Aussie Aussie Oi

Samuel Johnson famously declared that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel, but the American satirist Ambrose Bierce may have been closer to the mark when he said that it was the first. In any case, the fog of patriotic fervour now lies so heavy on the Australian political landscape that it is necessary to clear some of it away lest we lose direction entirely.

Attachment to the good habits and institutions of one's country and a modest pride in the genuine achievements of one's co-nationals is a commendable attitude, capable of forging ties and cementing community feeling. But patriotism has a strong tendency to go beyond this. The slogan, "My country, right or wrong" is palpably absurd, but the more seductive, though equally foolish, idea is that my country can actually do no wrong, or, at any rate, no serious wrong. The emotions of patriotism all too often blind us to the moral crimes and follies that "we" have committed and can again commit. When this is combined with the political advantages of populism, the mixture can be lethal. It is not only scoundrels who misuse patriotism; the foolish and opportunistic also do it.

Our politicians are falling over themselves to reach the peak of Patriot Hill. They vie with each other to make new and more dramatic proposals for pulling the rest of us into line with some opaque vision of Australian values. The proposals range from the conspicuously silly, such a Kim Beazley's visa pledge to Aussie values for tourists to the downright unpleasant, such as Andrew Robb's proposal to force migrants to wait four years for citizenship instead of the present two. There is even a whiff of it in Julie Bishop's call for a common national school curriculum designed to fend off Marxist, feminist and even (God help us!) Maoist interpretations apparently being foisted on our unsuspecting Aussie kids by ideologues in state education bureaucracies.

Much of this combines exaggerated fear with extravagant attachment to a comforting fantasy of a stereotypical Australia. The fantasy is supposed to protect us from the fear. The fear itself is partly a genuine if overwrought fear of terrorist acts, and partly a formless dread of unusual foreigners, especially, nowadays, Muslims.

I remember when Australian patriotism used to be a quiet and modest affair. The 1950s that our Prime Minister is so fond of was actually a time when loud affectations of "Aussie values", condemnations of "anti-Australian behaviour", and indulgence in flag-worship would have been greeted with astonishment and scorn. I can only hope that some of that earthy, cynical realism remains in our make-up, but decades of exploitative advertising ("C'mon Aussie, c'mon") and imitation of the most sentimental elements in American culture have undoubtedly had their effect. The idea that respect for law, regard for justice ("fair go"), and concern for women's rights somehow flourish distinctively here ("Aussie values") and languish everywhere else is of course nonsense, but that is the impression regularly conveyed by many of our political leaders, and reinforced in much of the media.

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