The Age, Australia
Oct 6 2006
The folly of dangerous and foolish patriotism
By Tony Coady
October 7, 2006
Samuel Johnson famously declared that patriotism was the
last refuge of the scoundrel, but the American satirist Ambrose
Bierce may have been closer to the mark when he said that it was the
first. In any case, the fog of patriotic fervour now lies so heavy on
the Australian political landscape that it is necessary to clear some
of it away lest we lose direction entirely.
Attachment to the good habits and institutions of one’s country and a
modest pride in the genuine achievements of one’s co-nationals is a
commendable attitude, capable of forging ties and cementing community
feeling. But patriotism has a strong tendency to go beyond this. The
slogan, "My country, right or wrong" is palpably absurd, but the more
seductive, though equally foolish, idea is that my country can
actually do no wrong, or, at any rate, no serious wrong. The emotions
of patriotism all too often blind us to the moral crimes and follies
that "we" have committed and can again commit. When this is combined
with the political advantages of populism, the mixture can be lethal.
It is not only scoundrels who misuse patriotism; the foolish and
opportunistic also do it.
Our politicians are falling over themselves to reach the peak of
Patriot Hill. They vie with each other to make new and more dramatic
proposals for pulling the rest of us into line with some opaque
vision of Australian values. The proposals range from the
conspicuously silly, such a Kim Beazley’s visa pledge to Aussie
values for tourists to the downright unpleasant, such as Andrew
Robb’s proposal to force migrants to wait four years for citizenship
instead of the present two. There is even a whiff of it in Julie
Bishop’s call for a common national school curriculum designed to
fend off Marxist, feminist and even (God help us!) Maoist
interpretations apparently being foisted on our unsuspecting Aussie
kids by ideologues in state education bureaucracies.
Much of this combines exaggerated fear with extravagant attachment to
a comforting fantasy of a stereotypical Australia. The fantasy is
supposed to protect us from the fear. The fear itself is partly a
genuine if overwrought fear of terrorist acts, and partly a formless
dread of unusual foreigners, especially, nowadays, Muslims.
I remember when Australian patriotism used to be a quiet and modest
affair. The 1950s that our Prime Minister is so fond of was actually
a time when loud affectations of "Aussie values", condemnations of
"anti-Australian behaviour", and indulgence in flag-worship would
have been greeted with astonishment and scorn. I can only hope that
some of that earthy, cynical realism remains in our make-up, but
decades of exploitative advertising ("C’mon Aussie, c’mon") and
imitation of the most sentimental elements in American culture have
undoubtedly had their effect. The idea that respect for law, regard
for justice ("fair go"), and concern for women’s rights somehow
flourish distinctively here ("Aussie values") and languish everywhere
else is of course nonsense, but that is the impression regularly
conveyed by many of our political leaders, and reinforced in much of
the media.
The Steve Irwin phenomenon is instructive. His death was sad and
shocking, but the hysterical sentimentality of the media reactions to
it, and the casting of Irwin as a heroic embodiment of Aussie-ness
were bizarre. Irwin’s high-voltage buffoonery and loud, extroverted,
continuous talking are quite unusual characteristics in this country.
It is indicative of the Prime Minister’s tin ear for Australian
dialect that he should have described Irwin as a "larrikin" when the
more accurate colloquialism would have been "bit of a ratbag". In
fact, the crocodile man was better known and more loved in America
than Australia, which may explain some of the Prime Minister’s
infatuation with his image.
The really impressive thing about the celebration of Irwin’s life was
not the media hyperbole, the politicians’ gushing, or the
professional sincerity of various celebrity actors. No, it was the
quiet dignity of his family, especially his father, whose brief
speech was understated and genuinely moving. The family’s rejection
of the absurd offer of a state funeral injected a rare dose of common
sense into the aftermath of Irwin’s sad death.
The dangers of patriotism have just been dramatically illustrated by
the recent criminal indictment in Turkey of the novelist Elif Shafak
for having insulted "Turkishness". Her alleged crime consisted in
writing a novel that explores the dark secret of Turkish crimes
against Armenians at the end of the Ottoman Empire when thousands of
Armenians were massacred in an outrageous ethnic cleansing. We are
still some way from criminalising criticism of our past (and to the
credit of the Turkish courts, she was acquitted) but the price of
massive self-deception and manipulated sentiment so often inherent in
the patriotic voice is very high. We need to confront our urgent
problems calmly, rationally and with an eye to empirical facts and
universal values. Patriotic posturing is at best a distraction, and
at worst a dangerous folly.
Tony Coady is professorial fellow at the Centre for Applied
Philosophy and Public Ethics at Melbourne University.
The Steve Irwin phenomenon is instructive. His death was sad and
shocking, but the hysterical sentimentality of the media reactions to
it, and the casting of Irwin as a heroic embodiment of Aussie-ness
were bizarre. Irwin’s high-voltage buffoonery and loud, extroverted,
continuous talking are quite unusual characteristics in this country.
It is indicative of the Prime Minister’s tin ear for Australian
dialect that he should have described Irwin as a "larrikin" when the
more accurate colloquialism would have been "bit of a ratbag". In
fact, the crocodile man was better known and more loved in America
than Australia, which may explain some of the Prime Minister’s
infatuation with his image.
The really impressive thing about the celebration of Irwin’s life was
not the media hyperbole, the politicians’ gushing, or the
professional sincerity of various celebrity actors. No, it was the
quiet dignity of his family, especially his father, whose brief
speech was understated and genuinely moving. The family’s rejection
of the absurd offer of a state funeral injected a rare dose of common
sense into the aftermath of Irwin’s sad death.
The dangers of patriotism have just been dramatically illustrated by
the recent criminal indictment in Turkey of the novelist Elif Shafak
for having insulted "Turkishness". Her alleged crime consisted in
writing a novel that explores the dark secret of Turkish crimes
against Armenians at the end of the Ottoman Empire when thousands of
Armenians were massacred in an outrageous ethnic cleansing. We are
still some way from criminalising criticism of our past (and to the
credit of the Turkish courts, she was acquitted) but the price of
massive self-deception and manipulated sentiment so often inherent in
the patriotic voice is very high. We need to confront our urgent
problems calmly, rationally and with an eye to empirical facts and
universal values. Patriotic posturing is at best a distraction, and
at worst a dangerous folly.
Tony Coady is professorial fellow at the Centre for Applied
Philosophy and Public Ethics at Melbourne University.