Historical Reality and Australian Identity

Less than fifty years after Sydney was founded, Charles Darwin visited the fledgling town. The date was January 12, 1836. Writing in The Voyage of the Beagle he had this to say:

In the evening I walked through the town, and returned full of admiration at the whole scene … Here, in a less promising country, scores of years have done many times more than an equal number of centuries have effected in South America. My first feeling was to congratulate myself that I was born an Englishman.

Darwin may have been a bit chauvinistic, but he was a thoughtful scientist and meticulous observer who recognised in early Australia a remarkable phenomenon that today is largely ignored and even unfashionable to hint at. That phenomenon was the amazing achievement of a small group of determined settlers who, in half a century, had established a civil society in a continent where, prior to their arrival, not a wheel had turned, no permanent structures existed and agriculture was unknown.

With those early immigrants came the rule of law, effective governance, the basics of civilisation, as well as belief in the value of individual initiative and the work ethic. They introduced a vision of human progress that by the end of the nineteenth century had been fulfilled many times over.

By the early years of the twentieth century a string of cities had arisen in the wilderness; telegraph, railways and roads linked the continent; industries were established and the arts flourished. Few other nations can claim to have matured so rapidly and successfully as Australia.

This is not to imply that the Aborigines did not suffer at the hands of some early white settlers. However, their fate should not blind us to the widespread benefits that accrued with the coming of Western civilisation.

Since most of the country’s progress in the past two centuries is something upon which people should look with wonder and feel proud, one is left bewildered why many of today’s Australians are unsure of their national identity. The British identity that Australians once bore with pride seems to have been replaced with a sense of national ambivalence.

Much of the reason lies in the way Australia’s early history has been misrepresented. In the popular mind the settlement at Port Jackson was designed as nothing more than a dumping ground for England’s surplus convicts; a situation exacerbated by the loss of the American colonies. Historians such as Robert Hughes who wrote, in The Fatal Shore, “English lawmakers wished not only to get rid of the ‘criminal class’ but if possible to forget about it … no other country had such a birth”, reinforced such a view. It is a pity that Hughes did not consult the Historical Records of New South Wales for an accurate account of reasons behind the colony’s founding.

It is also significant that Manning Clark’s History of Australia did not mention Darwin’s observations of early Sydney. Either Clark had not read them or he preferred to ignore Darwin’s views because they negated his leftist interpretation of Australian history.

An early proposal for establishing a colony in New South Wales was that of James Maria Matra, who was familiar with Botany Bay. An American loyalist living in London, and a friend of Joseph Banks, Matra published in 1783 A Proposal for Establishing a Settlement in New South Wales.

Probably under Banks’s influence, Matra wrote in glowing terms about prospects in the new land. He imagined the colony would attract American loyalists as well as Chinese and South Sea Island immigrants who would engage in foreign trade and commerce. In the event of another war with Spain or Holland, a British base in New South Wales could have strategic value. Matra’s initial proposal did not mention transportation.

Following discussions with Lord Sydney, the Secretary of State, who feared that overcrowding in British jails would result in an outbreak of infectious disease, Matra attached an addendum to his plan that favoured transportation, with each convict on arrival in the colony being given a few acres of land to cultivate.

Although this did not happen, the Lords of the Admiralty envisaged the convicts establishing a settlement, not just a penal colony. Moreover, on Lord Sydney’s initiative the new colony was to receive a constitution and judicial system suitable for free citizens. As a result, the inhabitants of New South Wales enjoyed all the rights and duties of English law (see Sir Victor Windeyer, “A Birthright and Inheritance”, Tasmanian University Law Review, Vol. 1, No. 5, 1962).

Other important factors prompted Britain to establish a settlement in New South Wales. One was the need for a British base to balance Spain’s long-standing presence in the Pacific, as well as the growing French interests in the region. Another was the likelihood that, if Britain did not found a colony on the east coast of Australia, France probably would.

It had been expected that free settlers would form the basis of the colony, but until the first free immigrants arrived in 1793, convicts provided the necessary labour. The fact that within fifty years of Phillip’s landing a flourishing civil society was functioning is evidence of the colony’s great success.

From that time until 1948, Australians were British subjects. They held British passports, entered the United Kingdom freely and, above all else, thought of themselves as members of a global British family, scattered throughout the countries of the British Empire. The loyalty of Australians to the “mother country” had been demonstrated in numerous ways, most notably by joining with Britain in the First and Second World Wars. Citizens whose forebears had migrated to Australia in the nineteenth century continued to refer to Britain as home a hundred years later.

