It has been argued that Australian Democracy and national identity was born on the gold fields of victoria and New South Wales. Examine the validity of such a theory.

It is difficult to say if democracy is 'born' anywhere - it just exists, really. However, the Gold Fields were the catalyst for a realization of democracy in Australia. Democracy exists in the hearts and minds of people that desire to be recognised at citizens - and that is fundamentally what the diggers wanted - their rights. Australian democracy came about through the socio-political changes occurring during the 19th century. For example, with the growing population, the dilution of the native people, the pressures of the mining licenses, the oppression and tyranny of the British Government and the ripe social milieu, democracy was a natural progression that was unstoppable. The gold rush emphatically proved just how badly people were being treated, from this the people began their struggle to gain rights to liberty, equality and recognition as citizens of a colony – as opposed to slaves or serfs. It was through the process of voicing their opinions to one another, in the newspapers, to the people holding legislative power and eventually to the king himself, that Australian democracy took a foothold and from that, grew into what we know not it to be – a secular, democratic society based upon the national myth of everybody getting a “fair go”. Without a doubt the Gold fields played a role in the coming of age of Australia, however, democracy was not born there – not even “Australian democracy” – democracy has always existed – the Gold fields and the resulting political changes and movements occurring due to the gold field situation, caused people to realise that their lives could be better and the answer to the most pressing problem was, you guessed it, democracy.

Secondly, to say that the national identity of Australia was born on the gold fields is to sound like we are still living in the 1920s. We’re not. Australia has undergone intense changes in the last 60 years since the end of the second world war and the influx of immigrants and asylum seekers. In one century Australia radically changed from being a “white nation” to a “rainbow nation”, a diverse nation full of all races, cultures, colours and creeds from all over the world – living under the Australian myth of the “fair go” that permeates this sunburnt land. Prior to the 1960s our national identity was the hard working, beer drinking digger that lived out on the country, never cried, always ate meat pies and loved his sport. In the 21st century parts of Australia are still clinging to this idea being “Australian”, it is the reason why we celebrate Anzac Day and Gallipoli – the biggest even in Australian history was a monumental failure, but it was this failure that gave rise to the “Aussie battler” spirit – the Aussie battler, the underdog, living off a harsh land, being beaten down by the corrupt government suits, being thrust into an apocalyptic war zone and dying for no reason – that is “Australian”. Well, that was “Australian” – Australia is more than that now. We are a multi-cultural melting pot, gone are the days of the “white” Australian. There is so much culture here now that it is almost impossible to select one and to say “That is it right there! That is the “Australian Identity”. The truth is, is that our national identity is still growing into something. Right now, it is so small, so fragile and see through, it could easily break. It is made up of hundreds of little pieces of culture that have not yet bonded together in a strong way – sure, they aren’t all fighting and causing destruction and death – but they aren’t all pulling together and moving in the same direction either. We are like a beaker, half full of water, and still being filled – the water that is still being poured in keeps the rest of the water inside the beaker moving around, and so, if you try to see your reflection in it, it’s going to be blurry, cracked, broken, and hard to see until you stop pouring the water in and let the water in the beaker settle. Then you may peer into it and see your reflection, then you may stand back and describe what you see, and that is what must happen with Australia.

Carboni - Page 67

"The 'SOUTHERN CROSS' was hoisted up the flag-staff - a very splendid pole, eighty feet in length, and straight as an arrow. This maiden appearance of our standard, in the midgst of armed men, sturdy, self-over-working gold-diggers of all languages and colours, was a fascinating object to behold."

p. 68

"We swear by the southern cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties"

p. 69

"we were of all nations and colours"

p.75

"Mr. Black acknowledged, that the licence fee, and especially the disreputable mode of collecting it at the point of the bayonet, were not the only grievances the diggers complained of. They wanted to be represented in the Legislative Council; they wanted to 'unlock the lands'".

"the licence is a democratic revolution" Commisioner Rede.

p. 108

Verdict of the Jury

"The jury view with extreme horror the brutal conduct of the mounted police in firing at and cutting down unarmed and innocent persons of both sexes, at a distance from the scene of disturbance, on December 3rd, 1854"

p. 130

"The diggers did not take up arms against British rule, but against the mis-rule of those who were paid to administer the law properly; and however foolish their conduct might be, it was an ungenerous libel on the part of one of the military officers to designate outraged British subjects as 'foreign anarchists and armed ruffians.'"

