conceive of as substantively different to ourselves. Furthermore, that our through delineation, has somehow become asylum seekers. The renowned German philosopher, Hegel, introduced the idea of the consciousness; and the concept has since been further built upon by the likes of Michel Foucault, and Edward Said. These scholars generally deduced that the delineation of the one conceives of their own identity more by what they perceive that they aren’t, than by what they actually are. Significantly, the only Australians who did not come here by plane or boat
Ok, bear with me here… • A state is a political, geopolitical, and economic entity: a state has both legal personality and political force. • A nation, on the other hand, is a group of people united in their commonality: be the commonality religious, ethnic, linguistic or idealistic. Contrar y to popular belief, nationhood is not symptomatic of statehood, though there are many successful examples of the construction of state. However, cultivating nationalism in a multinational state is also a notoriously difficult and frau ght process. Indeed the last centur y has seen several civil wars with tensions between concurrent
great-grandparents and so forth did Ind igenous Australians. This means that Australia, the state, plays house to more cultures and groups than one can count on their fingers and toes. A multicultural state is automatically a multinational state, and, any first year Political Science student can tell you that multinational states are, in theor y and in practise, insecure. This is because nationhood
cau se; for example, in Rwanda and Leb anon. Importantly, as a multinational state, where can a uniquely Australian nationality be found? The ANZAC narrative has been perpetuated over the last centur y as the stor y of the emergence of the Australian as a unique character. According to t he Gallipoli rationale Australians are an egalitarian, friendly, and quirky bunch: always up for both an adventure and a cheeky bevvy, and always ready to crack a good joke.
However, one flaw in this narrative place to Australia today. What was once a collective of ostracised Brits and Irishmen is now a multicultural, multiethnic, multi-linguistic chunk of land.
avenue for self-definition subjective delineation.
through
hate them. Why there is so much
think about anyway. Simply, what is easier than defining what we are not. And, significantly, ver y few Australians will find grains of commonality with the citizens of the global south aboard leaky boats bound for our shores. Thus, the asylum seeker becomes a victim of Australian insecurity in its national subs tance. The asylum avenue through which average Australian citizens may rationalise their own nationality, because they can suddenly put a certain index finger on exactly what they are not. More than that, within this rhetoric, the asylum seeker becomes a distinct threat to the so vereign borders of Australia, the nation. Not a physical, real threat, as these people are bearing claims to the refugee criteria not arms: they become a social threat. If we were to welcome asylum seekers onto our shores with swift, sympathetic onshore processing, and community, rather than offshore and prison-esque detention, then Australian people at large would
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