Tuesday, 12th December, 2006
The government has announced that it is putting in place a test for those wishing to become Australian Citizens. This will include a knowledge of the English language, Australian values, culture and history and the concept of mateship, this latter being what the rest of the world describes as "caring for one another" and which our PM seems to think is somehow uniquely Australian.
I wonder if I could pass the test? No problem with the English language, although the one I hear spoken is not the one I learned as a child and I like have to keep up to date like with the changes and like it's so easy (not) you know like it's different and so you know like random.
Australian values. This is a sticky one as no one seems to be able to agree on what these are and it will be interesting to see how the government manages to collect, identify and define them. (Had an image of the PM trying to catch chooks as I wrote that). Values and culture are intertwined and it all seemed so clear when I arrived in Australia: life was geared up to leisure activities and the working population spent five days organising how they were going to spend the weekend. It really did appear to be no worries and fair go and she'll be right mate. I was overwhelmed by the hedonistic society I had chosen to join and did my utmost to discard my Protestant work ethic as rapidly as possible so that I could embrace this beach and barbie lifestyle, the closest to Paradise I had encountered. Nowadays the catch phrase is still "It's all good, mate!" but whereas that used to mean we'd managed to chip in enough money for a slab of beer it may now mean that the speaker has just purchased his third investment property. What am I saying? I suppose that leisure and an easy life style used to be valued above the idea of working for the sake of acquisition. The values and culture of a country cannot be pinned down - they fluctuate with new arrivals, new ideas, new aspirations.
As to Australian history, whose version do we want would-be citizens to learn? Should they be looking through black eyes or white eyes as to the impact of the invasion of the continent and the subsequent 200+ years? Should they read Henry Reynolds or Keith Windschuttle? Probably it will be the history which suits Little Johnny, the 1950s nice clean white man, who lived in nice clean white Earlwood and who never fell asleep on the red earth to the plaintive drone of the digeridoo.
Good luck, all would-be Aussies. For myself, I cannot think "Australian Citizen" without thinking "David Hicks". I fear it will be ever thus.
The government has announced that it is putting in place a test for those wishing to become Australian Citizens. This will include a knowledge of the English language, Australian values, culture and history and the concept of mateship, this latter being what the rest of the world describes as "caring for one another" and which our PM seems to think is somehow uniquely Australian.
I wonder if I could pass the test? No problem with the English language, although the one I hear spoken is not the one I learned as a child and I like have to keep up to date like with the changes and like it's so easy (not) you know like it's different and so you know like random.
Australian values. This is a sticky one as no one seems to be able to agree on what these are and it will be interesting to see how the government manages to collect, identify and define them. (Had an image of the PM trying to catch chooks as I wrote that). Values and culture are intertwined and it all seemed so clear when I arrived in Australia: life was geared up to leisure activities and the working population spent five days organising how they were going to spend the weekend. It really did appear to be no worries and fair go and she'll be right mate. I was overwhelmed by the hedonistic society I had chosen to join and did my utmost to discard my Protestant work ethic as rapidly as possible so that I could embrace this beach and barbie lifestyle, the closest to Paradise I had encountered. Nowadays the catch phrase is still "It's all good, mate!" but whereas that used to mean we'd managed to chip in enough money for a slab of beer it may now mean that the speaker has just purchased his third investment property. What am I saying? I suppose that leisure and an easy life style used to be valued above the idea of working for the sake of acquisition. The values and culture of a country cannot be pinned down - they fluctuate with new arrivals, new ideas, new aspirations.
As to Australian history, whose version do we want would-be citizens to learn? Should they be looking through black eyes or white eyes as to the impact of the invasion of the continent and the subsequent 200+ years? Should they read Henry Reynolds or Keith Windschuttle? Probably it will be the history which suits Little Johnny, the 1950s nice clean white man, who lived in nice clean white Earlwood and who never fell asleep on the red earth to the plaintive drone of the digeridoo.
Good luck, all would-be Aussies. For myself, I cannot think "Australian Citizen" without thinking "David Hicks". I fear it will be ever thus.
posted by Rosie at 6:46 PM
2 Comments:
Oh! Rose. How glorious to read you again. I thought you must have died! Where have you been?? What have you been doing? Watching bloody cricket I guess. What nonsense this citizenship test is! I think that many of those born in this country wouldn't pass the test and if they included a spelling test it would have been back to England for me!!!!
Nicky xxx
Thank you, darling - sorry for the delay but I hope you appreciate that I've posted a whole entry today without mentioning the "c" word. This may mean that I am in recovery after England's disastrous loss. However, I'm definitely not going to shag Flintoff again. xxx
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