National Identity, Identifying with Strangers

In the aftermath of the 2005 Cronulla riots, then prime minister John Howard famously said: ''I do not accept that there is underlying racism in this country. I have always taken a more optimistic view of the character of the Australian people.''

The statement is a tautology. In the tradition of Australia Day, and being an anarchist at heart I will talk about Australia and my dislike of nationalism.

Racism is positive and negative, hence to make a generalisation like 'Australians aren't racist' is a self contradicting statement. It is perhaps easier to see the racism if you rephrase it 'racists aren't Australian'. admittedly the first version only implies that such a thing as 'racists' exist.

Am I racist? probably.

But looking back at 2009, the two items that got the police in the headlines were - 'Attacks on Indian students' and 'Drunken youth riots/Inner city violence'. It's the latter I'd like to focus on.

Nothing is more Australian than having a drink (?). VB sponsors Anzac day, suggesting Veterans not only by themselves a beer at the local RSL but one for their dead compatriots too.

But when drunken kids (and older) wail on each other late at night in the CBD you don't see people commenting 'If these kids were Islamic we wouldn't have this problem'. Which is true, the violence in the CBD it would appear is not caused by Australia's growing Muslim community.

Nor would any press stating 'This is an inherently Christian problem' see the light of day, even though it was monks that invented beer, Islam prohibits it in all it mainstream incarnations.

Well, welcome to the party, most Australian's would be indignant if somebody suggested (say India) that we were a pack of violent drunken racist yobs, knowing that this was actually some small white bread minority presumably from a set of suburbs occupying a different point on the compass.

But this is how the image gets hijacked by the misbehaving minority. Suck it up, suck it up real good. They say you only lose your integrity once, even if your track record is shining for 40 years it just takes one stupid or criminal act to undo it all. Forging a 'national identity' simply makes you 21 million times more vulnerable to having one person fuck it all up for you.

When you choose to identify with strangers, be prepared to share their identity. I know the practicalities of citizenship in this world of passports, visas and what-not make it appear as though we have little choice, but being lumped in with a pack of drunk hooligans is just how the cookie crumbles.

Much like being lumped in with a small group of terrorists, fundamentalists and probably a much larger group of plain old freedom fighters is the fate of those who choose to identify with Islam. It doesn't make it right, and it could be worse, you could be Christian and lumped in with pro-lifers, creationists and republicans, just taking the example of minority writ large on your national identity as a wake up call to treat all national 'characters' with a grain of salt.

Better yet, be a person, and just treat everyone you meet with compassion.

A national identity whether positive or negative is racist.