"the diggers were goaded on to take the stand they did by the 'digger-hunt,' of the 30th November, which we are sustained in saying, was a base piece of gold and silver lace revenge." J. Basson Humffray and C.F. Nicholls - Melbourne, 23rd January, 1855 - letter to 4500 diggers.

p.172-173

"If The Argus would drop the appending 'a foreigner' to my name, and extend even unto me the old motto 'fair play'"

http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/mateship/

Accessed 19th of July, 2010. Australian Government Culture Portal Online

http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/anzac/

"noble failures"



Convicts,
bush legend
gold rush - diggers,
labour movement,
gallipoli

No myths made about the second world war - less deaths,

immigration,
multi-culturalism - response to economic needs - nation identity engineered once again
into the mixing pot
Australia is not defined by what we do or have - we are defined by the fact that we allow people to live here we are "multicultural"


What is the Australian national identity? Does anybody know? Can anybody know? The truth is that our national identity is not entirely realized as of this moment. The last fifty years of immigration have seen the cultural diversity of our nation skyrocket. This poses a problem to understanding the national identity of Australia because, for a very long time, the national identity was the anglo-saxon "aussie battler". The defining characteristics of this Aussie Battler were his mateship, his courage and his willingness to sacrifice himself for what he believed in. This myth began during the convict settlement of Australia. Already the idea of the "battler" was emerging in the convicts - many of whom were sent to Australia for petty crimes such as the iconic convict that stole only a loaf of bread. Many of the convicts showed bravery and ingenuity during the hard times under the British rule. From the convict roots came the bushman, the jolly swagman - surviving in a harsh land, living off whatever he could find. It is the narrative of the poor yet brave soul fighting an almost impossible battle to survive in a land that at times seemed inhospitable. And without a doubt Australia is a harsh land but it is also plentiful and beautiful in places too. And it was these places that the Crown quickly located and took for itself, showing no care nor respect for the old British souls that had been relocated to Australia. When the Gold Rush hit in the nineteenth century nearly and every man dreamed of making his fortune in the rich gold land. Cities emptied, farms were deserted. Thousands of people rushed to New South Wales and Victoria to make their fortunes. People from other countries such as America, France, Italy and Asia started to flock to Australia when they got wind of the news - The Gold Rush had begun!

Of course, the British Empire thought up a way to make money from the gold-miners. They created a tax upon them in the form of a mining license. The miners, or "diggers" as they came to be affectionately known as, had to pay this license at least once a month - and at times it was charged multiple times in one month if the police thought the miners were making a lot of money from the gold fields. Police corruption was rife amongst the camps, with enough policeman forcing the diggers to pay far more than what the license indicated each month leading to a common hatred for the "traps". This hatred was anchored in the desire to be treated as a human being, with rights and responsibilities. Such rights and responsibilities were not accorded to the diggers at this point in time. The disenchantment with the police intertwined with a disenchantment of the British Empire. Around the gold fields were Europeans who brought with them the ideals of the Englightenment and the Chartist movement, respectively. Thus, upon looking back on history, it seems that the rise and realization of the worker's rights (and through this human rights in their entirety) was inevitable. The scene was set, the characters in play, all one had to do was start the show - and the start of the Australian show, metaphorically speaking of course, was the Eureka Stockade.

The Eureka Stockade is widely understood as the point in time when the a group of Australian men and women, united under the Southern Cross in their efforts to free themselves from a tyrannical British Empire, suffered terribly in a police massacre. From this massacre the ideals of mateship (which, according to the Australian Government, implies a sense of shared experience, mutual respect and unconditional assistance) were upheld. In the later part of this essay the Eureka Stockade will be examined in further detail, for now, it is important to move onto the next great moment of history that further emblazoned the national identity on the chests of each and every Australian. Gallipoli.

Gallipoli was a failure. The Australian soldiers were used as cannon fodder for the British Empire so that the Englishmen could make their way into Turkey without problems. In the minds of most people this should generate outrage - and it did, for a while. It polarized opinions of the Australians. Some Australians believe that the diggers (the namesake, made famous by the Eureka Stockade, was borrowed by the Anzacs who earned the right of being called a digger through the sacrifice and courage shown at Gallipoli) died for no good cause and that the British Empire should be punished for how they treated Australians. However, the national opinion upholds the valour and sacrifice of the diggers. Gallipoli is not viewed as a negative experience because through Gallipoli Australia defined themselves as a nation to be reckoned with. We didn't "win" the battle - but in the words of a veteran I once spoke to: "We goddam showed the world we don't give up without a fight". And that, in essence, embodies the bushman legend. That to be Australian means that in the face of certain death we will not give up, we will not back down, we will do unite for the common good and do our best to uphold the ideals that we believe in, the ideals that were born through struggle and live on in the myths we create, we fought for: Courage, mateship and the "fair go".

