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January 26, 2011
If Australia Day is now a festival, it is also an excuse for commentators in the mainstream media to recycle their ideas about what it means to be Australian, and how are we different to the rest of the world. It provides a good opportunity for some critical reflection on Australian nationalism and patriotism.
In his Australia, it's Western, Christian and proud article on the ABC's Unleashed site Kevin Donnelly says that what we should be doing is celebrating Western civilisation, Christianity and Australia’s Anglo-Celtic heritage. Why? Well, that is what Australia is. He adds:
It’s ironic that when many talk of the clash between Islam and the West, and Australia is involved in wars against Islamic extremism in Iraq and Afghanistan, that we appear unwilling or incapable of teaching future generations about the unique nature of Western civilisation and the very values, beliefs and way of life that protect us and offers sanctuary to thousands from overseas.
His conservative conception of Australia is explicitly opposed to diversity and difference (code for multiculturalism ); the belief that all cultures are of equal value and worth; environmental values; and Australia being a part of Asia.
According to Donnelly, what makes Australia different then, is that it is part of the Anglosphere. Presumably, those who dispute this conception of nationalism in terms of the racism haunting mainstream Australia culture are the politically correct naysayers.
My core problem with Conservatives like Donnelly is that they rarely mention that current of racism that has haunted mainstream Australia culture since Federation. There is little critical reflection by Australian conservatives like Donnelly in which they analyse the way that their traditional conception of Australian political identity is based on an ethnic nationalism--Anglo-celtic, whiteness, Christianity? ---rather than civic patriotism.
My second problem with Australian conservatives is that they rarely discuss their political philosophy. Their default position appears to be an amalgam of free market liberalism and the Burkean conservative emphasis on tradition; but there is little acknowledgement that the great wrecker of tradition is the free market. On this interpretation of Australian conservatism, Donnelly is defending the conservative tradition--- British civilisation, Christianity and Australia’s Anglo-Celtic heritage---which is the Australia of the mid-20th century; a tradition that has been continually undermined by the global market's dependence on the international mobility of labour.
Update
Australia, as an open society, is for better or worse, a nation of immigrants. The core question then is this: is it possible to reconcile the conflicting imperatives of respect for cultural diversity and sustained democratic legitimacy? Donnelly and the Quadrant conservatives would say no. I would question their assumption of ethnic nationalism.
Ethnic nationalists can be said to advocate the public promotion of one identity, national identity, at the expense of other group identities, which will, therefore, be indirectly discriminated against. By using public institutions to foster a particular culture, ethnic nationalism may conflict with the principle of equal citizenship, and is likely to be intolerant of minority cultures.
Civic patriotism refers to a mainly political identity, whose political content makes it compatible with a variety of practices and beliefs, but whose thin particularistic form justifies citizens' commitment to specific institutions. This commitment is not so unconditional as to justify blind loyalty to one's own institutions, nor is it so absolute as to rule out certain forms of cosmopolitan citizenship.
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Donnelly's tripe is a nice piece of irony, given the treatment that his Irish forebears received in Australia well into the 20th century. I would like to hear Archbishop Mannix discuss the 'unique values of Western civilisation' that bind all us whiteys together.
As these turkeys do so frequently, he ends with a warning of catastrophe: 'A way of life that that will quickly disappear if we fail to teach future generations about what truly unites us as Australians.'
Ummm, why? Conservatives have a remarkable lack of faith in their own ideology. They always seem to think it is a delicate exotic plant that will die unless it is endlessly nurtured and protected. Fortunately the Australian character is much more robust than he credits, although it may well be that his strain of god-bothering paternalism continues to wither away. One can only hope.