On my way home yesterday I drove pass the NSW Parliament House on Macquarie Street. A bunch of people conglomerate outside the gates, police were on guards and there were pickets. On one of them it wrote ‘Patriotism is not racism’ but the others were basically about driving out migrants and stopping immigration.
That particular picket really caught my eye and my mind. I do agree patriotism does not equivalent to racism, but then when you peel the layers off, if this ‘patriotism’ is based on race then it is not patriotism in its purest form but an excuse for racism and race hate.
In the pre-historic or medieval age, maybe patriotism is race based, as people movements were quite limited. To fight for survival one must defend their grounds and at that time society and communities are, well, more ‘racially pure’. But fast forward several hundred years, we now have driverless cars and social media and international flight services. Inter-racial and cross-cultural interactions are just part of our lives. Racial or cultural segregation are no longer options. A lot of modern countries are now built upon the contributions of people from different racial and cultural background. The so-called Western Countries, are now mostly geographical references (well except for Australia and New Zealand I suppose) as compare to the old racial Anglo-Saxon references. As we know for example, America has a huge Latino, African-American and Asian American population who pay tax and contribute to the advance of the country. Similarly, in Australia, there is a huge Asian Australian population, together with Indigenous, Continental, European and Mediterranean Australians who constantly working very hard to make Australia great.
Patriotism is an ideological entity that binds people together. In Australia we shared the same identity as Australian. Modern Australia does not belong to a particular race or culture. Attempting to own Australian patriotism with a racial brush inevitably turn this patriotism into racism.
At times I feel sad for the White Supremacist in our government and in our community because after all the benefits they have enjoyed from people of other cultures, they still failed to understand that this is a society built upon the interactions and stimulation of racial and cultural interactions. Do they actually think that the technologies they use every day are actually apparitions of a pure Anglo-Saxon (or as they called it the Western) culture? If they enjoyed a good Samsung TV or their Galaxy 9 mobile phone, they are products not exactly from their own racial background. Even the good old iPhone that so many people loved are not exactly built in the West.
Patriotism is a good thing, because it binds people together. But no-one or no particular sector or race owns patriotism of a country or nation because it is a collective property and ideology.
I can understand how some fear changes. But to put this really bluntly, First Settlers in Australia are migrants themselves. Trying to change history by saying Australia is a Western Country without acknowledging the genocide and breeding out of the Indigenous people via the Stolen Generation program does not change the fact that the so-called ‘White Australians’ are First Migrants, even if they want to call themselves as First Settlers. Claiming lands and countries cannot be done through race anymore in this modern world. It is ok to express your freedom of speech and views but if this is done through the expense of people of other racial and cultural affiliation, it is racism not freedom of speech. It is only through the collective efforts of everyone in this great country that patriotism can be exhibited and exercised in the most beneficial and purest form in Australia.
I do not disagree with this bunch of people about patriotism is not racism, but as I pointed out earlier, if this patriotism is based on which race can exhibit this sentiment and ideology within the same society, it is racism. Making Australia great does not mean excluding other people, but helping other people who joined this great nation to integrate. There will always be people who failed to integrate. This does not only refer to new migrants of particular religious faith or cultural background, but also existing citizens who failed to acknowledge our country and society has changed over the last 200 years. However, I would not call all Anglo-Saxons are racists based on a sector of out spoken White Supremacists in our Parliament and in our society, as nobody should generalise a whole racial or religious group based on the behaviours of a sector of people within that group.
Patriotism is a necessity for Australia to continue to be a great country that we enjoy. But if people are trying to manipulate and distort this sentiment and ideology for their own social political agendas, they should always be called out and views should always be corrected.
