AUSTRALIA’S CULTURAL IDENTITY

Any country’s cultural identity usually refers to those mannerisms and icons with which people can identify a certain type and Australia’s identity is probably one of the newest on the planet, as we are one of the newly discovered land masses down under. The down under label reminds me of a song by an Aussie band called Men At Work and the lines still keep ringing in my ears.

“I come from a land down under” and another line “And she gave me a vegemite sandwich”. Both these lines are as Aussie as I am. Why I grew up in the most down under part of the land down under. Right down on the Southern coast of Victoria facing the great Southern Ocean and my mother’s friends father who managed Kraft Foods came home one day from the factory and asked her when she was a small girl what she thought of a new mixture at the factory. She liked it and named it ‘Vegemite’ as it had vegetable extract in it.

The usual cultural identity presented to the world is of the kangaroos jumping across the wide spaces of the interior or the cuddly koalas hugging a gum tree or the aborigine throwing a boomerang. The many beautiful beaches also feature as the whole coastline is one beach. The swagman, the large cattle stations (some as big as Ireland), the crocodiles, the great white pointer sharks, the lifesavers at Bondi beach in Sydney, the Melbourne trams and of course Australian Rules Football and our many world class sporting venues which match our passion for sport. Let’s not forget our cricketers who are known round the world for their prowess. This is surely the stuff that tourist brochures and travelogues are made of and we have to search deeper to find a cultural identity for this arguably the greatest and freest country in the world.

What identifies a culture? Well the aborigines have to take credit for establishing our first cultural identity for they had established it thousands of years before Europeans stamped another cultural identity upon this land. The Aboriginal culture was rich in diversity and the knowledge needed to survive the many differing climatic regions of the continent. Theirs consisted of intricate art and equally colorful folk law and dancing or coroborees. Our cultural identity was a shameful one when white settlement took over with many injustices and human rights abuses taking place, but as the country has grown and matured and become more cosmopolitan we have some colorful cultural images to show.

Many people are struck by the friendly attitude us Aussies have towards others and life in general. A kind of laid back attitude almost as if to say, “She’ll be right mate, we’ll see about that tomorrow, don’t lose any sleep over it”. Australia has been called the land of the long weekend and we certainly like our holidays and there’s nothing better, as Paul Hogan would have said, than to throw another prawn on the barbie and sink a xxxx beer. That’s another thing Aussies like, their beer and even Fosters is sold overseas. I guess that I’m still harping on the stereotypes and must look deeper.

Culture actually means the cultivating of a state of manners and intellectual development. Being civilised and educated. I guess then my article would appear to be off track but then again not so, for everything I have mentioned could fit into these fields. What is not largely known abroad is that Australia has produced many world class scientists, doctors and educators and definitely some great artists, perhaps the greatest of these being the Aboriginals themselves. I have come full circle and end where I started with our first peoples who established an Australian cultural identity with a foundation of forty thousand years. Personally it gives me great pleasure to think of this as being our foremost identity as it was born in the beginning. Let me finish with the words of a song called ‘Brothers in Arms,’ by Dire Straits.” We all live in one world but we live indifferent worlds”. So whichever world you live in as an Aussie that is how you will see your cultural identity, oh and by the way, I’m half Scot but a fiercely proud Aussie!