Being Australian ; in Hamburg
For we are young and free...
Firstly, I’m sorry this post is a few days late. I got sick on my way home from Hamburg and then had one day of Uni activities before setting off for Budapest, where I am now. The following article is something I wrote leading up to and while in Hamburg, kind of in light of Australia Day. I hope you can forgive my tardiness and enjoy some of my ruminations on identity and the past.
Being away from home always makes you more aware of your own cultural identity, it’s only natural when you’re in contrast with people from a whole jumble of cultures, you can’t help but notice all the idiosyncrasies of your own; the things you say, the things you like, expect, want, dislike, understand.
It’s funny to, suddenly, be a spokesperson on all your country’s practices and ideals. Obviously, this experience is, by no means, exclusive to Australians, (I think American’s have a much harder time with it, because 1. it’s a deeply complicated country and 2. We all have an opinion) but it does have an interesting effect on your own awareness of your culture and the distance between what others see and what you do.
Before I left, my dad and I were talking about America and its impact on the world, trying, for the millionth time, to find a way of explaining the contradiction that it is; the strength and atrocity, the pursuit of justice and the racism, the power and the insatiability. We related it back to Australia a lot, maybe by defining America, we can define Australia too. The other, sleepier adult child of the British empire. It was during this, light-hearted, mid-morning kitchen chat, that he brought up something Keating had once said, something along the lines of “I think, in many ways, Australia has gotten away with a lot in our history because for a long time, no one was watching.” It struck a chord at the time, but it feels even truer now, surrounded by so many non-Australians. They have no idea. They have no idea about the institutionalised effort to eradicate Aboriginal people from the country. They have no idea about “The White Australia Policy”, which was in place until 1973, and applied not only to people of colour but also to Europeans from non-Christian/non-Anglo-Saxon countries, they don’t know we keep refugees in off-shore detention centres. No-one knowing makes it very easy to pretend it didn’t happen. And why ruin it? Why tell them we’re not innocent? It’s fun to come from a place, people idolise.
And yet, truth matters. Accountability, matters.
Because we’re a complicated country too. We’ve been conservative and oppressive, we’ve been outright racist, sexist, violent and selfish, we’ve built our economy off the back of a mining industry that has caused and continues to cause, potentially, irreparable damage to our environment. That’s the truth.
Denying the truth of our past, only further incriminates us. It gives permission for everything we don’t want to see or talk about to continue.
Along with my numerous criticisms, there are a million things I love about being raised by and around Australians. We’re funny, we value the finer things in life, unashamedly, we love good food, we take our time, we make great coffee (and never talk about it), we spend time in the sun, and in the ocean, we make fun of ourselves and don’t take life too seriously. I can’t say that I’m brilliant at that last part, but I try. I love where I’m from, I’m proud of it, protective even and also acknowledge its faults. As an Australian, I’m invested in the outcome and the impact we have internally and externally. Growing up in Germany will do that to a person.
The part of me that was formed in Germany, a country I also love, was taught that you don’t run away from History. You don’t dance on people’s graves. You acknowledge the damage, you take accountability. That’s how you move towards a future that is wiser, better and worthy of being proud of.
