Who Are the Australians according to Australians and Foreigners - Literature review Example

EVALUATION Its unique history tells us something that is also unique about Australia. By examining its history, it can be traced back that the emergence of diverse cultures, say from Aborigines and Australian colonists simply creates an identity which the world can readily define today. However, it can be noted that the Australian themselves have consensus definition of themselves. This definition can be much of focus to British Australians, whom in the span of history had dominated over Australia and never doubted their inherent superiority over other people in the planet to redefined and start over a new civilization stolen from others, the Aborigines of Australia. The way of life of Australians is much influenced by Great Britain. Prior to this, many things happened as far as the course of subjugation of British colonists in Australia is concerned. Death due to injustice led to assailing Aborigines. As a long-term result, original culture of Aborigines was momentarily eradicated, influenced and replaced by purely what is British. It is in this reason that the resistance of Aborigines to define their own identity had never perpetuated and unsuccessful. This was due to the fact that, as conqueror, British colonists were so strong and powerful to take the lead and redefined a new Australia which had become superior among some nations in the neighboring continents at that time. This can be further proved by the fact that British colonists were conquerors and as the word implies, should be powerful and superior. As a result, Australians did not seek independence from British control but Britishness was embraced in order that they can define themselves.1 Britishness has something related about culture, power and a new sense of responsibility in Australian citizenship. The British Australians believed on their superiority. That superiority, they believed, sprung directly from the advanced qualities of their British stock, a nation of people historically moulded to expand, lead and control.2 As a result of this feeling of Britishness amidst cultural diversity due to continuous existence of Asians and Aborigens, a new general set of standard came out in early 19th century in order to preserve national ideologies and principles which can be viewed purely as a new Australian way of life. ‘White Australians’ comes out after a successful power perpetuation of the British colonizer in Australia which the main goal is to preserve the new Australian way of life, supremacy, ideologies, culture and national solidarity. British Australians believed that as citizens trained to lead and control, they can be much superior to any other races or traits and thus, the only way to preserve their nation from any form of impurities can be best executed by implementing a special identity for “White Australians”. In this way, impurities can be screened out. In the event that non-white people cannot be infiltrated, this may possibly lead to other culture influences, sharing of wealth, and the bottom line, inferiority of the British Australian’s way of life. The implementation of “White Australian” policy can also be used to justify the higher sense of nationalism among British Australians. The “White Australian” policy is a manifestation of a higher sense of nationalism and its underlying principle is to generally protect national interest. From the article written by Marilyn Lake3 it can be noted that in 20th century there is an effort for transition a racialized creed of “White Australia”. In her article, it can be noted that Australia today is heading to multiculturalism as its core value. To wit: 1. Australians believe that Australia could incorporate different people from different places. 2. The Colombo Plan was inaugurated to promote cordial relations with Asia. 3. Promulgation of the policy of multiculturalism by both the Whitlam Labor and Fraser Coalition. 4. And more… “Change is the only constant thing in this world.” This adage simply puts it that, Australia cannot be an exception to the rule. It has indeed significantly made some changes to redefine itself in 20th century. It cannot be denied that there could still be some shortcomings along the way but this is due to the reason that the present situation is undeniably rooted to the past. The most important thing is that, it can be recognized that there were some strong and evident efforts implemented to promote multiculturalism as a core Australian value today. In this regard, Australia is again in its way of redefining itself for good and start afresh. EVALUATION 2 Australia is a country with very rich culture and not only that, of stories which involve sacrifices, heroism and nationalism. Symbolism had also played a major role in the course of its history. It can be identified in the works of art, like monuments, sculptures, paintings, memorials and commemoration of an event. These contain information which can be memorable, remarkable and meaningful to an individual. For instance, the ‘men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) day’ is memorable, remarkable and meaningful. What remains to Anzac today are those different perspectives of story about it and the various works of art which can stand as living testimony of the things in the past. When I read the articles of Inglis1 and Scated2, the idea of the Anzac day celebration had led me to a clear understanding of its meaning. Great War memorials mean so much in Australia. Anzacs were venerated at home when they set foot at Gallipoli on the 25th of April 1915. The Anzac day is a celebration to honour the men of the community who fought and fell. It also represented the triumph of right over might. Memorials built were generally intended to belong to men at war to represent sacrificial manhood, making it sacred. However, Australia during the second half of the Great War is usually depicted as a divided society, and the movement to commemorate the soldiers is generally interpreted as politically conservative. There was a divided belief on the meaning of Anzac day and even more so at present. Whatever the belief about Anzac day, it is undeniably true that the concept itself had raised various interpretations, academic and social issues. It is viewed sacred for the fact that it involved sacrificial manhood. It can also be noted that its meaning now has momentarily changes over the span of time from its first commemoration since many issues mostly, academic and social, have been brought out in modern times. Some believed that it is simply bias as it only serves to promote manhood, which does not represent at all those woman who also had contributed in the event. For instance, many sculptures or works of art were made just to represent sacrificial womanhood too and thus worthy for such credit to be part of the Anzac day as what the diggers are privilege of. The bottom line, this has something to do over the issue of feminism and masculinity. Some believed that Australians had fought just to serve ‘Mother England’ in its way to invading the other part of the world and thus strikingly not worthy for being sacred. There are also who believed that the Anzac history had contributed to uplift there spiritual experience. The works of Inglis4 and Scated2 at some point presented these issues. It can be noted that these issues can be rich subject areas to deal with since they have been part of the Australian history and its way of life. Moreover, these issues can be more helpful in dealing with other social issues concerning Australia at present. The fact that the present is rooted to its past, so then the present social issues can be widely explored by understanding the past. EVALUATION 3 The Great Depression in Australia around 1930’s was in general a remarkable story to tell by the