Civic Patriotism is the idea that as long as someone chooses to join our National life, that they obey our laws and sincerely attempt to fit in then they are as much an Australian, or Canadian or German as someone who was born there. In the United States it is also known as the "propositional nation". Unfortunately there are a number of problems with this idea.
In Australia I have heard Australians refer to it as "meat pies and Football", a stereotypical Australian likes meat pies and football, a stereotype that's true. So if an immigrant also like meat pies and football he's just as Australian as anyone born here. But what happens if meat pies and football become unpopular? Or if someone born in Australia doesn't like meat pies and football? Does that mean neither of them are Australians? The problem is that meat pies and football are simply random items and what they symbolize here is that being Australian means nothing. Like a meat pie, being Australian is manufactured.
Why would an Australian be so eager to destroy their own ethnicity? In a word, pride. To know that someone came from another country and has tried to become one us, shows how tolerant we are, how open and accepting, how great our country is become others want to share it with us. But what happens when people arrive who aren't that interested in our ways, but who wish to keep their own ways? Well Civic Patriotism seems to embrace these people as well. They are go-getters, they're the type of people we want in this country, they want a better life, in time they will be part of us.
Not a thought in the world about their fellow Australians who need those jobs, not a thought in the world for their fellow Australians who need to get ahead. No those things have been reserved for immigrants. The Civic Patriots, aren't that interested in their fellow Australians as they don't make them feel proud. Their fellow Australians are an obligation, a burden.
Of course the Civic Patriot will one day find that a fair number of those who he supported coming here will also be a burden. That tends to divide them, some realise that Civic Patriotism is a dead end street. But others push on, telling their fellow Australians that they are not accepting enough, that they need to embrace more diversity, more is better, only racism stops them from integrating. No amount of ethnic tensions, no amount of terrorism, no amount of crime seems enough they remain true to their ideal. That meat pies and football can create the best nation on Earth, that it can create a Multicultural utopia right here in Australia.
And all they have to do to create this utopia is destroy White Australia, reduce us to a minority, while pretending that we have all of the power. They went from being friendly to newcomers to betraying their own family all in the name of pride. When the immigrant population was small Civic Patriotism made some sense, now that it is threatening to destroy us as a people, it's treason.
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The only way a multi-cultural state can work is when it’s based on loyalty to a monarch. The empire of the Habsburgs worked pretty well from the end of the Thirty Years War to the end of the 19th century. It worked because it was a two-way street. The Habsburgs provided stable, reasonably efficient and moderate government. Tax rates were not especially onerous and the rule of law was applied with reasonable fairness. Their subject peoples, of various ethnicities and religions, repaid them with a very high degree of loyalty.
ReplyDeleteIt worked quite well for the Ottoman Empire as well. Their Christian subjects were reasonably content because the Ottomans on the whole governed them well and fairly and offered stability.
But this kind of state can only work if it’s a monarchy. Democracy will inevitably destroy any multi-cultural state.
You could argue that the United Kingdom was another example. The English, the Cornish, the Welsh and the Scots were united by common loyalty to the Crown. It worked as long as democracy was kept at bay. Once universal suffrage was introduced the UK was doomed. People no longer identified as Welshmen or Cornishmen or Englishmen who were all loyal subjects - they started to identify as Labor or Liberal or Conservative and the result was always going to be disaster.
I agree with everything you wrote.
ReplyDeleteThere is another point to consider - another reason why a “proposition nation” won’t work. The terms of the proposition keep changing.
We’re now told that liking meat pies and football isn’t acceptable. It’s racist and sexist and homophobic. Now we have to like quiche and netball.
The United States (and to a lesser extent Australia) used to be based on a set of shared beliefs but Americans are now told those shared beliefs must include homosexual “marriage” and affirmative action and slut-walks and free internet porn and the magic of wind power and multiculturalism.
And those shared beliefs cannot include Christianity because Christianity is evil. Islam and Judaism are still acceptable at the moment but that will change. In the long term Liberalism does not tolerate any other religions.
The terms of the proposition don’t just change,. They go on changing. What is virtuous today is evil tomorrow. It’s not just that we’re expected to believe that 2 plus 2 equals 5. We have to be prepared that tomorrow 2 plus 2 might equal 3, or 6.
Mr. Doom
ReplyDeleteI think your right!
Mark Moncrieff