'AUSTRALIA' - what's in a name?

‘AUSTRALIA’ – WHAT’S IN A NAME?

PART ONE

Preamble

Australia’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, in a New Year’s message announced that, in 2014, “I will also start the conversation about a constitutional referendum to recognise the first Australians. This would complete our Constitution rather than change it.”

With that announcement from the Australian Prime Minister we can regard the conversation as being well and truly on the discussional agenda for the present, at least,

Not that is was absent from the discussional agenda prior to the Prime Ministers New Year message. It is a debate that has been going on for some time. A long process preceded the Rudd government making a commitment to a referendum on this issue.

The new Prime Minister’s imprimatur, however, will be useful for those people who require reassurances before taking up this most touchy of issues for Anglo-Australians.

But make no mistakes, no real change can come from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. A peoples movement is required if we are to truly heal life in this country.

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WHY I CANNOT CALL HOME ‘AUSTRALIA’

“The revolution is just a T-Shirt away” (Billy Bragg)

A recent minor furore about the sale of a T-Shirt has provided me with some unexpected food for thought.

The disputed T-Shirt in question stated that Australia was established in 1788. Those people rightly opposed to what former Senator Aden Ridgeway aptly named the ‘terra nullius of the mind’ were quick to call this denial of First Peoples long and prior presence in this country “racist”.

The T-Shirt was removed from sale. A minor debate followed regarding when ‘Australia’ could have been said to have been established.

Some pointed out that in  1788 the British authorities ‘established’ New South Wales and not ‘Australia’.

The Commonwealth of Australia was founded in 1901 by the British Act which became the Australian Constitution.

There is a good brief account on Wikipedea of the emergence of the term ‘Australia’ prior to and after 1788.

See Section headed “Etymology” at www.en.wikipedea.org/wiki/Australia

The Wikipedea entry notes that while the use of these the terms ‘Australia’ and ‘Australian’ appear to have been in use earlier, the 1814 publication of Matthew Flinders makes passing use of ‘Australia’ and, in a section, on botany by Robert Brown, to ‘Australian’.

Flinders states that he preferred ‘Australia’ to the ‘Terra Australis’ of his wealthy patron Sir Joseph Banks. He gives as one reason that this is “… an assimilation to the names of the other great regions of the earth.” That is, Asia, Africa, America … Australia.

Interestingly all these names seem to originate from European sources rather than from the places they designate. If that is correct, then there is a very Eurocentric process at work in how we (Westernised peoples) conceptualise our home planet.

At the time of Flinders the term ‘Australia’ would have had a more limited range of meanings to those of today. There was, as is obvious, no Australian nation in 1814 – it was still the early days of colonisation. ‘Australia’ and ‘Australian’ would have referred to the place but not the social formation now known by the same terms.

These two very different meanings act as a language trap for anyone want to talk about, on the one hand, this country and, on the other, the social formation which has gradually taken shape since 1788.

We lack a vocabulary for talking about this country in contrast to talking about the dominant social formation. And the latter systematically expropriates the whole of life here into a monocultural form of nationalism which privilege introduced Anglo norms.

Accompanying this systematic privileging of Western Ways are the people who seek to accommodate First Peoples within the existing ‘nation’.

Unlike Prime Minister Abbott, who seeks to complete the Constitution rather than change, we have to go much further than changing the 1901 Constitution,

The true challenge is to reform the notion of a single one-sided nation (concentrated around a cluster of norms) to bring it into better conformity with the realities of this country (for which we lack a name) and which allows equal space for First Peoples norms.

In looking for new socio-cultural forms for life here we need to turn away from modern Europe and develop a better understanding of First Peoples Ways.

As a first step in this direction, we need to find a new vocabulary and, perhaps, a new language. 

SOUTH IS NORTH IN BACK-TO-FRONT OZ

My Australian Collins Pocket Dictionary of the English Language does not give an entry for ‘Australia’. It does have one for ‘Australian’ without any etymology. For other entries such as ‘austral’ and  ‘Austro-‘ Collins provides the derivation as L. auster – the south.

