Talk It Out reproduces the twenty questions from the new citizenship test which have been released and wonders:
Now I may be too cynical, but I am not convinced that Australian-born citizens will be able to answer all these questions. I wonder how many know who the first prime minister was or what the floral emblem of Australia is or are able to tell the difference between head of state and head of government. Recall that a survey done some years ago found that 50% of the population didn’t know that Australia had a written constitution (and a majority of those who did know, thought it contained a Bill of Rights).
Speaking as someone who teaches first and second year university students Politics, I can guarentee her that very few of the best educated young citizens have a clue about the basics of how our political system works.
Unfortunately, the full list of questions hasn’t been released. But apparently there’s a 12 page booklet which gives potential citizens all the info they need to crib for the test.
ALTHOUGH many Australians might struggle to grasp their significance to everyday life, the program of the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony, the emergence of the Heidelberg School of impressionist art and the uses of the stump-jump plough have emerged as potential questions on the Federal Government’s citizenship test.
I’m afraid I know bugger all about the “use of the stump-jump plough” and not a great deal about art movements of the nineteenth century.
With a heavy focus on achievements at war and identifying “Australian values”, it also nominates cricket as the nation’s favourite international sport.
Is it though? I bet more Australians watch international soccer.
Pitched at a year 10 level of understanding, the booklet borders at times on the sentimental. Australia’s first governor, Captain Arthur Phillip, is remembered as “firm yet humane”, Sir Donald Bradman as “small and slight, but amazingly quick on his feet”.
….And often distrusted by half his team because of his vociferous sectarian bias against Catholics? I doubt that’s in there.
The whole thing is a farce. I wonder if prospective citizens are let into the mystery of the definition of “aspirational nationalism”.
Update: Here’s a pdf of the draft booklet.
Jaesus. What have we become? Could we just have that election and get these clowns out of the way?
Oh the corrosive nature of cynicism! I understand one of the questions is the first line of the national anthem. I don’t know, and I don’t care. It always sounds to me like a dirge. I think it should be reframed to Advance Australia Where?
The whole exercise is cynical, and inspires cynicism.
I wish someone would commision Newspoll to do a survey which told us how many Australians could actually pass this citizenship test. Be alot more interesting than whether Labor has dropped another point in the last fortnight on the 2pp.
This in particular annoys me:
60,000 odd years in four sentence, less than 250 years for the rest.
Typical.
PS: just to make it interesting you could
1) do the survey entirely within Pauline Hanson’s old electorate
2) or add a question asking how strongly the respondent supports the Howard/Hanson views on immigration. Then you could correlate the results with whether they passed the test. I’d bet that, on average, being a H & H supporter means you are too dumb to pass a citizen test in your country of birth.
“Too dumb” has nothing to do with it, Swio. I’m completely ignorant of “the landing in 1606 of the Dutchman William Jansz on the Cape York Peninsula”.
The problem with the test is that it tests facts rather than values, but this is easily solved. Rather than asking who first Prime Minister was, it should ask who the next Prime Minister should be (answer: Warney); who is the greatest foreign-born Australian (answer: Jezza); what the national anthem should be (answer: any of the AFL club songs, apart from Collingwood’s); what behaviour is unacceptable on a buck’s night (answer: nothing); what should be the national flower (answer: anything in Warney’s front yard); who is the greatest Tasmanian (answer: Booney); what are the ideal characteristics of an Australian woman (answer: a nymphomaniac whose father owns a pub); and so on.
I thought Warney was becoming a German citizen or something…
I see. I always had my doubts about you, Mark. Unnastrayan.
I just tested my sister, she failed!
Quick, what’s the number for the Hotline I call to make a report so somebody comes and takes her away?
I’m finally going to live in peace, this is so exciting!!!
The test could also ask, Who murdered Phar Lap? Answer: those bloody Yanks! Although, this particular excursion into Australian values might uncover some unwanted anti-American sentiments.
