There no place like .............?

“We are one, we are many, from al the world we come”

-          Bruce Woodley.

Australia is no longer a 19^th century patriarchal domicile behind a 1950’s picket fence. The perfect family is mythical and so are our tangled imaginings of our national home.  We all yearn for a place to call home, but home is in our imagination. As imaginary as the bush hero our coast fringed, urban Aussies will never be.

Home is not just a place of heat and rest. Home has always being our source of deepest conflict and transformation. We imagine its peace but are triggered by its shadows.

Australia is a land of immigrants, exiles and the diaspora. Add to this challenge gays and feminists ask of our domicile and  home is not so clearly defined. Nor is the identity of the homeland.

The post 9/11 fear mongering inspired the call for Australian Values. But what are they? “You don’t kick a dog when it’s down” was what was an Aussie truth I was bought up to believe. Post Tony Abbot we add “unless you’re a refugee.” 

Fear can turn an accommodating people into a mob demanding conformity. This spasm of concern is pimped by politicians with an eros of nationalistic passion. Where three word slogans confuse  the common good with vote grabbing.

I am a patriot of informed choice, and considered decisions. I am a patriot for open debate for  the long term good of all: Not flag waving Australia Day drunk who cheat the law a week later. I do not believe in a reality built on prejudices, slogans and misconceptions. I do not bow to a mandate that squelches debate.

A true patriot examines the nature of country to find the common good. A true patriot supports his community: we should never under estimate the unique potential of each individuals gifts to flower in the light of encouragement.  A true patriot also seeks to peacefully change what is against community long term benefit.

Non violent resistance and protest of injustice are therefore a patriotic act.

But now challenge the media norm and expect a backlash. I understand many fear a loss of community. We seem increasingly like globalised tourists, and vagabonds, homogenised by globalisation.

You may be born here from parents of brown skin of a foreign religion, and never feel at home at home in this land of your birth. The inflated threat of migrant terrorists has made citizenship increasingly precarious. Disagree and you expect to be told “Go home.”  I am a 6^th generation Australian born of British descent and yet I have been told to “go back to India”. Why? Because I objected to a father allowing his children throwing stones on a train.

I realise we sentimentally over value some socially imagined common understanding of what we should practice as if that legitimises our shared Australiana. But other than rejecting terrorism, what does that mean?

Social exclusion can also be about how you see yourself; especially if you feel excluded by skin colour, religion or family traditions.

Of course, all nations have shadows that haunt: Aboriginee, woman and immigrants are subtly excluded here.
We hunt refugees and Aboriginee from our awareness like dingoes scattered to the desert. Off the TV screen is out of sight and out of mind. We don’t want to look beyond the Anzac legend, but we are not  White Australia.

The other side is stereotype: a faulty stereotype destroyed for me when I first moved to India. I attended a party where one girl was clearly a Muslim. Most were dressed in curvy but modest clothes.  Only later, did I realise that 60% of all the girls present followed Islam.

Repeatedly I found most Muslims did not stand out at all.  We see first those dressed differently – and I bless their uniqueness – then so wrongly label a whole community by that perception. Unfortunately, identity politics solidifies communities within narrow imagined boundaries. It ignores the shared good and finds instead fearful shadows.  

I am a devotee of the god of small kindnesses; a sannyasin to generosity across the picnic rug. I am a pilgrim to the community hall of challah and falafel, of roti and dim sum embraced in the shared gift of every heritage.  I honour the sleeping black babe wrapped to a mothers back, and the fruity sip of ouzo at the taverna.

Few of us thrive on our own power. It is the church, or the ashram – in  the power of community – that were are inspired to find our gifts and offer them. Alone we sink into our own selfish shadows.

But the boundary posts are shifting. Australians are no longer British on holidays. The nuclear family will no longer model the modern nation state.  

We need a new language. We need a new vocabulary broad enough to embrace our new extended family of migrants, exiles and diaspora. Our anthem should be opportunity, and our invocation the responsibility to share our gifts for the greater good of all.