Other sources show that ‘Australian’ appears to have derived from a French term. (So, a linguistic genealogy which possibly runs trough Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, French, English)

Generally speaking its is clear that the term ‘Australia’  builds around a core notion of “South”  which is derived from Latin as adopted by North  Europeans.

The earlier use of variations of ‘Australia’ to refer to a southern land were used by Europeans in the northern hemisphere.

After all these centuries in this country, we still do not have a truly indigenous name or names for the place we live in. Same can be said of ‘America’ for that matter.

So for those non-indigenous people who still call ‘Australia’ home, they have accepted a term of identity which is only indirectly related to where they live. They are ‘southerners’ - as viewed from a north European perspective.

From an indigenous Australian perspective, they may actually be better identified as ‘northerners’.  I am not sure what the Latin term for ‘north’ may be. ‘Aquilo’ and ‘borealis’ have been suggested as appropriate vis-à-vis ‘auster’ and ‘australis’.

There is more to this than mere geography.

MY THREE TWEETS

I made three tweets at the time of the minor debate about the ‘Australia Est 1788’ t-shirt incident: and someone asked me to expand (which is what set me to write this present piece). The three tweets were:

1. "Australia" - southern land. Defined by relation to European northern others (not here) Brief account at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia 

2. "Australia" - a southern neo-Europe and not merely descriptive? Time for a new/indigenous name or names? Discuss until Jan 27!

3.  "Australia" - name; Commonwealth constitution; socio-cultural construct - all inherently racist? Add to PM Abbott 'conversation'

I think the first point has been covered.

MODERN AUSTRALIA IS A NEO-EUROPE.

The second point, is that ‘Australia’ is a southern neo-Europe and not merely descriptive.  Alfred W. Crosby made use of the term ‘neo-Europe’ in his 1986 book “Ecological Imperialism – The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900.”

Crosby looked at how European peoples have displaced the original peoples and the original practices especially in the temperate regions of the earth, and substituted their own ways. The model i prefer is that provided by the notion of cloning.

In this country, the Ways of First Peoples (which life has placed at the nucleus) have been suppressed and a European form of culture forcefully implanted in order to monopolise the richness of First Peoples living countries.

That is, Australia (as presently constituted) is a clone from a European country, and not just a name for a continent (and islands).

This goes beyond considerations of the linguistic and social origins of terms of identity. There is no secret that modern Australia was established – colonies, states and commonwealth - by a process which excluded recognition of the existing cultural practices, languages and rights of First Peoples.

The forms of governance, social organisation and cultural practices instituted here derives entirely from European sources and, by way of a corollary, derives nothing from First Peoples Ways.

INHERENTLY RACIST

The third point touches on the present Australian Constitution and the mainstream socio-cultural constructs as being inherently racist. Racism against First Peoples has been institutionalised for so long here that it is taken as ‘normal’.

The recent appalling Australian Parliament’s treatment of First Peoples in the Northern Territory – by both the Howard and Rudd-Gillard governments – in the name of a national emergency/intervention provides clear evidence of not only how these forms of racism operate but how they are accepted, by the wider non-indigenous Australians, as ‘normal’.

In that instance First Peoples were not only treated as objects (and not as Peoples with a voice or voices), they were subject to draconian statutory restrictions which applied across the board as though their lives are the mere plaything of non-indigenous politicians – which they have been for far too long.

We may enter the 21^st century with the letter and the spirit of United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in mind – but not so for the Australian Parliament, nor the mainstream media and far too many non-indigenous peoples.

Those who regard the 1901 ‘White Australia’ Constitution to be complete as it stands – rather than a heartless document – will continue to seek to preserve the outmoded forms of privilege which it made possible.

So i actually write for a much smaller demographic – those who know – in their Being – that there is something seriously wrong with the present life-arrangements in this country and a corresponding need for some serious life healing measures to restore well-being here.

