As our annual obsession with national identity reaches its peak, after weeks of debate into the meaning of red meat, high carb beverages and the quaint French phrase ‘oi, oi, oi’, here is one more idea to think about.
On Australia Day 1999 the Coalition Government introduced the reaffirmation ceremony to mark 50 years of Australian Citizenship. It’s a pretty simple idea where natural born Australians join with those who are taking up citizenship for the first time to recite the pledge together:
“As an Australian citizen, I affirm my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I uphold and obey.”
I like the idea and have suggested we take this up in my own local Council area in the Sutherland Shire in Sydney in future years. The appeal of the reaffirmation is that it’s inclusive.
Citizenship imposes obligations on all of us, not just those who sign up. Now I know we all understand this, but there is something about standing up, shoulder to shoulder, with those who are becoming Australians for the first time, and identifying that we have the same rights, responsibilities and obligations to our country.
It is also an opportunity for those whom citizenship has been a birthright to pause and reflect on just how lucky we are. New citizens have the opportunity to say it out loud. It’s nice to have the same opportunity.
What I like about citizenship is that it’s absolute. I cannot be more of an Australian citizen than you and vice versa. The act of saying this together is a great demonstration of this fact.
I know that many Australians are concerned that there is still a long way to go before all sub-groups within our broader Australian community are flowing effortlessly in the mainstream of Australian society. I agree that this should be the goal. The question is, are we helping or hindering this goal?
In the past we called this assimilation. Today, people get offended by this phrase, just as many dislike the word multiculturalism. These language anxieties are the product of too many politically charged and correct conversations. For me, I believe these words have the same objective.
You don’t have to deny your heritage to embrace your Australian future. But you cannot seek to create an Australia for yourself that simply mirrors what you left behind – isolated from the rest of our great community. Our shared values, culture and laws define what it is to be Australian, and that is what brings us together.
Last year I trekked Kokoda with a team of young people form the Shire and Bankstown with my friend and parliamentary colleague, Labor MP Jason Clare. What struck me most during those six and a half days of pain, was that we all shared one thing. The diggers died and sacrificed themselves for all of us – none more than the other.
They had no idea about who would be living in Australia in sixty years time. They died to defend Australia’s freedom and values and create a future for our country. A future where today 45% of Australians have been born overseas or at least one of their parents were. We are all part of this future they made possible and we had joined together to honour those that had bequeathed it to us.
As we stood at the Isurava Memorial Dr Jamal Rifi stood with the young Muslim Australians he had brought along with him, and said proudly in a mark of deep respect at this sacred Australian site, our faith is Islam our country is Australia. If you believe in freedom or religion as one of Australia’s great virtues, then you will really appreciate just how magnificent that statement was.
Dr Rifi is one of those extraordinary Muslim leaders in Sydney’s south west who champions daily bringing together his community into the mainstream of Australian society. He is a great Australian.
We do not help the Dr Rifi’s of our country when we allow attitudes of division and hatred to brew. Such attitudes play into the hands of those who favour exclusion and conflict from both sides of the debate. These negative individuals seek to define their communities by who is opposed to them and who they oppose, rather than what they are a part of. They like the ‘us and them’ narrative, it suits their purpose, but it is not in our national interest.
As Australians, we cannot allow the ‘us and them’ mentality to dominate our thinking. There is no ‘us and them’ if we are truly serious about what Australian citizenship really means.
Australia is an inclusive notion. We are not a combination of unrelated sub-communities who all happen to live on the same big island. We are a great Australian community that shares values, obligations and responsibilities to make what we leave behind, even better than what we inherited, whether by birth or choice.
So this year on Australia Day why not renew your vows. Go to the website @ http://www.australianaffirmation.org.au to learn more about it. It’s probably too late to get involved in any formal ceremony. So why not just do it around your BBQ with your family and your mates as an act of thanksgiving for the carcinogenic bounty you are about to receive.
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