Australia experiences surge of nationalism

Phillip Dye, an Australian musician, came to Ireland some years ago and experienced pub nationalism in the form of everyone singing Amhran na bhFiann after a night's drinking in a bar in Doolin. This would never happen back home, he thought to himself.

But one night last week, after a gig at a pub in the Rocks in central Sydney, the singer thought he would have a go at playing the Australian national anthem, Advance, Australia Fair.

"After three lines there was no one left sitting," Phillip Dye wrote in yesterday's Melbourne Age. "Many had hands on their chests. Everyone was singing." The Olympic Games, he concluded, had given Australians a sense of personal and national pride to match that of the Irish and Americans.

Australian patriotism has never been overt. The national style is a mixture of mute stoicism and mocking irreverence. But since the dazzling Olympics opening ceremony, the country has been swept by nationalist fervour.

In Australia high achievers have traditionally suffered from begrudgery, or what they call the "tall-poppy" syndrome, i.e. the poppy that grows highest is cut down.

Australia has now spent a fortnight tending its tallest poppies, honouring the achievements and successes of its hero-athletes. Of them all, Cathy Freeman has become the purest embodiment of excellence and diversity.

No one objected when the Aboriginal runner attached the red, black and ochre Aboriginal colours to the Australian flag to make her lap of honour after winning gold in the 400 metres. She represents reconciliation, not black power militancy.

Reconciliation is being taught in primary schools this year for the first time. The Prime Minister, John Howard, who has refused to apologise for the Aborigines' "stolen generation", described her as a role model to all Australians.

"Cathy has helped define Australia at a time of change," said a diplomat in Sydney. "She was able to because she is non-threatening."

AUSTRALIA has discarded many racist attitudes. No newspaper would today print the headline which greeted a rare defeat for an earlier Aboriginal athlete, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, twice Wimbledon singles tennis champion: Evonne goes walkabout, it said, borrowing an Aboriginal term.

There was, however, a touch of paternalism in the order by Australia's Channel Seven that there should be no replays of Cathy's comment that her brothers were delighted after her win "and they aren't even drunk".

Intended to avoid playing into stereotypes of drunken Aborigines, it highlighted another stereotype of Aborigines who needed protecting from themselves.

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of Cathy Freeman's win. It was absolutely essential for Australia. I asked several people what would have happened if she lost. "The country would have had a nervous breakdown," said a teacher. "Australia would have been totally deflated," agreed a radio producer.

The country's luck held. The pride and patriotism heaped on her shoulders were repaid with victory, and grace under pressure, and the country felt unified as never before.

There is, nevertheless, a danger that conservative politicians will wrongly consider the race issue solved. Aboriginal author Ruby Langford Ginibi suggested that Cathy Freeman run for political office to continue the elevation of her cause into a national cause.

And while the triumph of the Sydney Olympics has muted the self-doubt that has been a feature of public commentary in Australia, it has produced a euphoria which has verged towards xenophobia. The disqualification of Australian walker Jane Saville, for example, provoked media outbursts against the Olympic referees, despite photographic evidence that she broke the rules by lifting both feet off the ground.

The elevation of sport as the great national goal also worries many Australians. "There is a strain of anti-intellectualism in Australia," said a teacher. "This means bright kids are often mocked for being studious, and kids from immigrant families devote all their energies to sport as a way of being accepted."

There is much debate as the Olympics come to a close on the implications for Australia of crowds indulging in the patriotic cry of "Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!" while draping themselves in the official Australian flag, comprising a Union Jack on a blue background with six stars.

Pro-republican Australians would normally not be seen dead with the British ensign. There is little evidence, however, of the country turning away from the republic ideal. Indeed the idea of Australians subjecting themselves to a monarch in a faraway country has less validity than two weeks ago.

"A republic is the next event," read a headline in the Australian Financial Review yesterday. After the Olympics, Australians could believe in themselves, wrote columnist John Hewson. "We should fight for complete independence. We should now fight for a republic."

Only time will tell whether the Olympics have changed Australia. But few would disagree with the government adviser quoted yesterday in the Herald: "We've spent two weeks in another country," he said, "and we like what we've seen."