Do we have an Australian Identity? And, what is it?

Look at your drivers licence.

look at the crowd in an inner city bus shelter. australian identity? there isn't even an australian language. but no matter, the masters will look after us, more or less. they say they will, and they say they don't lie, so no worries mate! right?

Dear Bugsy,

I don't have a driver's licence. I've got a library card and credit cards but no driver's licence.

Then look at your credit card.

No driver's licence... what sort of Australian are you?

Seriously, the question of an Australian identity rests entirely upon those criteria by which people consider themselves 'Australian'. To some people it entails citizenship, while others might invoke values, ethnicity, tax file numbers or the possession of a Medicare card or Australian passport. Some Australians get all weepy about old poems with which they identify.

Australian identity is as Australians do, I suppose.

Personally, I identify as Australian because I was born here, have an Australian passport, pay taxes here and am registered on the electoral roll. It's not an especially big deal to me.

Dear Bugsy,

So your identity is a credit card? How sad... The reason I started this thread was to find out more about the people that make up this great country of ours. Many people take for granted the cultural mix that is Australia's population, but what of the people who have created this diversity?

What is it like to have come from somewhere else and settled in Australia? I thought the responses that would come forth from people would provide a window on the experience of leaving one home in order to create another.

Confounded expectations, culture shock, conflicting national loyalties, and a search for belonging - these were the themes that I was expecting - in other words a collection of experiences about making a new life in Australia. I did not expect, " Look at your
driver's licence, and then ... your credit card." As I said, how sad!

Cj Morgan, - How Australian am I? Well I was born here. Grew up here. Educated here. Work here. Pay my taxes. Am an Australian
Citizen. But to me it is a very big deal - I love this country.
How could I not? Australia welcomed my family after the communists
had seized power in their country. I had the chance to grow up in a democracy, a privilege for which I will forever be grateful...

But my drivers licence, credit card and various other documents all show that I have an Australian identity. Without them I cannot do much, I would be a non-person in the eyes of the law. I must say that the question was phrased rather ambiguously. This is my answer.

Certainly will be a lot easier to argue an Australian identity exists when people stop seeking "ethnicity".

Particularly when after being asked the question and answering Australian such is not sufficient.

Even worse when around the country the attitude and or response makes it plain my saying Australian is the wrong answer ;-

I am third generation Scandavian on one side and fourth generation English/Celtic on the other. In different ways, both sets of immigrants were adventurous, impetuous, optimistic but not entirely successful or happy people. My Scandavian grandparents were poor, travelling half-way across the world (separately - they had a fight! - but it ended happily) for the opportunity to start a pig farm. They were poor here too, and neither ever saw their own parents or siblings again. It's unimaginable to me, though of course many refugees are in the same situation today. My English great-grandfather was better off, but more foolhardy. He was a dilitente and an adventurer, and came to a sad drunken end, but he left enough descendents to make up for his mistakes.

I see the Australian character in my ancestors. All countries built on multi-cultural immigration - and for all the anti-PC hoo-ha of the Keating years, Australia has been multicultural since colonisation - have a frontier-settling, nation-building spirit, sometimes more enthusiastic than wise, but always hopeful and spirited. We're iconoclasts - for whatever reason, we've rejected the home country, because we feel we can build something grander. But because we're still a young country, there's an uncertainty and sometimes a selfishness about our position - an immaturity about extending the same genorousity that we have had extended to us. Teething problems. A nanny-knows-best insecurity. It'll pass. Give us another 200 years.

We also built this nation by destroying the nations that existed before we got here. There's a great shame and sadness behind our very (non-Indigenous) presence here.

I find it odd when people say they are proud to be Australian (or American, or Yugoslavian, or whatever). We are who we are - we had no choice where we were born. But I find it endlessly fascinating to be Australian; to explore its variances. What a remarkable history. What a lot remains to be done.

Dear Bugsy,

I accept your answer. However as a uni student I had no driver's licence, no credit cards. I travelled inter-state. And I didn't need cards to validate me.

Bugsy, I suppose what I really wanted was not how the law saw you, but how you saw yourself. I apologise if my thread was not that clear cut.

I see myself as aussie and as nothing more! My fore fathers came to this land when there was really nothing here and built it from the ground up. The black fellas where still wild and blokes like Banjo Paterson were writing the likes of The Man from Snowy River and Waltzing Matilda! They arrived between the times “about” 1850 -1890 on both my mother and fathers side!

I don’t identify really with many “new” Australians I feel I have as much in common with for example a new immigrant from China….. as I do with a Chinese citizen.