Read what it means to be an Australian in the draft booklet
‘Floral emblem’? ‘. . . Parliament House of the Commonwealth Parliament. . . .’ How pedantic. Did Julie Bishop write this stuff? Couldn’t the question just be ‘Where is the Commonwealth Parliament located?’ and ‘What is the national flower?’ I think it’s a culturally biased language test, too.
Maybe the test could also ask the following:
Q. Which Australian Prime Minister’s family tradition has it that his father was rumoured to be a member of the pro-Nazi Fascist New Gurd in the 1930s?
A.John Winston Howard.
They could also ask Who killed Les Darcy, but the answer to that would also be deemed too anti-American.
Potential citizens should be asked a question on who won the Battle of Brisbane to make sure they are fully conversant with our glorious military history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brisbane
This is the wattle,
The emblem of our land.
You can stick it in a bottle.
You can hold it in your hand.
I think John Howard should submit to the test live on A Current Affair, and the questions should all relate to our nation’s obligations under international law. Oh, but there is nothing about “international law” in the test – albeit there are three references to “international” sporting achievements!
This bit is also interesting:
And this:
On the whole?
I very much doubt it Mark.
The aggregate attendance of Australian cricket matches last year was about 1.2 million. The Socceroos only play a couple of games a year in Australia. As far as television viewing goes, the Asian Cup wasn’t even on free-to-air.
In all, I don’t think the booklet’s that bad an attempt at an impossible task (I would agree that perhaps more information on the first Australians would be desirable), but the fundamental premise – that “Australianness” is something you can get like a driver’s licence is utterly ridiculous.
but the fundamental premise – that “Australiannessâ€? is something you can get like a driver’s licence is utterly ridiculous.
Could not agree more.
I just tested my sister, she failed!
Quick, what’s the number for the Hotline I call to make a report so somebody comes and takes her away?
I’m finally going to live in peace, this is so exciting!!!
Heh!
that could be my son talking! (If it’s you, boyo, get off the internet and do your homework.)
Robert, I think ‘International Soccer’ refers to soccer that’s … like … international (not Orstrayan). The English, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German and South American leagues have a big viewership (from anecdotal evidence, they’d play a large part in keeping Foxtel alive in Australia).
But yeah, I reckon cricket would probably still pip it. All the non-skips watch soccer (‘football’), but there are a hell of a lot of skips.
I had to do the test of Britishness earlier this year, which inspired the home equivalent, it seems. It was a curious experience, though not an especially negative one. Apart from the vaguely quaint questions about “traditions” (what are the three things you take to a Scottish person’s house on New Year’s Eve?) most of it was about the workings of the state, especially the law and political system. A lot of it was quite useful, even if that utility has been mainly annoying native British people (not one single British person I have asked knows how many members there are in the Welsh Assembly) and it certainly reflected the differences in discourses of national identity between the UK and most other nations I know. The British middle classes regard nation as a big step down from empire, and so even now are very condescending about the whole idea, indeed, they use it to articulate their class identity, which supersedes national identity everytime. For the post-colonial, nation is a step up from colony, and so Australia’s nationalism is far more elaborated and has a richer set of stereotypes from which to draw. It seems from the way it is being reported, that the Oz test draws on all of them. It sounds like a revival of the discourse of Australian identity from the 60s and 70s, which is the point, I guess, to be an exercise in the politics of history-writing, but a test of the procedures of citizenship is not necessarily a bad thing, in my experience.
Two bottles of whiskey and a bucket. Pants, _IF_ second whiskey can’t be had.
There were no tests for those post ww2 migrants who were welcomed into Australia to increase the wealth of the nation in the 40’s and 50’s. In particular, the floral emblem of Australia was of little use to migrants like my dad who ruined his lungs sweeping up the dust particles of a chemical factory for 30 years. Nor would Edmund Barton’s name, had she known it, been of any help to my mum in her factory job were she wound the thread around suture needles for 20 years or so. It was presumed that the mob that came out would learn the ropes and so they did in every way that counted in terms of being a good citizen in Australia.
