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True blues

4/7/2018

4 Comments

 
Picture
In 42 years, Anne Heath Mennell has never had to prove her Australian status or justify her loyalty. But then she's white ... 

By Anne Heath Mennell

IN SEPTEMBER 2017, early in the so-called “citizenship crisis”,  I wrote about my personal experience of taking out Australian citizenship, back in the 1970s, along with some reflections on what “citizenship” means for people.

I thought I’d said all I had to say on the matter but a recent article by Waleed Aly in The Age (Why are all our dual citizens white?) made me think again.  He suggests that our reactions to the (largely Anglo-Celtic or Anglo-Saxon) parliamentarians caught up in the recent dramas might have been different if they had been of Iranian, Chinese or Indonesian stock.  He writes: “We still think of New Zealand and Britain as places that are only technically foreign countries … When we think of our migrant communities, we’re not imagining Kiwis and Brits”. 

However, it wasn’t those arguments that caught my eye but the following sentence: “Australian citizenship didn’t even exist before 1948, and when it did, Australians were still legally considered British subjects until that was finally undone in 1987.”

Nineteen eighty seven!  So what was I doing, in 1976, renouncing my allegiance to the Queen of England and swearing my allegiance to the Queen of Australia?  As a new Australian citizen, with a lovely certificate to prove it, it appears I was still a subject of Her Majesty, although now owing her no direct “allegiance”, only indirectly through my new status as an Australian citizen …  Down the rabbit hole, anyone?

Fortunately, I have never had to test this conundrum.  As Aly points out: “If you’re white, from an Anglophonic background and an Australian citizen, then you face no questions.  Your Australian-ness is presumed and uncomplicated.  It never needs to be proven and never needs to be justified.”

I have never yet been asked to prove my status or justify my loyalty, which is a relief as my lovely citizenship certificate was stolen some years ago, along with my original UK birth certificate and other important papers. The only exception is when it comes to The Cricket, which is much more important to “real” Aussies than politics. If asked, I just say that I can’t lose because whichever side wins, I’m happy. 

Does that mean I have divided loyalties? Should I be hauled before some tribunal?  After 42 years, am I not a “real” Aussie?  What about people of Chinese heritage whose families have been here for over 100 years?  When does the foreign connection stop being of concern?

If all dual citizens are automatically suspect and people of certain ethnic backgrounds are still considered “foreign” (“Yes, but where are you REALLY from?”) then, in this multicultural country of ours, we could have a pretty limited pool from which to select our political representatives. 

​I’m all for setting precautions against undue influence or interference, wherever it comes from, but the debates in recent times have really made me think.  So, what does make a loyal, committed Aussie?
4 Comments
Christopher Eastman-Nagle link
6/7/2018 07:29:37 pm

We Anglos are a bit modest about ourselves these days, because it is no longer fashionable to acknowledge how much this country owes us.

It became what it is now as result of enormous sacrifices of blood and treasure made by the British people in the early part of the nineteenth century.

The Napoleonic wars from 1803-1814 decided whether this continent would become French or English, or a combination thereof, as happened in North America forty to fifty years before.

Those Europe wide wars cost the ultimately victorious British armed forces around 300,000 men. The French losers lost nearly a million. A colossal price was paid in blood and treasure to secure this continent for Anglophones and the British institutions that define this now modern space.

It is timely to remind ourselves of the real price of modern real estate. That is why we British still have a few very slight residual privileges, albeit disappearing ones.

To put that in some kind of perspective, the price that the Americans paid to keep the Japanese out of Australia in 1942 was around 45 thousand men.

Reply
Pete Granger
7/7/2018 11:52:22 pm

Christopher. As a boy, my late father, a WWII air force officer would take me aside. ‘After I’m gone, never let anyone forget the sacrifice the Americans made in saving Australia from Japanese invasion and occupation’. I suppose I didn’t think much of it at the time. Like so much good parental advice it probably fell on indifferent ears. Whilst it was never front of mind, I never could quite shake that thought - and the earnestness of its delivery. Much later, ex-Prime Ministers Fraser and Keating, as well as state Premier Bob Carr publicly canvassed the possible abandonment of the US alliance, and replacing it with China. Just to complicate matters, son number one had married an American, and son number two married an Australian of both Chinese and Japanese descent. It was as if our family had become a metaphor for the whole Pacific conflagration. In such a situation, allegiances may come up for grabs. But those sobering words from the old-man kept ringing in my ears – and louder than ever. The gospel according to one of history’s eye-witness. To me, those words have belatedly assumed greater prominence and verity than at any time in my life.

Reply
Bron Dahlstrom
7/7/2018 01:41:14 am

Thank-you for your article, Anne. You rightly say, “Australian citizenship didn’t even exist before 1948, and when it did, Australians were still legally considered British subjects until that was finally undone in 1987.” It is also important to remember that until the referendum on May 27th, 1967, Indigenous Australians were not recognised as citizens of Australia; instead they were regarded as flora and fauna.

Reply
Jean Coffey
10/7/2018 12:10:56 pm

Thank you Annie, Christopher & Pete for providing me with the opportunity of reviewing long forgotten critical information. This will provide the basis of my next d & m with my 19yo grandson!

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