The Left has re-coined the term Australian to mean anybody anywhere and anything! Fungo Bungo man from Africa is as Australian as Don Bradman according to the them.

They use it so loosely that unless you where brought up here it must be a difficult concept to grasp.

CJ Morgan – “It's not an especially big deal to me.” That’s why people like you should be ignored when in comes to debates regarding the future of our great nation. Since you don’t care you should just sit there and be quite! At least I now understand why you have such mad ill conceived ideas about what is best for Australia. You have no credibility on the subject.

Fungo Bungo man from Africa?

botheration: "I find it odd when people say they are proud to be Australian (or American, or Yugoslavian, or whatever). We are who we are - we had no choice where we were born. But I find it endlessly fascinating to be Australian; to explore its variances."

Exactly. In my own case, I think that I was fortunate to be born in Oz rather than elsewhere, but I feel no great pride in it. In terms of identity, what is far more salient to me than being "Australian" is being a good father and partner, being respected in the community in which I live, being a good friend to the relatively small number of people who I count as friends, leaving as small an environmental footprint as possible, etc.

Yes, it's nice to be Australian, but it was really just the luck of the draw. It probably means much more to those who left everything behind and chose to come here.

ET: "I see myself as aussie and as nothing more!"

What a shallow and boring person you must be.

"That’s why people like you should be ignored when in comes to debates regarding the future of our great nation."

On the contrary, that's probably why I have a more balanced view than you do on the subject. Haven't you heard that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel?

Besides which - and fortunately - I have every much as right to express my opinions about Australia's future as you do, both at the ballot box and in forums such as this. Given that I'm probably much better educated about Australia's history and diversity than you are, perhaps it's you that should "just sit there and be quite (sic)".

You might just learn something.

Perhaps as CJ points out we should be more glad to be an Aussie than proud. I do feel a sense of pride in the country, but its not that chest-beating nationalistic pride that can turn so dangerous. I am proud of the relative balance that our country has achieved, and the little contribution that I have made towards that.

Pride in one's country can probably also be linked back to pride in your own heritage/ancestry. I come from a line of bush battlers, who started with absolutely nothing around the 1850's, and through hard work and sacrifice, have achieved quite a bit.

My ancestry is solely European, and mostly Anglo/Celtic, with a few interesting mixes thrown in. And I know I tend to view things with somewhat of a British colouring.

But more than anything, I AM glad to have been born in this country, to my family. I cant think of anywhere else I would rather live (although there are lots of places I'd like to see)!

I think Australia used to have an identity as a land of strong, fit men who were honest workers and loyal fighters.

Multi-culturalism is burying that identity while offering no alternative.

To be "Australian" is to be 'born' here.. or.. (dare I say it) "Born Again" here.. as in a migrant who comes here and decides 'this' is now 'home' and nation etc.. thus they adopt the mentality of being an Australian.

Once that hurdle is surmounted by a migrant..the rest is easy, they simply open up to all that is 'Australian' within good conscience and responsible social intercourse, and away we all go.

If one is born here and a parent tells the child "We are Chinese" or.. (name the ethnicity) then, I would regard such parents as 'non' Australians who neither have respect for or deserve it from, true Australians.
A True Australian would not say "I am British" or.. "I am Scottish" no, not at all..they would simply say "I'm Australian"

We can then speak about our ethnic/racial ancestry as a separate and secondary question and issue.

It follows from the above, that all who call themselves Australian and have been appropriately 'born again' culturally, or born here naturally, will absorb that which is most valuable and or most prevalent, which may not neccessarily be the same :)

Jack the Lad said: "I think Australia used to have an identity as a land of strong, fit men who were honest workers and loyal fighters."

Wow. No chicks then? So I guess that means all you strong, fit men are ... gay?

Now *that's* an enlightened way to think about the Australian identity!

Both Clive James and the bloke who plays Dame Edna (Barry Humphries) have an excellent collection of many that bind us.

We are self deprecating like the British are.
We have singing rhymes like the cockneys had.
We win office after a very thorough exam like the mandarins did.
We also have a mandarin capital but oddly enough like the Europeans have.

But we are larrikins too, we can't stand authority. We seriously despise those who brown-nose up and scold down.
And we hopelessly abbreviate. The MCG is just "G." In this, their is a great deal of ingenuity and a great deal of lazyness. which we euphemistically call "care-free."

Guess we like to live here and don't like those who whine about it.

Like your take on things leddie!