I was in Five Dock the other day and I saw a bunch of octogenerians having an animated conversation in Italian, just hanging around in a piazza in the shopping centre, like Italian men seem to have done since time immemorial. One of them was in one of those motorised constructions that lets the disabled and the aged get around. I could tell his grasp of English was rudimentary. His animated Itanglish was superb however. Stuck on the back of this old dude’s geri-mobile was a proudly flying Australian flag. It made me laugh, this contradiction of rudimentary language skills, and professed patriotism for a country where these guys also have paid their dues, interestingly without the knowledge of the national anthem’s first line. My mum is of that generation and people still say to her “I cant understand you”. She would not be able to answer not even one of those questions. Its no joke to me, this test. It smacks of the kind of exclusionary practice that Australia does so well every now and then. To those of us who made our homes here through that wave of migration or those of us who were born in this country as a result of our parents journeys, this test is an insidious reminder of how the cultural gates of exclusion or acceptance can open or shut in this country, often in an instant.
As the children of migrants, we are reminded consistently of the provisionality of cultural acceptance. This test tells us that had it been applied back then, it would resulted in failure for our parents and we feel obliged to say, that would have also failed our country. I wonder of the possibilities we will turn away now then, based on this most stupid of criteria?
Well said, casey!
MH, I’d love to see what you think a Chinese equivalent of the tests of Britishness/Australianness would look like. Do you think you could have a stab at it- either seriously or facetiously?
The whole concept of the citizenship test is sickening. It is a pointless in terms of national security and cohesion. It is a cynical exercise in dog whistle politics and is utterly depressing. How long before Kevin Andrews suggests that those who fail be made to display a suitable marking on their clothes…a star of david perhaps??
The booklet is an absolute joke – this government knows no shame. The racism and sexism is extreme. Women are not battlers or mates (only men)…although the contribution of women to pioneering is acknowledged when the man has died or is absent. This is an extreme insult.
You can just see JW Howard reviewing it…”mmm nicely done – cricket, Don Bradman, and the Anzacs – covers off all important bases.”
It makes you so wish for the end of this government but then you remember the ALP supported the legislation. Petro for PM I say.
But where are the other-language versions of the booklet? And if these are the top 20 questions, what the heck do they ask in the other 180?
Just for the pedants, I wonder if Acacia pycnantha would be accepted instead of “wattle” as the national floral emblem? Or would it be marked wrong by those 6-day trained backpackers who I assume will move on to this from the fairness test?
Australian values:
1) Everybody on the dole is a bludger.
2) The Prime Minister is a bastard but he’s a better bastard than that other bastard.
3) Foreigners are alright but why don’t they speak English and why can’t they drive.
4) This is the greatest country in the world.
5) I’m not racist but.
This is just a memory test. The type that public school boys excel at. “Here is the information”….. some of it ‘coloured the way we see it’, as Jangari rightly points out…..”and the techniques to remember it”.
The stuff you cram for at exam time and maybe get to study law or something and become a mediocre politician. Then remind all the poor buggers who have done all the dirty work for you, how “unskilled� and unlearned they are.
Lots of facts for advanced rote learning. And nothing to do with being thoughtful.
Well,
I used the 20 sample questions on the Immigration website and surveyed my mum, dad and two sisters (15 and 8).
All passed. So for Australians, the test should be a piece of cake.
For non-Australians, the purpose of it is questionable.
Sure, easy, just two words: “New Life”. When you are fashioning a national identity from the polyglot cultures which have fallen within the boundaries of a collapsed empire, you can either go left and construct a very sophisticated multiculturalism ala Liang Qichao, or you can go right and appeal to essentialism ala Sun Yat-sen. China went right, of course, in the 1920s but if you are trying to say that identity is some objective core or essence to all people the state ends up having to try to measure it in some way, and that ends up falling on visible behaviour and bodily dispositions. So you get disciplined bodies, which was what the New Life movement was all about. I love this crazy quote from Madam Chiang: “There is no wandering or shuffling about the streets, no stopping in the middle of the road, no gaping about and no blocking, the traffic. … Spitting in public places calls for a reprimand, not from the police but from the followers of the New Life Movement. Rudeness and vulgar manners have been, or are being eliminated”. “True” Chinese identity is thus demonstrated. Indeed, one of the legacies of the video I posted on my own blog, of the Taipei First Girls’ Senior High School Honour Guard and Drum Corps is definitely New Life transferred by the KMT to Taiwan, nicely subverted by all their undisciplined Taiwanese smiling.