Australians who among themselves have also remarkable individual stories to tell. It cannot be argued that their oral testimonies had significantly helped us understand the picture of the Great Depression. Those might not be totally sufficient but they had contributed a lot to the information gathering of historians which at some point, quality information at hand were gathered so as to keep everybody informed about the past. The importance of oral testimony can be best appreciated in the articles of Lowenstein1 and McCalman2 about the Great Depression in 1930’s. Their articles are concentrated on presenting information through oral testimonies of those individuals who directly were involved and had struggled in the Great Depression. Their articles can be the living proofs to why the collection of oral testimony from people who experienced the Great Depression first-hand is important. Based on my personal opinion, their articles are collectively created to present information which consistently is attempting to give a general picture of the Great Depression, a momentous event of Australians’ way of life. Since their articles directly are involving those individual who experienced the Depression first-hand, there can be a special consideration of their output as significant sources of information too. One good thing about oral testimony as shown in their materials is that you can really picture out the real emotions or feelings of those individuals who really had something to say on how a certain situation had come to affect their lives. This just simply proves that an oral testimony can be a significant source of information if an only if the subject does not have any bias on what he or she thinks and feel on a certain experienced event or subject matter. Another point, these two historians’ compiled information did not only focus to one person. Thus, it just means that they certainly had variety of information out from different perspective. This can be one of the best things about oral testimony; there is a good chance of obtaining different perspective in attempting to give the whole picture of an event. Despite how appealing might it looks like as source of information an oral testimony is, historians have some problems and insights about it too. Firstly, historians have to find the right people and a sufficient number of them so as to eliminate bias and to get various perspectives. This can be observed in the materials of Lowenstein1 and McCalman2. Oral testimony can be a good and reliable source of information but it can also be misleading if covered with bias. As the word implies, oral testimony is verbal and needs to be written for proper and exact documentation to be passed on from one person to another and from generation to generation. This is the reason why the works of Lowenstein1, McCalman2, Fox3 and Wilson4 have been documented and now are read by one person and more. An oral testimony can be subjected to different interpretation and therefore it has to be written in the expense of giving everyone a chance and freedom to express his or her own interpretation once it is read. Just prior to or as part of documentation of history, historians should have enough information on other related subject matter. This is evident in the work of Fox3 in which he was able to have a fundamental understanding about the poor people and relate this information to exactly obtain the actual setting of the Great Depression. Thus, information from an oral testimony can be half-baked if the historian himself or herself is not equipped with a much wider understanding of the main subject matter by simply being proficient with other related subject matters beforehand. Historians should be organized in terms of his or her objectives and this should be in line with the exact chronological order of an event. For instance, the work of Fox5 shows the detail of Depression year by year which is effective in trying to give the whole idea of an event. This only proves that information without any good objective that is prior to obtaining it can be very ambiguous and does not give a good whole picture at all. History is very important. It is a record of the past and it is as important as individual testimony. It can be the truth or the other way around. It can inform or mislead. Therefore, historians should be quite informed that they have played an important role in keeping everyone at present rightly informed about the truth of the past. EVALUATION 4 Australia in the early decades of 20th century had to place itself into either modern or traditional way of life. This can be highly manifested by how Australians experienced the bush in the early decades of 20th century. Reading through the article of Griffiths1, it can be remarkable that the incident of Black Friday fire was signifying that many farmers have known little about the bush around them. It was the moment when those fires created were known to have been lit by the hand of man. That was the time when social life and morality were under trial. As a result, the government had to keep the farmer informed and introduced to them some various precautionary measures and the right things to do. It can also be noted that the Black Friday fire had given life too to many of the established timber-producing districts in which over the span of time, had further resulted to more massive resource exploitation. Again, this was the moment of the Australian’s bush life which the people needed to be knowledgeable enough of the bush around them. From the article of MacKeller2, it was presented how the soil was being so important for the Australians in the bush prior to survival and amidst on-going world war. Agriculture was central to the development of Australia as this was one of the subsistent patterns in the bush during early decades of 20th century. It was also in this time of history that the Australians had shown hard work amidst on-going environmental problems such as drought, soil erosion and animals feeding their crops. This was the moment of time that the Australians remained composed and think of creative ways such as on how to catch a rabbit feeding on their crops. It cannot be argued that Australians had never been affected by the stress that life might bring to them. Reading through the article of Harper3, it is pretty interesting to find out that the bush can simply stand as a perfect place to keep one’s body in good shape. Significant numbers of bushwalkers were caught by the alluring beauty of the bush and thus, they end up walking on the bush’s trail as an excellent idea for physical exercise and a good place for hang out with family and friends. However, this had brought dilemma to Australian’s spiritual life since most bushwalkers were able to substitute a time of worship with this alluring walk in the bush. As far as I can sort things out to where they belong, I believe modernization was never been a problem with Australians in the early decades of 20th century. Solutions can always be found in the bush. Australians were thinking ahead of time and though they fell, they tend to stand up and move forward as with the case of Black Friday fire incident, just to site an instance. The articles of Griffiths6, MacKeller2 and Harper3 are good reading resources that could tell how Australians had lived and was able to survive the bush in the challenging decades of 20th century. Furthermore, these articles have significantly shared the life that is Australian way. These articles also shared the light of idea to better understand the significance of bush in the lives of Australians. The bush could tell stories about change, tragedy, hope and survival. The bush is a metaphor of the Australian way of life. It represented how Australians live their lives and faced transition as the year progresses in the dawning of 20th century. Read More