Australians all let us rejoice
I thought for auspiciousness that my first post on this prestigious Australian cultural magazine should make some comment about Australian nationalism.
Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free……………Aboriginal culture is the oldest living culture on earth. Aboriginal people are the most imprisoned people on earth per capita.
There was a time when I called myself an anarchist and I resisted all notions of nationalism, perceiving the phenomenon as a psychological delusion to reinforce nation states.
Today I believe the anarchist critique of nationalism is still accurate if nationalism means a loyalty to the Queen, the government or our “national interests” that demand the invasion of Iraq . However as time went by I learnt that this country was illegally occupied in 1788 by way of a false declaration of Terra Nullius followed by a 150 year guerrilla war that raged on every frontier of the expansion of the British colony. With this realisation I was confronted with two separate and independent analyses of Australian nationalism - anarchism and Aboriginal sovereignty and prior occupation. Sovereignty, the notion proposed by Aboriginal activists, is not a concept that fits easily with anarchism. I considered the two positions and decided that Anarchism is a political philosophy that grew out of peasant and worker struggles in Europe, itself a notion of European history like monarchy. In reality Anarchism and European philosophies of rebellion of all sorts are just appendages to Australian colonial society - while existing in conflict with the nation state and status-quo they are still part of the same blob of society that was imposed onto this Aboriginal country.
Anyway, the point of recounting this little ideological walkabout is to explain that I now realise that there is something of substance and integrity, worth feeling a warm inner glow about that is the nature of Australia but it has that has nothing to do with the government, the queen, or ANZAC day. It is about rivers, mountains, weather and of course people including Aboriginal people. It is about understanding our history as a nation.
Australian history is an ugly and bloody history yet I find it fascinating because it is the history of where I am now. The true history of invasion, genocide and colonisation explains much of what Australia is today, especially the poor state of existence of most Aboriginal people in the country. The real history of “Australia” is rarely spoken about in polite society with many denying that it even happened, clinging to colonial nationalist mythology for refuge from the truth.
The history of resistance to British imperialism is a glorious and honourable one, right up to the national day of action for justice for Aboriginal Australia this weekend (details here). This is a proud history to complement the stunning power and beauty of the landscape and natural environment, as does the non-Aboriginal resistance to injustice and the destruction of the ecology. This Australian history is much more significant to Australia’s understanding of itself than the ANZAC tragedy on the shores of Turkey.
Thank you to the Dead Roo for the opportunity to write here.
John Tracey
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Posted: by John July 10th, 2007 under Australia.
Comments: 4
Comments
Comment from Terje (say tay-a)
Time: July 10, 2007, 11:53 pm
Does anarchy mean not having to pay tax?
Comment from John
Time: July 11, 2007, 1:07 pm
Terje,
I don’t call myself an anarchist any more so I don’t want to go into a long rave.
Anarchists do not believe in a state, a government structure. Therefore the notion of tax - paying money to a state, is not an anarchist notion. As I understand it some anarchists either believe in voluntary contributions to social and community spending while others reject even the notion of money, seeing all assetts as community property.
Then of course there are the free market anarchists who believe private capitalist eneterprises can provide all necessary social services without state involvement.
My criticism of (socialist) anarchism is not any lack of integrity in its idealism but because the anarchist movement seems to define itself by hypothetical notions and ideology rather than real historical circumstances and strategies to affect those circumstances.
I also note that Australian anarchists who are mainly middleclass affluent intelectuals discussing the ideas of real European (and Mexican) struggles that involve pain, suffering and death in their struggle for survival.
I do not think the Australian anarchist movement really “gets real”.
Comment from John
Time: July 11, 2007, 2:31 pm
My post alludes to differing notions of “the nation” or “Australia” between anarchist critique of nationalism and Aboriginal assertions of sovereignty.
The following article is one I wrote that explores different notions of the environment between Aboriginal Australia and the non Aboriginal Green movement.
“Terra Nullius and Ecology” http://www.kalkadoon.org/index.php/2006/03/27/terra-nullius-and-ecology/
This is a link to my blog looking at how this is unfolding with Queensland’s, now contraversial, wild rivers legislation.
Comment from amphibious
Time: July 16, 2007, 3:06 pm
The problem with having no rulers is that it’s difficult to draw a margin.
Either in an exercise book or reality exercise.
Few non hierarchial societies have ever existed for more than a generation or two in an environment with anything worth stealing - including land, resources or their own bodies - by another, more regimented society, .
The nature of any State, theocratic, monarchic or oligarchic is that a (very) small section sez, not just “do this or that”, but “do this & that to somebody else and bring me the proceeds”.
The problem is not leaders, any greedy bastard longs to be on top but followers. What is it that makes most men (sic!) content, often desperate, to be told what to do and to whom to do it? Usually to their own disadvantage but they derive some strange comfort from “I wuz just following orders” which didn’t rate at Nuremberg but is having a new lease of life in the 21stC.
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