So on that basis, the test of Australian values is pretty unsatisfactory, and there will be some on the right who want those values to be shown, not tested, and that means regulating behaviour.
Posed this on Kim’s Saturday Salon, but it belongs here:
“The Down-Under Dog Whistle�
Music by Karl Rove ,
Lyrics by Crosby Textor.
An uptempo jig suitable for both square and line-dancing.
“The Federal Government has released a draft copy of its new citizenship guidelines, which include a test requiring migrants to answer questions about Australian society and culture.�
This whole exercise saddens me although I do understand and appreciate the need on the part of many to find a way to express or define their ‘Australianess’.
The writers of the booklet have taken considerable care to try to cover as many of the bases as possible, presumably partly to minimise objection, and, being charitable, to provide a reasonably objective view of some of the history of the country.
Overall, the writers have done a reasonable job. Inevitably, there are bits that are left out in any such exercise which will upset important groups and an unfortunate turn of phrase can easily destroy an otherwise reasonable proposition. I can’t see how it is possible to get something like this as ‘acceptable’ as it needs to be.
Why then is it necessary? If these facts and this history is indeed something close to what we all believe then why does it need to be written? Cannot we, as Australians knowing all of this, be trusted to pass our knowledge and views, in their necessary diversity to new arrivals just as we have since we became Australians – whenever that was?
And, by the way, there are at least 2 typos – Evonne Goolagong spelt her name that way as far as I know and the Eureka stockade was erected on a ‘lease’ not a ‘lead’.
The intensity of the venom over this little test really is hard to understand. If people cannot be bothered spending a few hours boning up on a few facts about Australia’s cultural and political institutions and history, they can go to blazers as far as I am concerned. There’s plenty of others who will be more than happy to spend the time.
Orstraylians all let us rejoice
For we are blind and deaf, TWO THREE FOUR!
They changed the words of Advance Australia Fair to ‘Australians all…’ from the embarrassing ‘Australia’s sons…’ I was forced to sing as a lad. I wonder would that be marked wrong?
My own favourite line comes in the sadly neglected second verse, viz ‘For those who’ve come across the seas we’ve boundless plains to share’. Post Tampa, best we forget that bit I suppose.
On the stump-jump plough, the historical fact of real significance missed in the approved 12-page text is that the manufacturer of said implement was the Sunshine Harvester Company, respondent in the Higgins Harvester judgement that ushered in the all-Australian industrial relations system now being demolished in favour of a US imported model. Strange how that never gets a mention.
Other facts deemed unworthy of inclusion include references to any of Australia’s many Nobel laureates, the Australian invention of the feature film, and any Australian contribution to music other than the national dirge.
Sorry John Greenfield but I find this test presumptious and a turn off. Especially its stupid obsessions with boorish pursuits like cricket as something all Australians should know about (I’d rather watch the proverbial paint dry or listen to ‘10 years of the speeches of Fidel Castro’ than listen to a cricket tragic rave about his ’sport’)
The idea that “Australianness” can be defined is also ridiculous, as well as dangerous. Given that all those whose thought patterns deviate from that of our wonderful government are promptly labelled as “un-Australian”, any move by same government to define “Australianness”, be it through a citizenship test or another mechanism, must be treated with caution. It is likely to become yet another weapon in the arsenal of wedge politics.
Well that’s about it really. All the test proves is your ability to remember the answers to at least 12 out of 20 questions. I bet Julian Knight, Roger Rogerson or Peter Dupas could have passed it. And none of them would be generally regarded as being truly appreciative of the values that make a good Aussie. Well OK, maybe the Roge a bit. A very little bit.