On the shores of Turkey it would seem that our diggers failed. However, in the land of Australia, our diggers were winners. They were heroes. Gallipoli was taken by the Australian people and turned into a myth that aimed to strengthen our nation from the inside out. Men and women from all creeds and cultures fought and died on the beaches of Gallipoli and through their sacrifice a stronger unification of the Australian people was made possible. Gallipoli is a continuation of the Eureka Stockade phenomenon - essentially, it shows that the Australian legend revolves around sacrifice, bravery and mateship in impossible odds. This same situation would happen again in the Second World War with the famous Rats of Tobruk and the soldiers that fought along the Kokoda Trail. The Australian nation would once again create myths out of these situations so as to strengthen the unity of the Australian people. Through these experiences of the Bush legend, Eureka, Gallipoli, the Rats of Tobruk and the fighting along the Kokoda Trail, the Australian national identity upheld. After World War Two the White Australia Policy would quietly fade away under the changes of immigration policy resulting in an influx of people from around the world coming to live in Australia. By 1972, the official policies of multiculturalism in Australia would come to fruition, essentially becoming the 'nail in the coffin' of the old and fundamentally conservative Australian national identity.

By 1972 the re-interpretation and evalutation of Australian history was underway. But it was not a thorough re-interpretation because the post-modern historians disliked grand-narratives. For the most part historians only re-interpreted Australian history in specific areas, leaving a fractured and complex historical account. In the space of two decades the strong, solid national identity of Australia was broken down into pieces (this mirrors the nature of the multicultural society in these post-modern which historians were living in) and still, to this day, our national identity remains divided. Across the world the old and outdated picture of the "bronzed aussie" or the "Aussie Battler" echoes. The struggle of Australia today is to unite all of the different cultures under the one flag. This will not be easy due to the Aboriginal problem: Do we incorporate violent acts of dispossession into our history? If so, how do we do this without creating an undying (and unfair) shame for many generations of Australians that had nothing to do with those matters. Or do we view history only through the lens of the Black Arm Band movement? Neglecting the European grand narrative and leaving us with the same problem, essentially, who are we? What does it mean to be Australian? These questions are important and they need to be brought to the public sphere so that all Australians have the chance to engage within the debate. The issue is not solved there, however, because who is to decide what makes an Australian? Are people who have lived here for five generations more Australian than the immigrant family that arrived three months ago? Or what about the Islamic man that came to Australia six years ago and has lived here ever since after receiving his citizenship, is he less of an Australian than the eighteen year old boy who has a grand-father that served in the Second World War? These are all important questions to ask because they all relate, in a real way, to the problem of Australian's current national identity: it doesn't exist.
In the end, the best way for Australia to move forward is to maintain the ideals of the past:
The fair go, equality, mateship and courage.
Many a man and woman has gone through tough times and survived living by those ideals and, one hopes that the Australian nation will continue to survive through these ideals for many years to come.

Essentially, it is the task of Twenty-first century Australian historians (and all Australian people, for that matter) to learn from the past in order to make better decisions in the future; it is pertinent to recognize that Australia is a multi-cultural society and that it always will be, but, for the development and prosperity of Australia we must weave the many different cultures and histories of this nation into a grand narrative for the sake of creating a strong and independent nation that recognizes where it has come from and where it strives to go. To do this we must uphold democracy, we cannot afford to marginalize people and cultures for the sake of creating a grand narrative, it simply would not work in the long run. To create this all encompassing grand narrative it is fundamental to properly understand the development of democracy within Australia because through appreciation and comprehension of Australian democracy the the global ideals of equality and freedom, decorated with the iconic Australian values of mateship and a"fair go" are brought to the forefront of the complex debate about the Australian national identity, which, in and of itself, is a positive thing.






In its section on post-arrival policy titled 'From Many Cultures Towards One Nation', the new
Liberal policy gave a coherent articulation of a common Australian identity as an alternative
to multiculturalism. It acknowledged that such an identity had been developed from migrants
Brian Galligan, Winsome Roberts: Australian Multiculturalism
from many countries and was continuing to evolve. This was a more positive contribution
than sniping at multiculturalism and flirting with racial restrictions. The policy affirmed that
Australia’s identity was unique, and had been forged by successive waves of immigrants from
many nations. In bringing their cultural traditions and heritage to Australia, many immigrants
had enriched Australian society by opening it up to new influences and a wider understanding
and appreciation of different backgrounds. The result was the development of a nation with a
uniquely Australian lifestyle.
We want to see one Australia proud of its diverse heritage and able to benefit as a
nation from its individual groups. We do not want to see an Australia of individual
groups, each stressing their differences and only linked in the loosest of ways by a
mutual tolerance of diversity.35
Howard lost the leadership of the Liberal party and the Liberal National coalition lost the next
two elections in 1990 and 1993. However, the FitzGerald report's findings and Howard's
crusade highlighted the growing disquiet with multiculturalism.

(look at page 14)

http://www.utas.edu.au/government/APSA/GalliganRoberts.pdf

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/06evolution.htm







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