These healing measures will never be possible if the only ‘conversation’ is one pleasing to the ears of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

New voices are required to round out the process contra those who can only sing the praises of the culturally one-sided modern nation-state.

AN EMPTINESS OF SOUL

All this has lead me to be more aware of a sort of emptiness of soul which comes with the social process of identifying by the European term ‘Australian’.

Despite the fact i have lived so much of my life here, have family here and invested so much of my self in coming to understand this country - despite loving this country in ways which worry me vis-à-vis my similar attachment to New Zealand/Aotearoa – i cannot embrace a sense of collective identity with a nation-state entity which has no reasonable relationship with the original First Peoples - let alone a formal treaty or treaties – and which continues to abuse and mistreat First Peoples as a matter of course.

When i tell people “I am not ‘Australian’ “ I am – understandably – mistaken to be saying “I am a New Zealander”. People operate with a prefabricated sense of identity provided for them by the modern nation-state.

The modern nation-state, as described so well by Benedict Anderson in a book by the same name is an “Imaginary Community”.

It seems to be incomprehensible to people who identify in such ‘limited’ terms that there are real options which are much less restricted than being ‘either’ an Australian ‘or’ a member of some other nation-state.

What is required is some means by which the incomplete part of an ‘Australian’ identity can be brought into a rounded fullness and not restricted to that thin definition of Being which derives from Europe as adapted to ‘Australia’ as solely a neo-Europe.

To be an ‘Australian’ means – amongst so many other things – to accept the definition of who were are by reference to a word derived from Latin for ‘south’.  In other words, to be permanently dislocated from my surrounding as gauged by someone else’s position in the northern hemisphere.

Added to this, the cultures of those northern peoples is not as superior as they would like us all to believe.

I am not ‘south’ – i am here. But where is ‘here’ exactly? My here is in a country which carries inscribed on its soul – sung by countless generations of First Peoples’ songmen and songwomen -   very different Ways of Being.

We need a new name for the country i want to identify with – a name which comes from this country itself, not from the northern hemisphere. And with that new name, a new country in which First Peoples are engaged and active as cultural partners.

A tall order. Probably will never happen in my lifetime. I am 66 and this is the end game stage of my adult life – but a new country waits to come into Being and, for that to happen, we conceptual craftspeople have to fashion the appropriate forms of representation, despite the odds.

BI-CULTURALLY BALANCED

New Zealand/Aotearoa is a little more bi-culturally balanced than life in this country. Aotearoa is a Maori word meaning Land of the Long White Cloud.  By having an official dual naming policy there is a direct and immediate form of recognition – and affirmation - of Maori people as First Peoples.

By contrast, the term ‘Australia’ standing on its own does not recognise and affirm First Peoples whose ancestors were here long before European countries derived their present names.

I wonder if my problems with calling this country home would be solved if we had an indigenous name or names to stand beside ‘Australia’ as part of a through-going dual naming policy?

CONCLUSION - SOUNDS OF CICADAS

This summer’s fantastic cicada chorus serves as an apt metaphor for    what is required from an effective peoples movement. A great number of voices singing the same tune. We have a long way to go on this front.

If the 19^th and 20^th centuries have belonged to the nationalists in this country (and elsewhere) the 21^st and 22^nd centuries will belong to those who leave nationalism behind and embrace new forms of identity and new Ways of Being.

  

The a priori and unproven presumption of ‘superior’ European Ways – with supposed cultural roots in ancient Greece and Rome – can no longer be accepted at face value.

It is time to lay modern Australia to rest and to create new forms -  new conditions of Being. This reform of Western life should have been set into practice in 1788 when Europeans arrived here. It was not and has been delayed for over two centuries.

The ‘Australia’ which people like John Howard, Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne wish to provide with state-sanctioned and entrenched levels of privilege is no more than a shell like that of a cicada.

Their ‘Australia’ is set to become a dry and empty exuvia – a formerly constraining exoskeleton, which having served its purpose,  remains behind when a richer form of life has shed its skin, magically grown new wings, and taken flight in order to join the grand chorus of life affirming songs.