I reckon DIC should get a bit more lateral and creative here. Every prospective New Australian has to spend a week in a wired up and sealed house full of other applicants and one dinky-di Aussie as a catalyst. We all get to watch and vote out those we don’t want here. Plus it’d be even more of a revenue spinner than ‘Border Security’ if marketed properly and the ancillary rights sorted out, thus also lessening the taxpayer’s burden. A good working title might be “Girted!”.
Now you’ve really done it Jase. Any midnight now, the black-clad umpires are gonna knock on your door.
Also Mini-J it’s actually “go to blazes” not “blazers” as anyone genuinely au fait with our rich Anglo-Saxon heritage would know.
No mention of Terra Nullius …?
I suspect many Australians might get higher scores answering questions like these:
In what year was the Declaration of Independence?
Which day of the year is Independence Day celebrated?
Who was the first president of the US?
What is the name of the US national anthem?
What bird is the emblem of the US?
In what city is the White House located?
It’s a moveable feast. There’s no quintessence of Australianness. On one hand, we could rightly talk about what’s left out and suppressed in this mini-compendium, and in particular the radical strains in settler culture (obviously the glaring ommission, as noted, is Indigenous culture to any great degree). But on the other hand the radical prophets of Australianness of the 1880s and 1890s, aside from their “Australia for the white man” stuff, were defining Australian identity against a British identity. The “Australian Natives Association” was not an early fore-runner of Indigenous bodies of the 30s but an organisation of those born in Australia who wanted this country to be less British. And incidentally, the whole story of Australian politics in the 19th century is one of radical democracy before socialism – payment of members of parliament, female suffrage in some instances, wide male suffrage – all were fought for and won here before they were in Britain – decades before in most instances.
And there’s the excised verse! About which there’s some controversy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Australia_Fair#.27Missing.27_verse.3F
But certainly there’s no controversy about the elision all the crap about “British courage” and “Brittania rules the waves” in McCormick’s orginal lyrics.
A great demonstration of that great Australian virtue of apathy, there, JG.
And a few others I could mention, but won’t.
There was a response before your comment was posted:
And MH, I found your comments about Chinese national identity/ies very interesting indeed.
I was hoping it was a rather witty cricket joke, and think we should give him the benefit of the doubt.
Nope, a clear cut case of LBW (Language Before Wit). And it’s not like the same courtesy has ever been or is or likely to be extended in return.
I have no idea how I’ve managed to function as an Australian citizen for so long without knowing what the stump-jump plough was and when it was invented, or that there were some impressionist painters in the Victoria in the 1890s. Having read the booklet, I am now more informed on these crucial matters, thus rendering me immensely more qualified to undertake the responsibilities of citizenship!
And everyone knows that the first line of the anthem is ‘Australians all are ostriches’.
Cause, like, knowledge on location of pharlap’s heart will surely have helped these aspiring citizens when they were required to negotiate this interesting aspect of life in the new country…
“Especially its stupid obsessions with boorish pursuits like cricket”.
Deport. Jason. Soon. Now.
By the way, how come we now longer obsess over tennis players like Frank Sedgman and Lew Hoade? Back in the good old days, they wer right there in the pantheon of Aussie heroes.
Lleyton Hewitt? I don’t think so.
Thanks for your observations about the New Life movement, MH. It would have to be particular to Taiwan though, wouldn’t it, given that it was set up by Chiang Kia-shek?
Is there a current identity movement on the Mainland and if so what would Chinese values mean to Mainlanders?
If it is true, as I suspect, that the purpose of this citizenship test is to provoke a huge (wedge issue) public debate on Muslim immigration, then Gerard Henderson has today catapulted the propaganda with a host of straw man arguments to pump up the xenophobia.
For his efforts, he is awarded my Wanker Of The Day award.
I haven’t looked at the test but I know I’d fail the sports questions. I haven’t watched a football, cricket or tennis match for over thirty years, and when I did it was only because I was in a house full of sports junkies for a weekend and couldn’t avoid it. Does that make me un-Australian?
“By the way, how come we now longer obsess over tennis players like Frank Sedgman and Lew Hoade?”
