It's not all "mateship", you know.

"But why is Assange this way? The Guardian says he can’t help it: 'Men like Assange, who refer to women as ‘hotties’, hail from the land of coarse jokes about the one-eyed trouser snake.' Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir agrees, saying it is 'important to bear in mind the culture Assange comes from. He’s a classic Aussie in the sense that he’s a bit of a male chauvinist.'"

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mediadiary/index.php/australianmedia/comments/female_editor_worth_a_party

There's your "classic Aussie", through the eyes of an independent observer. No much of the Gallipoli spirit shining through there. More the spirit of Bazza McKenzie.

As my mate Rabbie once said:

"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us.
To see oursels as others see us.
It wad frae monie a blunder free us.
An' foolish notion"

There is a difference, I think, between our - somewhat flattering - self-image, and an Australian "identity".

Good one, Pericles,

It's not uncommon for Dear Al to mention his Scottish forebears. I have discovered that mine were too. They hailed from Dumfries and were contemporaries of the Bard during his final years there. They are buried near him in St Michael's Churchyard...of course, it's not Fortrose Cathedral....

Btw, my biological father was apparently of Cherokee extraction - yet I still see myself as Australian...funny about that.

Oh Poirot :) you will LOVEEEEE this.

Maybe you already know it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VqoxOcEqpk Cherokee morning song.

When I listen to it, and see the images of the natives... it reaches so unbelievably deep down into my soul...having lived with..and learned from..and married into.. such a group... I have such emphathy with the cherokee.. and other native Americans.

In the case of my wifes group.. they were not subjected to the unrelenting power of the white man... but have preserved both their numbers, dignity and self esteem. Only by a hairs breadth though.. the world almost lost them as a people.. (but for Christ)

I can't imagine the world without them... or with them so downtrodden by the white man that they could have ended up like many of our own Aboriginals.

I find my scottish background racially and my cultural exposure to the indigenous society has shaped me in ways unimaginable to myself when I look back to my youth.

Perhaps your native/scottish background is one reason I tend to gravitate in your direction on olo :) though I didn't know it.

But surely you see my point.. about 'One Nation One race One Culture'...in that neither you, me nor our children can lay claim to any ONE race.. other than the 'Australian' one...as people intermarry, they experience culture change, and spread this across a nation..and you have 'one' culture emerging over time.

The comments so far have been quite eye-opening - and I Thank You all for contributing to this discussion. I've recently come across a book entitled, "From Somewhere Else: People from other countries who have made Australia home," by Liz Thompson. I flipped through it again, and came across a chapter, "Feelings about Australia," that I thought may be of interest...The book was published in 1993.

The people interviewed for this book had many different feelings about Australia, but overall there was a sense that Australia was a country in which they could find themselves. They felt it enabled them to explore their own potential and redefine their lives.

George Carpenter - (England) had this to say:
"Forget all that sill propaganda about the lucky country. It's up to you if it's a good country or not. You've got to go out and earn money and buy a home for yourself. It's not a lucky country. It's up to individuals to make it a lucky country for themselves."

Venita Salnajs (Latvia) had this to say:
"If you have known hunger, it never leaves you. I think the experience of not having anything to eat is the most intense experience one can have. We came to this place where we live now in the spring, and there were apples forming, and there were pear trees and plum trees, and potatoes in the pasture. And I thought that if anything goes wrong in the world, we'll survive. We can live off the land. I think that my deep-down insecurity of hunger was satisfied with the relationship with the land."

I've only selected a few comments (due to the word limit) however, there were people from all over the world commenting, from Cambodia,
Yugoslavia, South Africa, Ghana Spain,Switzer;and, New Zealand, Argentina Guatemala,Greece, Turkey, Scotland, Germany, Hong Kong, France, Hungary,Sri-Lanka, Chile, China, just to name a few. We take for granted the cultural mix that is Australia's population today.

Dear Al,

I was adopted, so only found out through the years of my biological heritage - still, very interesting - and also surprising how much it means to me to know from whence I sprang.

I agree with you and Lexi about cultures merging within a country over a period of time.

Pericles,

Robbie Burns once referred to the brother of my great great great great grandfather as: "not having as many brains as a midge could lean its elbow on". (seems he was trying to dissuade Jessy Lewars from marrying him - and it worked!)

Australian playwright David Williamson wrote an article on the Australian Identity that may be of interest. It can be read at the following website:

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/179_11_011203/wil10716_fm-1.html