In the midway of Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean emerges from the waters a big sub continent. The second largest island on Earth (after Greenland). There is much about what we have learned, but so little about what we really know. So lets start the way to the other side (from Europe) of the world.
There was life in Australia before the Europeans went there to colonize and conquest. They were called Aborigines. And they had and specific and prolific culture, including the relationship with mother Nature and the way to transcend this world. Trough the big “pipe flutes”. They lived peacefully in an harmonic life, approximately until the early XV Century (Let me say that I have no knowledge about what happened with the possible encounters with the Australian aborigines and the North lands population or the incoming wave of Muslims along the X to XV Century …), when White “traffic” around Australia started to increase.
The first White man that landed in Australia was probably, as the book “History of spain” by professor Tuñon de Lara says, a spanish, in the early years of XV Century. The Tordesillas treaty between the Portuguese and Spanish Crowns with the blessing of the Holy see and the Pope gives the first branch of the agreement the possession of the west side of Australia. And the other half was ceded to spanish. But nothing remains from that visit. Nothing in the nowadays nation. Instead of that the visit of the British Commander Cook pressed a deep tread in the Country, that remains until the day of tomorrow (and may be the main cause of controversy of identity, past an future).
There are some anecdotes with the “clash” of cultures. One of them tells us the origin of the word “Kangaroo”. British landed in Australia and they didn’t know the language on the Aborigines. And of course that Aborigines never talked English before that. So no one understood the other. One day a british “patrol” encountered a group and aborigines and some animals. And they asked “What type of animals are they?”. And the aborigines answered “kangaroo”. So the british thought “Ok, great, the new animal is called so: Kangaroo”. But what the aborigines were really saying was “What do un say?” … (something similar happened to spanish with the word “Yucatan” in the now called nation of Mexico).
Four great migrations took place in the pre XX Century years. One of them was “made” from Europe to America, South Africa and Australia. Many White men went to Australia and New Zealand. Principally citizens of the British Empire. So the original Aborigines were relegated into a secondary place. And they were “pressed” too with a oppressive politic. An Australian apartheid. That segregated trough the end of XIX Century and the early XX Century. The realized politics of the United States Government and Australia with the local populations (Indians and Aborigines) were very similar. And the Whites and Europeans were majority in the nation. So when the Australia colony became a Dominion through the application of Wensmister Commonwealth Act (1931) it was like a European country overseas. Abroad.
During the XX Century Australia and its democratic institutions (a copy of the british system) was in the way that marked the fatherland (remarkable in Foreign policies). The leading nation. United Kingdom. Remember that Australian head of state remains being the King of United Kingdom, Today Queen Elizabeth II, through the figure of a governor.
But a day became. The Australian Constitution, that was settled (and originally written) in London, was repatriated (in the last half of XX Century). And the Australians asked themselves the fundamental questions. Who am I? What do I want? How will I get that? A tremendous and powerful debate about what the nation and their citizens would be. Their way to future.
Prime Minister Robert Hawke tried to definite the nation as a Pacific nation. A land of the Pacific Ocean. Next Prime Minister, Paul Keating, tried to redefine the nation as an Asian nation. Actual Prime Minister, John Howard (elected for a new -third- mandate, at the age of 65, the 9th of October) has settled Australia in the United Kingdom (and United States) way to coalition against Terror. With “the West”. Samuel P. Huntington introduces the idea to convert the Nafta (North America free trade agreement) into Nasp (North America and South Pacific), that would include the actual Nafta and Australia and New Zealand. I remember that apart from NATO and the disappeared SEATO, there is another military treaty called ANZUS. Australia, New Zealand, United States. I propose another meteoric idea. Enter the European Union. If Turkey enters in it, there is no reason not to let Australia and New Zealand enter our community of nations, because of it is obvious that they are Europeans in everything… except from its place in the world.
Australia will be what Australians should want to their own nation. Of course. Reconciliating with their past, to build a prosper future. But they cannot forget its past and what they are. Their common culture, their institutions, the color of their skin (majority) and, even, their believes over the ideological and spiritual things, that makes Australia different from their neighbors (except New Zealand).
Briefing: Australia is a great nation in the far side of the world, but is closer in heart and soul than many nations in a few kilometers from here (Europe). They do not have to make so “strange” tacks that confuse and irritates everybody. Inside and outside the nation. A strong, certain and definitive line must be settled. Like Canada or South Africa did in the past. Inside the United Kingdom. As the majority said in the recent referendum over the monarchy. Or maybe outside. Clearly. With no public experiment. As it is said, “experiments only at home and with a bottle of soda water”.
“Forget where you are and what do you do. Think who are you and go on proud of your identity, culture and intellectual ideas of future handmakings ways.”
Write a comment