I am the Soul of Australia
I will seek to speak as if through the soul infused consciousness of my nation.
I am the soul of the nation of Australia. My people live, plough their farms, graze their cattle and sheep, and cut their great mines on this most ancient of Earth’s continents.
I am among the most multicultural of nations. Half of my people trace their ancestry to Britain, a fifth are from Asia, the rest from most parts of Europe and the world.
In large measure these groups live in cheerful and respectful cooperation, their boundaries naturally eroding as the generations pass. Each has its own soul and soul-infused personality, and I am their realised and emerging unity. It is my First Nations who are the most deeply troubled, struggling to adapt to what was imposed upon them through the use of overwhelming force. They had occupied the land for 65,000 years, understanding and respecting its limitations, protecting it. For these peoples, British colonisation in the late 18th century was a catastrophe. From the ashes of that catastrophe would arise a new nation.
The first colonial settlers were mostly British convicts. Gradually the penal colony developed an economy based on farming, fishing, convict labour and free settlers from Britain. A major non-British contingent arrived from China for the gold rushes of the mid 19th century, and these still comprise a visible and valued part of the community. After World War II came waves of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Then came those from Asia, especially after the doomed enterprise of the war in Vietnam, in which my government pledged its loyalty to its great protector, the United States. Later came waves from other lands, but at federation in 1901, I was still essentially a British outpost. Even in 1949, there was no such thing as Australian citizenship. My people were subjects of the British Crown.
On the soul plane, I am at one with all nations. On the plane of personality, this is not so. I look out through the middle brain, my street level view of the world. From there I observe my connection with other nations in heritage, culture and defence. These nations swirl around me. My strongest connections are with the USA and the UK, but then overwhelmingly with Asia. On the personality plane I see China as threatening in her ambition to expand her sphere of influence. In her actions in the South China Sea I see the germs of what may happen in the Pacific Islands to my North East. Her commercial interests there are persuasive. I fear her influence will become naval also, endangering the safety I have for two centuries enjoyed in my oceanic isolation.
Though feeling threatened by the coercive aspiration of China, my people have stood their ground, resisting China’s naval threat and surviving her trade bans. She expresses disapproval through punishing tariffs on my wines, grains and mineral ores. In doing so, she disrupts herself more than she does my own nation, as we have proved able to switch markets when she switches sources of supply. From this arises a measure of mutual respect, and therein may lie a long term prospect of peaceful cooperation.
India is a puzzle to me, but the relationship is strong in practical terms, deriving from a shared imperial past and perhaps a shared curiosity about each other. She is at present the source of my most rapid immigration intake.
Indonesia too is a mystery, an Islamic nation which my people do not always understand. However, we are long past its confrontation with Malaya of the 1960s, and the Timor-Leste fight for independence in the 1990s. In each of these my government sided against Indonesia, but these tensions have passed and relations between our two peoples are friendly and mutually trusting. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Islamic nation, is moderate in the expression of her faith. In the long term, the dialogue between Muslim Indonesia and mostly Christian Australia may offer a doorway to understanding between these two political-religious faiths.
My people are still primarily European in thought. Half trace British heritage. 40% still favour the British monarch as Australian head of state. This relates to the past and must eventually be released. However, I need to wait until the people are ready.
I have a crucial role to play among the Pacific Island nations, but have not always recognised and met my responsibilities there. This has created a vacuum, gladly filled by another. My government now works with skill to address this situation. This experience highlights the dangers of failing to understand that the survival priorities of our neighbours are also survival imperatives for ourselves. My people are learning quickly.
Sensing exposure to the North, my people place great value on their military alliance with the United States. My nation is small while she is great, but I am not without influence. Even a small nation can diminish the isolation of a great one. However, such influence comes at a cost. The involvement of my nation in wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq is now recognised as tragically misconceived.
Japan, my fierce enemy of World War II, has long been a close friend. She is a major trading partner, and both a tourist source and destination.
My people are loyal. I was loyal to Great Britain for most of two centuries, and have been an unshakable ally to the United States since the end of World War II. Loyalty is a great virtue, but not so are the economic and emotional dependence which may accompany such relationships. It is a relief to see some distancing now taking place, but more is required if my people are to meet the role now required of me.
The continent on which I dwell lies at the concourse of three great oceans. I stand between Europe and North America, almost within Asia but not quite. I supply raw materials to the world. I am European by inheritance but Asian in geography and commerce. China is my largest market.
Some of my people have begun to understand the brutality with which my First Nations were driven from their lands in the course of European colonisation. The primary goal was to occupy farming and grazing land. Was the brutality unavoidable? It may have been beyond the capability of humanity at the time to manage such a transition more humanely. The impulse to conquest and control has been the path of many civilisations. This, my history, must be taught in schools, that we can emerge from its shadow.
The Europeaness of my people has long caused them to sense or imagine a threat from the great Asian nations to the North, especially those whose governments differ so greatly from the European model. Thus I have maintained a strong alliance with the USA, and my people repeatedly seek to prove themselves a reliable ally to that great nation. The actions I have taken in consequence have sometimes been unwise and sometimes catastrophic. My people must evolve from their dependence on the United States, as they are doing with the mother country, Great Britain. Those two nations are trusted and valued friends, but I must gradually extend the circle of my reach, such that it becomes inclusive of all nations. This will take generations of patient action.
In the meantime, my nation must be able to defend itself. I spend 1.9 % of my national GDP on defence. This is less than the comparable figures for the United States and the UK, but more than those for China and the European Union. I share long standing military alliances with the USA and UK, and more recently with Japan and India.
If I am to fill the role now required, what is it that I have that I may work with? The fires of Rays I and VII burn in the land and its first peoples, and flow through its mineral and vegetable kingdoms. They flowed also through the British invasion and colonisation. From Britain I have the inherited strength and truthfulness of Ray II. For the future I will need the practicality of Ray III and the harmony through conflict of Ray IV. The first of these has long been evident. The influence of Ray IV may become clear as my soul infused personality addresses the task ahead.
My nation is a middle power in every sense. European in language and culture, Asian in geography and economy, neither strong nor weak in military and financial terms. What is its task? Certainly to model to the world a middle path through which may be seen the light of understanding among nations, and from which may emerge a healing of ancient wounds within.
My nation must understand its responsibility in the affairs of the world. It must think with clarity and independence, speak with simplicity and truth, and act with the patience of a bridge-builder.
Soul of Nation Group (Australia) Presentation at Creative Lab meeting October 2024