… or Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and Margaret Court? What about Hubert Oppermann, John Konrads, Dawn Fraser, John Bertrand, John Eales – jut to mention a few who’ve shaken the international sporting tree? I wonder who might be responsible for this cricketing bias?
Not me.
MPW
As our High Court does not even know what Terra Nullius is, there are probably more appropraite questions to ask.
Jason Soon
I am afraid your attitude reveals one of the many mistakes in atomistic libertarian theology.
Pavolv’s Cat
Occasionally you are able to contribute with more substance than playing the typing police. Try to do so more often. On the other hand, if your shorthand is OK, I could have some work for you.
This is funny!
According to a Government Website
“The number one team sport for Australian girls is netball. For boys it is soccer.”
http://www.dfat.gov.au/aib/sport.html
The citizenship test questions aren’t about making sure people who don’t share ‘Australian values’ don’t make it into Australia. They are a public affairs exercise – not a tool for assisting our Department of Immigration.
Creating a test that one must pass in order to gain access to the club is about creating an impression of exclusivity for those already in the club. John Howard couldn’t even attempt to sell a concept like ‘aspirational nationalism’ without having first paved the way by trying to convince us that the most important thing we have is ‘the nation’, and that it must be protected from people who don’t fit the conservative Liberal image of what it means to be Australian. Glad I’m already a citizen or I’d be out quick-sticks…
John Greefield
Occasionally you are able to… wait… this was going to go somewhere…
New Life began in the 1930s on the mainland, before the KMT took Taiwan from Japan in 1945 and Chiang Kai-shek relocated to Taiwan in 1949. Taiwan’s national identity as it is currently imagined has a (very) complex relationship to it. The national identity discourse on the mainland is very Sunist (as in Sun Yat-sen) in its ideology – all that stuff about 5000 years of history, China “awakening” or “standing up”, the national myth of humiliation by foreign powers, and race, which is central to Chinese nationalism. In political terms the Party (i.e. the CCP) constructs itself as congruent with the nation (some interesting parallels with the Liberal’s current kick). Like all nationalisms, it doesn’t withstand much scrutiny. I once wrote a paper comparing the nationalist claim over Taiwan with that of Tibet. Both “inalienable” parts of China, but the bases of the claims are somewhat different. I mentioned New Life, though, because the ideology of Chinese nationalism holds that a Chinese person is essentially Chinese whether they like it or not. It is an objective essence which must be demonstrated by behaviour. So it is very regulatory. There’s a lot of work on these issues, but the most detailed writing of my own is about the first Diaoyutai Islands movement in 1971 in Taipei (I published a book on Taiwanese identity last year) which was a Chinese nationalist protest culminating in a “blood petition” which 2000 student signed using their own blood – so ritual, nation, the body, race and blood, all there. Some of it is here.
Mazarine
The citizenship test itself is an extremely clumsy and blunt instrument. While I agree with you its design is about a lot more than improving immigration selection processes, it is certainly about a lot more than members of some mythical national ‘exclusive club’ feeling chuffed in their exclusivity!
There is a very real anxiety surround national identity and the reality of global Ilsmaist terrorism. The test is imperfect, but it is a start.
Well there certainly is anxiety, but anxiety isn’t necessarily rational.
But, do tell, how will the test defend us against the frightful hordes of “global Ilsmaist terrorism.”? Or are you, like Hendo, a devotee of symbolism in politics? Funny how that’s bad when Keating did it, but good when JHo does it.
Seriously, where’s the link – except for prejudice and its reinforcement?
“the reality of global Ilsmaist terrorism”
Especially when the Ilsmaists are dyslexic.
“The test is imperfect, but it is a start.”
Newsflash. Ilsmaist terrorists tend to be highly educated and they would be smart enough to bone up on all the necesaary Australiana trivial pursuit to pass the test.
Whereas your garden variety refugee from say Somalia who is trying to get away from the Ilsmaists would be most likely to fail the test.
The whole test is stupid and a waste of money. It’s driven by dumb tabliod culture – and I believe more than a little tinge of racism.
