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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/25/im-not-usually-patriotic-but-pauline-hansons-cheap-nationalism-has-me-rooting-for-multicultural-australia-ntwnfb>
"Patriotism is always stubbornly absent in me on days of official national
commemoration.
Australia Day – Invasion Day – has always left me cold for its divisiveness,
historical asymmetry and exclusivity. Anzac Day, an unofficial national day for
many, has never raised a patriotic shiver in me.
I admit to feeling more than a little buoyant on particular international
sporting occasions. Australia flogging England, here or there, in an Ashes Test
series gives me an anticolonial glow. But not exactly a patriotic high.
But true stories of Australian multi-ethnicity that play out on sporting fields
or in so many cultural spheres, stories that reinforce my faith in an Australia
that would be altered irrevocably by those advocating monoculturalism (or who
at best supinely equivocate about it) do make me feel patriotic.
Take the Socceroos and the football World Cup. They represented a modern nation
that is built on an overwhelming rejection of the abhorrent White Australia
policy.
The blind racism and profound illogicality that underpins so much of One
Nation’s so-called policies on economics, immigration and social cohesion were
exposed by Pauline Hanson’s absurd proposition that the Socceroos (for all
their racial diversity) represent an Australian monoculture. Get her a
dictionary, please.
The Socceroos embody and embrace a repudiation of the cheap nationalistic
racial and religious prejudice that some One Nation officials (and others)
blithely parrot. It was reassuring to see a senior federal government figure,
Penny Wong, robustly debunk such fever-dream jingoistic bunkum."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
