the bottom of the world, and therefore needing more than ever to live together in harmony.

Historically, the greatest rift has been between the "exclusives" and the "emancipists". The first group believe that anyone who has come to the colony in penal servitude is never capable of complete redemption. These people, who tend to be among the wealthy landowners, thus see themselves as a superior class. For their part, the emancipists, who are all ex-convicts, are concerned with equality of human rights. 
Governor Macquarie, much to his peril, supported the emancipist cause, despite opposition from the forces which believed it would end respect for the law by allowing ex-convicts the normal rights of British citizens.

Since the Bigge inquiry, though, the colony has been re-established much more firmly as a prison rather than for reform, which has only worsened the tension. As well, the emancipists are divided, between those who committed crimes at home, and in Australia. This reflects a third division, being "Sterling", a name for the British-born, and the "Currency", the home-grown population. – Colonial newspaper report

Expression - English flag, English clothes, formal English speech

Note - The Exclusives saw the Aborigines as 'noble savages.' Their thinking was that Aborigines were without sin as they have never learnt it. For this reason, they wanted to prevent Aborigines mixing with Convicts.

1800 – 1850 – Convicts have children

The Native Born - Currency lads and lasses

The first native born in Australia were taunted as the 'wretched' and the lowest class because their parents had been Convicts. This discrimination was institutionalised when it came to the distribution of land grants. Whereas free immigrants were frequently given grants running in thousands of acres, the native born of Convict stock were only allowed sixty acres. 

The bush pioneer became the icon for the native born. Out in the bush, no laws ran and people were free to sing folk songs or live in equality. There was no room for elitism because people on the land needed to rely upon one another in the tough conditions. The identity was maintained with hostility to English immigrants and authority figures.

Expression - Bushranger songs, bush poetry

"Come all you young Australians and everyone besides
I'll sing to you a ditty that will fill you with surprise
Concerning of a ranger bold whose name it was Ben Hall
But cruelly murdered was this day which proved his downfall"

Ballad of Ben Hall

Aboriginal identities

As the colony expanded out from Sydney, the Europeans came into conflict with Aborigines over land. Although tribal identities remained, the Europeans started to take the place of rival tribes as the principle enemy.

Although there was hostility, there was also friendship. Some Aborigines left their tribes and formed good relations with the native born. They worked as droving hands and sang songs with the other drovers. Aside from being admired for their lyrical ability, they were admired for their bush skills. In a sense, their knowledge of the land had them admired as the protypical bushman. Reflecting the admiration for the Aborigines is the use of Aboriginal place names for rural Australia.

1850 - 1900 The gold rush years

The Digger (Miner)

In 1853, the discovery of gold sparked massive waves of immigration. Miners from all over the world descended upon Australia and brought with them ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. Although they valued self-reliance, independence and resourcefulness, they were also fiercely loyal to their mates.

Egalitarian sentiments were solidified with a dislike of the ruling colonial authorities that were deemed to be corrupt and elitist. This gave rise to a union movement. As the authorities tried to break unions via the importation of Chinese labour, the Chinese became another enemy to solidify the Digger's identity.

"The maiden appearance of our standard, in the midst of armed men, sturdy, self-overworking diggers of all languages and colours, was a fascinating object to behold." Raffaelo Carboni writing about the raising of the Eureka Stocake flag in 1854

' Australia began her political history as a crouching serf kept in subjection by the whip of a ruffian gaoler, and her progress, so far, consists merely in a change of masters. Instead of a foreign slave-driver, she has a foreign admiral; the loud-mouthed tyrant has given place to the suave hireling in uniform; but when the day comes to claim their independence the new ruler will probably prove more dangerous and more formidable that the old.' Rather than 'the day we were lagged', said the Bulletin, Australia's national day should be December 3, the anniversary of the Eureka rebellion, 'the day that Australia set her teeth in the face of the British Lion'. Bulletin, 21 Jan 1888

Expression - Eureka Stockade Flag. No songs were written to glorify the Eureka Stockade. 

The Chinese

At the height of the gold rush, there were up to 100,000 Chinese people in Australia. Chinese newspapers of the time depicted the Chinese as hardworking and the other miners as lazy. Although such stories may have indeed been a reflection upon how the Chinese saw themselves, they may have also been a form of propaganda designed to persuade the Chinese not to complain about being exploited by mining companies.

When the Chinese weren't working for a company, they worked together in teams. It was said that they were very efficient at extracting gold and often went to the mine sites deserted by other Diggers, and found gold that had been missed. This was said to have infuriated the other miners.

Although most of the Chinese returned to China, some stayed and established businesses. Unlike most expat Chinese populations around the world, these Chinese seem to have integrated into the other emerging Australian identities.

Expression - Newspaper articles calling other miners lazy.

The Wowser (activist)

By the turn of the century, the anti-transportation activists of the 1850s had evolved into anti-Chinese activists. The wowsers were very loyal to the English empire and saw themselves as British rather than Australians.