Of course the questions are going to be dumb. Who could find a list of simple and uncontroversial questions with single word/multiple choice answers that wouldn’t be 1) banal or 2) unknown by 80% of Australians.
Although it’s dumb populism, I don’t think it’s all *that* harmful. Anyone can cynically spend a couple of hours learning answers from a book.
As for the “values” component, no one is going to be stupid enough to get wrong some trite question like “Australia believes in a) mateship – lending a hand to your fellow Australians or b) laziness – dolebludging and living of the hard work of your fellow taxpayers.”
This is why the test is 1) so pointless and 2) not particularly harmful.
Thanks for that explanation, MH. Chinese nationalism sounds appalling, with its emphasis on conformity. I haven’t read much about Chinese society but when I read Jung Chang’s Wild Swans and her little opus on Mao (with Halliday) I got the impression that it must be a very stifling society and one that is very cruel to its non-conformists. I also get the impression that it is very xenophobic, although that seems to be a trait of all East Asian, and most South East Asian, societies.
“Anyone can cynically spend a couple of hours learning answers from a book.”
I suspect that wont be the case David. The people who would no doubt make the most grateful citizens in this country are the ones who wont be able to do it. ABC reported on this:
My bet is that refugees will be thinking its pretty bad really.
sorry that was me.
Casey, that’s a very good point.
I would *think* that the government will provide a audio version… eventually. I think they’ll get too much flack if not – perhaps I’m wrong?
GregM: Jung Chang’s work is steeped in Chinese nationalist ideology. Wild Swans plays out a whole set of national myths, and her Mao book is startlingly revisionist, a real throw-back to Chiang Kai-shek, and full of errors and over-statements, even if its premise, that Mao personally was a monster, is correct. But, it’s worth remembering that in China today there are many powerfully dissenting voices, young and old, who resist national ideologies, especially as they are propagated by the CCP, and we should be listening to them.
It also puts the Australian debate in context. We have a long way to go before reaching the excess of the Chinese party-states, either KMT or CCP, who have deployed nationalism in their interests over the last century, but the principles of the politics of it are not so different.
And the other lesson shouldn’t be forgotten, either, that nationalism can be a force of resistance against empire and against the very nation-states which appropriate it and deploy it. It worked that way in Taiwan in the 1970s, and its logic led to the unravelling of authoritarianism there in the 1980s, and it has worked that way in China, too, as a part of the 1989 protest movement, for example. Nationalism a high-stakes strategy for any government, including ours.
Absolutely Casey
The booklet is aimed at Year 10 HS equivalent, which working through ESL certification like CSWE, would require CSWE 4. That represents 1200 hours of study as an absolute improbable minimum and wouldn’t take into account students who start as illiterate as many refugees do or fossilise at a certain level as many older learners do. And it’s assuming they can study full-time.
In the mean time they are being everything any other Australian citizen is doing – working, supporting their families, following the law, grateful to be here, and getting on with their lives.
To paraphrase Groucho – I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that wouldn’t have these people as members.
David – an audio version wouldn’t necessarily help but a translation would – because we’re interested in understanding the principles right?
Anthony and David, according to John Howard:
In other words, to do the test you need to speak and write English. So its unlikely there will be any accommodations such as audio, and there most certainly wont be translations, because as you infer Anthony, it has nothing to do with understanding principles at all.
Well my question is: Why should anyone have to speak English to become a citizen here anyway? Does a migrant who comes here as an adult with identity fully formed, ever have to identify as unproblematically Australian anyway? Time eventually works on the generations and brings about the assimilation Howard is so anxious to force onto people, so what is this about?. We have already proved in this country its not necessary for migrants to speak english, it makes things harder for the migrant (though my dad got by just fine thank you very much), but it is not necessary.
Well bugger Howard, cause this is another way for him to homogenise this country. He is so busy erasing sites of difference, I wont be surprised if pretty soon he will be asking prospective citizens to powder their faces white with a straight face, after four years or so, just so they can integrate better, you know. God forbid, people should betray any signs that multiculturalism still thrives in the nation and continues even against the concerted effort to erase it. Abhorrent after all that some “ethnics” continue in the outrageous notion that they can become Australians but continue to identify with the national identity of their country of origin, maintaining, against every imperative of this govt, the cultural values of that country, whether or not they match up with Australian ones.
