>>>And do Australian (republican) patriots dream of writing their own
>>>Constitution? Of being the (always-capitalized) Founders of a new nation?
>
>ironically, it's our blurry monarchist Prime Minister who is wallowing
>in the fantasy of being the author of the nation. Out of the
>blue he announced that he was going to write a new preamble for the Aust
>Constitution, with the help of his good friend Les Murray, bad poet of the
>rural-idiocy right. It's been fun and games ever since (see below).
oh murray don't get me started -- what a fraud on the cover of today's Australian with the Queen coincidence?
>>bzzzzt. ahistorical analysis. fershame Doug. why on earth would there
>>need be such commotion in Australia. they already have a nationalized
>>identity, a curious one too from what I've read on these here lists. goes
>>something like this: [sheep, convicts, alcoholism, lamingtons...]
highly selective reading of several years worth of electronic Australians Kelley
>mmm. bears little relationship to my experience. you're thinking
>Anglo-Irish, which is not only anachronistic, but leaning towards the
>offensive. as to 'ahistorical analysis': I think Doug might be closer to
>the mark than Kelley.
>
>nationalism in Australia has always been anxious and tenuous, precisely
>because there is no privileged event of authorship. this anxiety makes at
>times for a quite vicious (because panicky) nationalism, but at other times
>means we aren't deluged by fantasies of self-coherence, self-authorship,
>etc. -- which is a good thing I think. I dread the time when The Australian
>Nation becomes sacralised. Australians tend to think most yanks are weird
>on this, it makes us uncomfortable... this whole thread makes me uneasy: I
>feel like I'm in the presence of believers...
so kelley ought to know full well by now that Australians seem to tend to (vagueness intentional) love enjoying but not venerating their country it's a point of national pride and of course the whole preamble thing is a set up nothing more likely to get Autralians to vote agains a republic than attaching some pompous hymn to the nation to it
Catherine