'Right, my boy, your worthy of your sire. In the old days I stopped the convicts in the bay. And now you must bar out the yellow plague with your arm'. - A Federation poster appearing in Punch contained an old man advising a youngster.

Expression - Protest marches and posters likening the 'yellow peril' with Convicts. 

Capitalist and outcasts

Words of racial superiority probably did not wash with any Australian of mixed blood or those descedended from convicts. To the contrary, the stigmisation of the Chinese probably fostered a sense of empathy. The Kelly Gang seemed to be one such group that had time for the Chinese. They were rumoured to have been helped by Chinese (although this might have been propaganda to win the public relations war against the gang.) One member of the gang, Joe Byrne, definately was on good terms because he could speak fluent Cantonese.

Some sections of the business community could also see the positive side of the Chinese. Perhaps due to the language barrier, they were less likely to join the union movement, and so allowed businesses to pay low wages.

"No one who has paid any attention to the question of the coloured races will attempt for one moment to despise either the Japanese or the Chinese. " William Higgs, Labour party

"I look upon the whole of the inhabitants of Asia as my friends. I am perfectly willing that they should be called my friends, and I hope so long as God gives me breath that I shall have the courage to stand up for what I consider to be right for them." Edward Pulsford, Free Trade party

Federated nation – 1900- 1950

The Pioneer

The pioneer continued on the bush tradition laid by the previous generations. 

Expression - Paintings by the likes of Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts. Poetry by Banjo Pattern and Henry Lawson.

"But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, `That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop lad, you'd better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you.'
So he waited sad and wistful only Clancy stood his friend
`I think we ought to let him come,' he said;
`I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end," Man from Snowy River

Digger (soldier)

The Digger had his baptism of fire in the Gallipoli campaign. Rather than hate the enemy, the Diggers seemed to hate the English. The Poms were seen as filthy cowards whose incompetence had resulted in the loss of life of countless Australians.

Perhaps the dislike of Poms made the Diggers better soldiers. It seems as if they felt that they had to prove their superiority over the English on the battlefield.

'Italians with whom I talked found it hard to believe that the Australians were volunteers. They understood their own position. They had been sent to Libya to win glory for Mussolini. They presumed that the Tommies were there merely to defend British Imperial interests. But why were the Australian volunteers there?

The ordinary Digger would have found it difficult to tell you. If you ever persuaded him to talk he would not have spoken of defending freedom, or removing injustice, or of saving the Empire. He might have said, "Oh, I wanted a bit of fun;" or else, "I dunno, I was fed up with my job;" or perhaps, "well, all my cobbers were joining up and so I went along too." Not much more than that. These would not be the real answers. Men may join up for fun or for a change, but if these are the only reasons, they would not go into action and fight through with bayonet and grenade when machine gun bullets kick the dust around their feet and they see the man next to them go down. If you could get the ordinary Australian to say what he really feels, it might be something like this:

"Well, I came away because I believe in a fair go and I wanted to be with my mates; because I like being able to say to a copper, 'That's all right, copper, you got nothin' on me;' because I want to say what I like when we're having a beer at the pub; because I want to do what I like with the few quid I've got in the bank; and because women and kids are being bombed in London and shot in Prague, and someday this might happen at home if we don't do something about it."

It was because they felt the battle was being fought for things like these, which mattered directly to them, that the Mallee farmer and the Kalgoorlie miner, the Bendigo bank clerk and the Sydney solicitor made the soldiers of Tobruk just as they made those at Gallipoli.' Chester Wilmont

Expression - War poetry, Anzac Day, courage on the battlefield

The Wowser (Englishman)

Once the threat of Convicts and Chinese had ended, the Wowsers found themselves somewhat aimless. Some directed their attention to campaigning against frivolous pastimes like gambling and drinking. Others found it immoral for people to jump into the ocean wearing small bathing suits.

With a dislike of these great Australian pastimes, the Wowsers remained obsessive in their support for English values, and moral empowerment.

'Wowsers and gloom-merchants are always saying that we spend too much of our time in sport.' Aussie: the cheerful monthly (Sydney, 1922)

"Yet even today, the act of jumping into the Pacific with as little as possible on the body is regarded with gloomy suspicion by the wowsers." Surf: All about It (1930)

'But members of this odd body of wowsers want the right to force their opinions on to others'. Bulletin (Sydney, 1975)

1950 - 2000- The larrikins, post-modernists

The Aboriginal Victim

By the end of World War II, Aboriginal tribal identities had eroded to the extent that white people stopped seeing differences between Aboriginal tribes and instead began viewing them as a homogenous out-group. Names for individual tribes faded away and instead Aborigines, the generic word for an indigenous population, came into use by default.

Aborigines also stopped thinking in cultural terms and instead began to think of themselves in racial terms. Blacks were part of their in-group while all whites were the out-group invaders. Asians were in an undefined category.

Aborigines developed a strong identification with black power movements from America. They assimilated rap music, and the baggy style of clothes. Oddly, many Aborigines became Rastarian; except they dropped the green from the colour coding. (Rastafarism is a pseudo-Christian based religion developed by the descendents of slaves wanting to show pride in their African heritage. Its name comes from Prince Rastafari of Ethiopia.)