Despite their pride in being British, Australians were no less patriotic in respect of their own country. Their love for, and strong sense of identity with, both countries were not mutually exclusive.

But not all Australians were affected this way. Some on the political Left saw the relationship between Australia and Britain through Marxist-Leninist eyes, interpreting it as blatant imperialism. Although both nations benefited from the relationship in terms of trade and cultural interaction, the Left’s ideological orthodoxy cast Britain as an imperial overlord and Australia as its tribute colony. The Left played down the primary role of British administrators, entrepreneurs and investors in the founding of the nation, replacing it with a proletarian underclass that struggled against British masters.

The outcome was as inevitable as it was misleading. Not only were children taught that the colony’s sole purpose was to absorb England’s surplus convicts, they were also fed a one-sided view of Australian history in which heroes were drawn largely from the working class, while the contribution of a rising middle class was largely ignored.

It is not surprising that blackguards such as Ned Kelly, Ben Hall, “Squizzy” Taylor, “Breaker” Morant and Tilly Devine abound in popular history, while genuine national benefactors go largely unknown. Today’s teenagers can reel off the names of Australian bushrangers and petty thugs, but ask them about Howard Florey, John Eccles, Macfarlane Burnet, John Monash or Nellie Melba and you are likely to be met with a mullet-like stare. So much for our education system.

While there is some truth in the romantic notion that the nation’s lowliest British immigrants laboured mightily to settle the land, it is easy (and sometimes politically convenient) to overlook the fact that, given the opportunities that Australia offered, a large number of them quickly improved their lot in life. Many were able to realise a style of existence far above their original station and they soon moved into the respectable ranks of the bourgeoisie. Most convicts found hope in a land transmogrified from a place of short-term servitude to one of hope. Australia gave them a chance to build a better life than they could have had in Britain.

This historical development was completely at odds with the tenets of scientific socialism, which depend on the fiction of a victim class that will sink deeper into the mire of poverty until its only solution is revolution.

The symbiotic relationship between Australia and Britain changed permanently with the Nationality and Citizenship Act, which came into effect on January 26, 1949, and created the status of Australian citizen. It determined who is, and who is not Australian, based on the principle of jus soli (right of the soil).

Together with the influx of postwar migrants, especially non-English-speaking ones from Europe, the Act effectively undermined the sense of Britishness that most Australians had enjoyed since early colonial times. However, any hope that they would emerge overnight with a new Australian identity was not met. What did happen was the creation of a dual Australian persona.

On one hand the cultural cringe was born. Everything in Britain and Europe was considered superior to anything Australia could offer. Young people, in particular, travelled to Britain, which they looked upon as the centre of the universe; many were never to return.

Balancing this phenomenon was an inflated and, at times, childish, parochial nationalism in which everything locally produced—art, drama, music, sport, manufactures—inevitably carried the label “Australian” like a badge of honour. At the same time, British elements that formed the foundation of Australian culture were played down, ignored and often lampooned.

One can make an interesting comparison with the United States, where Americans are generally proud of their Anglo-European roots. They feel no need to disparage their early settlers and pioneers or to rewrite history in order to conform to a Marxist interpretation. The Pilgrim Fathers are remembered and revered, not damned as British imperialist interlopers. For Americans, their nation is both a bridge to, and an extension of, Western civilisation.

Little wonder that Australia became something of a schizoid nation, riven by opposing influences that stem from British-European culture on one hand, to a trumped-up version of the country’s history on the other.

In trying to forge a new identity, perhaps part of Australia’s problem has been that it received the gift of nationhood too easily. From 1788 onward, law and order, liberty, high culture and civilised behaviour were handed over free of charge. Colonial independence followed by federation occurred without rancour or dispute. Unlike the Americans, Australians had no need for a war of independence. However, that which is received freely is rarely valued.

The omission of conflict with Britain in Australia’s story left Marxist historians floundering because without conflict there could be no dialectic and without dialectic there would be no violent revolution. And so, in an attempt to justify Marx’s fantasy predictions, they attempted to manufacture conflict by homing in on the Eureka Stockade.

The unsurprising result has been a perversion of history in which the Eureka “uprising” has been interpreted as a revolt against rule from Britain. In the absence of anything more bloody, it is portrayed as a miniature war of independence.