BD, I dont see that there is anything wrong with acknowledging ancestry and paying homage to traditions. But loyalties should be to Australia first. Many descendants of early settlers still refer to their heritage of Irish/Scottish/English, so its a bit much to expect anyone newer to be any different. Actually you dont realise how deep the English/Irish divide still is in Australian families until you get an inter-marriage. It still blows me away!

Oops, botheration, didn't quite express my thoughts properly. I should have mentioned chicks (and big fat masculine women). Say we're gay and I'll scratch your eyes out, mmm.

Well said Country Gal,
Just been to Eu-Scottish wedding. Huh
En/Irish marriage not working? That's a first. Could be just a personality crash;-) Crockery nice and intact, no ties cut up I hope

Dear BD,

It's often not how we see ourselves - but how others see us... To that end I've penned this ditty:

"My name's not Andrea, Elizabeth or Meg.
They call me 'unpronouceable,'
Which takes me down a peg.
I simply smile and laugh it off,
So they won't know and they won't scoff.

I speak four different languages,
But none seem to quite do.
And when I speak 'Australian,'
They don't think it's 'True Blue.'

My family came here long ago,
Yet when all is said and done,
I'm still not quite acceptable,
For me that's not much fun.

I try so hard, I really do,
I do my best to please.
But, no matter what I say or do,
They say I'm still Chinese!"

Hear, hear Foxy!

It is not the parents saying 'We're Chinese' Boaz. It is the likes of Easytimes calling you Chinese, or Fungo Bungo man.

There are many of you who will continually harp on integration and assimilation. What many of you do not realize is that no matter how integrated and Australian you may feel, no matter how passionate you may feel about this country, it will forever be held against you that you have an accent or do not look European.

You could have lived 3/4, or more,of your life here and not speak your native language that fluently anymore, but you will still be asked: 'How long have you been here?' 'What nationality are you?'

It is the constant focusing on the 'newness' by some Australians on other Australians, or the racial features, that on an almost daily basis makes you feel separate.

Your identity is what you say it is, not what another says it is.

Foxy,
Did it ever work: "hey, I do feel Australian (you moron in the look) and I don't feel like talking about personal matters such as my heritage. May be you do, but I don't. Now can we move on?"

Accent: "why are you so preoccupied about accent? Can't you understand (you moron in the look again) what I say? Please understand I am sensitive about the issue of how I speak. Ok?"

Have you ever tried to politely bite back and not feel a victim?
Just curious.
Offenders are often just ignorant, but claw back if you put it in their terms.

Leddie, it is not about being a 'victim'. Biting back every time this comes up would make you look like you have a chip on your shoulder. There is just so much biting back anybody wants to do. And also, the majority of people ask out of interest. This still is a constant reminder of your perceived 'otherness'.

It is probably a difficult concept to get your head around if it never happens to you. For a week put a dark tanning lotion on your face and speak with an accent and walk a mile in somebody else's shoes.

But you do have a point. We don't always have to be polite, though that can get rudeness in return (why don't you go back where you came from-you should be grateful we allow you in.) Nevertheless, my reply often is: 'From Melbourne'. This being my city of arrival in Australia. The blank looks I get are hilarious.

I don't think of myself as a 'victim.' It's simply a fact of life - that certain people will look at you and see you in a different light to how you see yourself...
I remember being in a hospital waiting room and the nurse who approached me took one look at my surname and rather loudly asked,
"Do you need an interpreter?"

To which I calmly replied, "Why, doesn't the doctor speak English?"

leddie, Yvonne, it's easy to 'bite back without causig aggro.

When someone with a strong Aussie accent tells me to 'speak English', I usually say that I will when he/she does.

Jack the lad, Ha, ha, ha! I'm going to remember that one.

Foxy, yours too!

Great stuff. It appears that our "Australian Identity" thread has become distinctly 'multicultural'.

As it inevitably would :)

That's what's so great about forums like these. You get a very wide and varied response - and it makes it interesting.

Foxy: 'I remember being in a hospital waiting room and the nurse who approached me took one look at my surname and rather loudly asked, "Do you need an interpreter?"

To which I calmly replied, "Why, doesn't the doctor speak English?"'

Hilarious!

Australia is multicultural, whether its inhabitants like it or not. I love it. I lived for two years in a monocultural Asian country, and while I adored it there, I missed diversity. From Asia I went straight to London and stayed in Brixton. It rocked - the streets were multi-coloured!

And before someone cites the Brixton riots, I know, multiculturalism ain't easy. (Although it is less bloody than monoculturalism.) But I reckon it's worth it, if you're brave enough.