Saturday, January 25, 2014

Why I feel unAustralian

I am looking in the mirror instead of looking out. What I see is blurred and hidden by obstacles from the past. I am not proud of being Australian. In 1979 I traveled overseas for the first time and met my cousin who lived in Sth Africa. She said that she always took her luggage labels off when she traveled because she hated being known as Sth African. (prior to 1994) Later when I was standing in a line somewhere in Europe a person asked me if I was from Sth Africa. I said righteously 'no I'm from Australia' to which he replied 'same thing'.
In that moment I began to discover that I had no reason to be proud of my country

Foreground - detail - engraving on mirror
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1 comment:

  1. UnknownJanuary 28, 2014 at 4:55 AM

    I am An English child of the land of the Kulin Nation. My childhood place was that of the Bunurong people. I explored the thick bush, played in a still pristine creek and on the beach, amongst the rocks catching the crabs and collecting mussels and shellfish. Some nights the grown-ups would make a fire and on moonless nights the night sky was black and the stars shone brightly in abundance. At puberty I left that. The roads were all made and life changed forever. Thirteen years old, sitting on the cliffs, the beach below I innocently asked my friend “How did these shells get up here?” He replied shortly ‘the aborigines’. We fell silent and I brushed off the thought ‘where are they now?’, but until today the thought still lingers relentlessly.
    Nearly forty years on, in a small central Javanese village, at night I am sitting alone on the terrace of the house I built for my Javanese wife. An old cassette of Yotha Yindi my soul mate gave me on her visit to Yogyakarta is playing in the background. I’m looking yearningly to the south east, at the Southern Cross just appearing above the palms of the coconut trees. I am crying. I am sad. My childhood memories shattered knowing that I grew up on a battlefield that has become in my mind a graveyard for almost the entirety of a nation of peoples. There can be no denying it. It happened. I feel I can never return there again. But where do I belong. Not here, in Central Java, that is for certain.
    nation noun 1. a community of people of mainly common descent, history, language, etc., forming a sovereign State or inhabiting a territory. 2 = country
    Australia can only ever be defined by country; the Nations of the First Peoples. This continent can never be and will never be a nation as in the sense defined by the oxford dictionary quoted above. It is no different from Europe, Africa or the Middle East. The nations of this continent are defined by the languages and geographic features of the first nations. Yes today Australia is technologically an administrative area but to see it as a single nation is false. This misconception of nation is further consolidated from created technologically changed habitats. I ask myself what relationship could I, biologically an Englishman over 100’s of years ever possibly have with Cape York country or Darwin for that matter. What similarities does Cape York country have with my biological home of England? So to the question “Am I proud to be Australian?” seems a nonsensical question for me to ask myself. I can’t express my cultural identity across the diversity that exists in this continent and nor would I wish to attempt it. Whilst I always try to integrate to the dominant norms where ever I find myself I know I will always be an English man from Bunurong. So Megan, (like your cousin pre 1994) never admit to being Australian…..Where are you from? I’m Scottish/Welsh/Irish or whatever? Where about in Scotland are you from? I was born and grew up in the land of the Woiwurung people. It’s part of the Kulin nation of South Eastern Australia. I am Scottish from Woiwurung.
    Nation and country are the same. To deny that is to deny the limitations of the human condition within the natural environment.

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