As a piece of warped hyperbole the story of Eureka is an exciting piece of Boy’s Own reading, but the event was never more than a skirmish between police and a band of disgruntled miners. Eureka was not a revolutionary act that emerged as a historical watershed, but an event blown out of proportion to comply with Marxist make-believe.

The reality of political progress in Australia (of which all Australians should be grateful) is that the nation had no need to struggle against imperialist overlords; nor had it any reason for animosity towards Britain. Perhaps this explains why attempts to drum up anti-British sentiment have been damp squibs, whether in the case of Eureka, the issue of a republic, or the sacking of the Whitlam government. Apart from a ragbag of ideologues and juveniles, few Australians have ever been interested in revolution.

From the nineteenth century onward, Australia sought a special place on the world stage. Being far from its natural roots yet inheriting Enlightenment values encouraged Australia to consistently exceed its small-nation status in international affairs. The country’s contributions to science, culture and sport have been outstanding, but most salient has been its participation in overseas wars—including those in which it had no direct interest.

This has sometimes been interpreted as evidence of servility, meeting first the needs of Britain and, more recently, those of the United States. However, the reality is more complex. Apart from valid foreign policy and geopolitical considerations, and the fact that Australians have an affinity with the peoples of the Anglosphere and Europe, the nation participated in these wars in order to carve out a place for itself in world affairs.

As a country located in what Paul Keating picturesquely described as the “arse end of the world”, Australia wants to be noticed and respected. Had the nation not played important roles in international affairs, including wars, it might well have become another remote non-entity, akin to those inward-looking countries of South America that drift on the periphery of global affairs.

A strong sense of national self-confidence and identity might remain elusive until it is recognised that the story of non-Aboriginal Australia did not begin with the landing of the First Fleet in 1788; it is a continuation of the history and culture of Britain and Europe. There was no “Big Bang” that brought modern Australia into being.

Today, in Australia, the English language, parliamentary democracy, legal system, the esprit de corps of the military, together with thousands of other everyday practices and values, ranging from the way we lay our dinner tables to eating plum pudding at Christmas, have British roots. To these have been added numerous European traditions. The civilisations of ancient Greece and Rome, the Judeo-Christian values of Europe, the great cultural movements of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, as well as the industrial and scientific revolutions are our heritage. Socrates, Plato, Leonardo, Galileo, Shakespeare, Newton, and a myriad of other eminent civilisers belong as much to Australia as they do to Britain and Europe.

Recognising the nation’s origins is not to suggest that Australians should all be Anglo-Europhiles, but only that they acknowledge and value the facts behind the country’s history and cultural basis. This, however, may not come easily in the face of two policies of the federal government.

The first is the ideology of multiculturalism that, although masquerading in ethical robes, has the effect of weakening the unity of the nation-state. By encouraging the establishment of ethnic ghettos, multiculturalism effectively creates states within the state. Consequently, the primary loyalty of the ghettos’ inhabitants is to their own culture, not that of the host nation. As Theodore Dalrymple said in the Spectator in September,

Multiculturalism as an official doctrine, complete with enforcing bureaucracies, undermines the rule of law because it seeks to divide people, formalise their cultural differences and enclose them in moral and intellectual ghettos.

Multiculturalism’s weakening of the national entity is complementary to the socialist aim of replacing independent democratic nations with a centralised system of governmental control that will eliminate liberty of the individual. Hence, the Gillard government’s strong support of multiculturalism.

The second government policy that is antithetical to Australian identity relates to the national education curriculum. By placing heavy emphasis on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture, as well as Asia, it sidelines Australia’s British-European heritage.

Although native cultures and history are worthy of study, most Australians see them as essentially exotic with little relevance to the nation’s mainstream culture. Taxpayers already finance various Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of life without complaint, but they are not lifestyles that the great majority of Australians would choose to embrace.

Furthermore, although Australia is geographically much closer to the Asian mainland than it is to Europe, and Asian affairs are of much relevance to its national interest, it is essential to emphasise that Australia is a separate and distinct nation. It is no more part of Asia—historically, linguistically, ethnically or culturally—than Africa can be said to be part of Europe.

Contemporary Australia is primarily a British-European outpost in a region of the globe with which it shares little in common. Pretending that Australia is Asian will not enhance relations with its neighbours. It is more likely to encourage their ridicule and contempt.

The country’s reputation would be better served if Australia presented itself to the world as self-confident in its Anglo-European origins and proud of its remarkably successful history. Until that happens, Australians might continue to be defined by outsiders as “people who are always asking themselves what it means to be Australian”.