Short answer – how many languages does John Howard speak? It’s a very common attribute of those who have never successfully studied a foreign language to have any idea how hard it can be – and this doesn’t include picking up a bit of very similar European languages.
No I don’t think they have to. I think it’s an extremely good idea that they do and to their benefit if they can but they can still be citizens as good as any other citizen with abilities far below what would be deemed necessary for this.
Well that would be enormously cynical of me to say so but it wouldn’t be the first time language has been used in this country in this way.
I think this is an attempt to make a two tiered citizenship process and is a tummy rub to the kind of people who take the greatest pride in the things they’ve done nothing to achieve
1) the country they were born in and
2) the language they were born with.
mark says:
I agree, but a harmless one. On the other hand, the immigration policies of the Fraser and Hawke govts often looked like a malicious practical joke. Whose brilliant idea was it to bring people like Habib into the country? Do we really want immigrants to drag their spouses around in a cloth bag?
Howard’s immigration policies, which focus on bringing in and bringing up migrants who will add to our economic prosperity rather than culltural diversity, have so far proven an overwhelming success.
The results speak for themselves. The unemployment and crime rates for incoming adoptives are low relative to the 1975-95 period when loonie Lefties and ethnic lobbies called the shots. As a consequence, natives are “relaxed and comfortable” about the adoptive inflow.
THe only test that should really matter in so far as immigrants are concerned is the IQ test. However the Cultural Left has managed to the subject of comparative intellectual performance, both within and between cultures, a taboo subject. Dont open that closet unless you want to rattle some ideological skeletons.
SO the government is reduced to drawing up proxy test for immigrant suitability. With somewhat farcical results, as Mark notes.
I would throw the question back onto Mark and ask him what what immigrant selection criteria, induction process and encultation policy does he think is in AUS’s national interest? I suggest that immigrants, whether black, white or brindle, should be fit, smart and nice. A bulging bank account would do no harm.
And they should be encouraged to be team players, fitting into the AUS mainstream. If you want OECD-standard outcomes you have to follow OECD-standard practices.
We can all agree that multiculturalism as it stands is too vague an answer to that question. Unless Mark is happy to let people like the Dayak headhunters in, on the grounds that they would bring much needed cultural diversity to our hum-drum lives.
Prospective citizens will be able to speak and understand English, but does that mean they will be able to speak and understand Australian? I was born here, and I’m flummoxed by our colourful idiom from time to time.
The first time I was asked to bring a plate to a barbie I did just that. I brought a plate with nothing on it. Granted that was years ago and I was only a teenager, but I’m sure you see my point.
OMG. Who on earth is this Catherine Deveney creature? No wonder LPers never mention Fairfax press. Why does Fairfax employ so many dopey bints?
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/we-dont-want-your-rich-migrant-culture/2007/08/28/1188067108372.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Jeez JG. You have a go at Mark for a patronizing attitude towards women and then you post the above comment.
*sigh* Another irony meter to be repaired.
Teenagers are dumb?
No, Jobby, not at all. I was a dumb, excessively sheltered teenager. But it definitely doesn’t follow that all teenagers are dumb. My point is that even those of us born here aren’t always familiar with some of our idioms. I still come across ones I haven’t heard, and I’m old now.
It was a joke Joyce.
That said, it does bear following up.
Austalian isn’t a language. I understand your point about idioms – the fact that confusion can be arise even in cases of native English speakers from the same country, etc.
It leaves me with a bit of a ’so what?’ feeling though. Every now and then I have a hard time understanding idioms (from musical terms to slang used by different subcultural groupings, etc.). If I’m confused by an idiomatic usage of language or term, I ask to have it explained to me.
People might not understand some usages, but … so what? If they understand English they can presumably enquire as to the meanings of terms. If they don’t understand English then it’s kind of irrelevant anyway.
I’m afraid I just don’t get your point.