Perhaps assessments of Aborigines also went downhill in mainstream society. When the bush was held up as the "true Australia", the Aborigines were celebrated as the prototypical bushmen. As the bush lost its iconic status, so too did the Aborigines that lived in it.

Expression - Aboriginal flag, protest marches, music, Aboriginal tent embassy, defiance of white authority

"Our world was shattered by the violence of the Invasion which began when the First Fleet of British Boat people arrived in 1788. Our people were decimated, as the invaders stole our country, imposed their own laws and systems of government on our peoples, forcing our people into concentration camps called "missions". " Aboriginal activist

The Larrikin

Although Larrikins have always been popular in Australia, it wasn't until after World War II that larrikins also became national heroes. The likes of Dawn Fraser and John Newcombe commanded respect across the classes, which made their rule indiscretions difficult to criticise. The result was a change in the meaning of the world larrikin. Instead of conjuring images of street criminals, it conjured images of good-hearted risk takers.

The larrikin identity was maintained by mocking the wowser and subsequently taking delight in their displeasure. 

"Well, I'm [ever | rather] upper class high society
God's gift to ballroom notoriety
I always fill my ballroom
The event is never small
The social pages say I've got
The biggest balls of all" - AC/DC Big Balls

Expression: Praise for icons such as Dawn Fraser, Ned Kelly, John Newcombe. The music of AC/DC and Skyhooks.

Post-modernist Wowser

After the English identity collapsed, many Wowsers were left without a social conception of themselves. Not wanting to identify with Australia, they instead became post-modern multiculturalists. This identity maintained a dislike of everything and anything Australian. It justified its identity on the grounds that identifying with Australia was an act of racism. Colonisation symbolised racism towards Aborigines. The Eureka rebellion and Ned Kelly symbolised racism towards Chinese. Federation symbolised racism to all non-whites. Gallipoli symbolised sexism and racism on the grounds most of the soldiers were white men and therefore excluded minority groups. Whitlam Minister Al Grassby even said that people who identified themselves as Australians, rather than ethnic, were worse than Hitler's Third Reich.

According to the multiculturalists, Australia only became an open-minded country after World War II when it became multicultural for the "first" time.

Ironically, multiculturalists ideas have tended to originate from left-wing university departments. These departments are the last bastion of the White Australia Policy. No institution in Australia has a higher concentration of white people. Furthermore, no other institution has such little contact with the outside world. The focus on racial history, combined with their own whiteness, seems to indicate that identifying with the white race is still an integral part of the multiculturalist's identity. In short, a race-based identity, even if it is a self-flagellating one, still excludes others.  

Expression - Support for an apology, on behalf of the white race, for injustices inflicted upon Aborigines. Support for a republic on the grounds British heritage is irrelevant to non-white migrants. Support for refugees on the grounds that Australians are racist for supporting mandatory detention of illegal immigrants.

"The 26th of January is an inappropriate date for Australia Day as it merely represents the anniversary of the arrival of the British to establish the penal colony of New South Wales. It does not represent of birth of a nation and disengages the aboriginal and non-British communities from their sense of involvement in nationhood. It also sends the wrong message to our Asian neighbors, reminding them of our European roots." Daniel Bryant

"Australia Day should be changed to a more suitable date, rather than the one that not only insults the rightful owners of this land, our indigenous peoples, but conveniently disregards the non-White migrants." Australia Day = Shame Day

Expatriate/ global swagman

While the multiculturalists tended to avoid new experiences, the expatriate went searching for them. Some went as backpackers to pull beers in a London pub. Others went as actors to America to make their fortune. Some went to Japan to establish television shows.

The global swagman's desire for new experiences gave rise to the expression that "there is nothing more Australian than spending time in someone elses' country."

Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
Men at Work

I've been to cities that never close down,
from New York to Rio and old London town,
but no matter how far or how wide I roam,
I still call Australia home.
Peter Allen

Expression - Songs such as Downunder, movies like Crocadile Dundee and iconic expatriates like Nicole Kidman, Russel Crowe, Kylie Minogue, taking a jar of vegemite overseas, Qantas theme: "I Still Call Australia Home."

2000 onwards - Bogans and anti-bogans

Bogans

The word 'bogan' originated in the 1980s in reference to teenagers that listened to heavy metal. Over the following three decades, the category was expanded. The book, "Things Bogans Like" suggests that bogan and Australalian are interchangeable terms.

Traditionally, bogan was a term that was negatively applied to people rather than a term people choose to embrace.

Expression - Southern Cross Tattoos, bumper stickers, articles that denounce tossers

Anti-bogans

Anti-bogans are by far the largest social group in Australia and hold most of the power. They do not have a clear idea about what they are, but they know they don't like bogans and are not bogans.

Area-7 - Nobody Likes a Bogan

Expression - Songs like "Nobody Likes a Bogan", books such as "Things Bogans Like", the "comedy" of the Chaser and Catherine Deveny