Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Team Australia

By Don Aitkin - posted Tuesday, 14 February 2012


In any case the terms of the agreement were complex, transparency was dim, and the issue was one that a reasonable and interested citizen might think was simply too hard. Ultimately both sides of politics were in favour, and that reduced the likelihood of partisan dispute. Yet the indifference of the bulk of the electorate before and after the election was marked.

Citizenship comes with responsibilities as well as rights. Perhaps this is not a time when externally derived responsibilities are attractive to most people. Perhaps, as our society grows more technologically and socially complex, the important issues in public policy simply become too difficult for people to comprehend unless they are prepared to devote a very great deal of time to them.

But it is as though for many people, perhaps the majority, living and working in Australia has become disconnected from the notion of the country itself and its future, disconnected from the notion of nation-building.

Advertisement

There is certainly an urge to understand about Australia and its history. The rediscovery of Anzac day, especially by the young, says something about a felt need to find valid symbols of nationhood and belonging. Something like 10,000 people (some of them New Zealanders) gather each year at the Gallipoli battlefield itself to remember the landing and its aftermath. The celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade at the end of 2004, the controversy over what ought to be the themes of the displays in the new National Museum of Australia, the widespread interest in local history throughout regional Australia - these are all indications that a new sense of being Australian is developing.

Australians may still not know who they are, but they now know a great deal about who they were and how they have changed. As has been argued already, from the 1960s publishers have discovered a book-buying public anxious to know about Australia in every way. Tens of thousands of books have been published, and the flow continues.

Indeed, the most powerful outcome of the research conducted by academics in Australia, more powerful by far than anything done in medicine, technology or the sciences, has been the transformation of the knowledge of Australians, their society and their environment. What was initially academic work has been transmuted into school syllabus material, into newspaper stories, into radio and television series, into films, into more books still. Australians are today vastly better educated about themselves than was the case in 1951.

Defining ourselves positively is a problem, because comparisons are automatically involved. It is still much easier to say who we are not, and then to emphasise what we were for. If Australia is to be more than just the place we live in, it needs a future as well as a present and a past. The Australian project has always been straightforwardly comparative: to build a better society than the one the immigrant left.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. All

This article has been adapted from What Was It All For? The Reshaping of Australia (Allen&Unwin)



Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

10 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Don Aitkin has been an academic and vice-chancellor. His latest book, Hugh Flavus, Knight was published in 2020.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Don Aitkin

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Article Tools
Comment 10 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy