Un-Australian behaviour

Someone who damns one or more others as “Un-Australian” is as trustworthy as the person who says “Trust me”. A person who unconsciously recognises his/her own deceits is drawn to deny them. It should be a truism of psychology. So we hear “It’s not that I’m racist, but …” or similar. It’s such an obvious give-away. "Un-Australian" seems to serve the same purpose. And I doubt "Un-Australian" is even Australian! I suppose it’s cloned from the US phrase “Un-American” as in "House Committee on Un-American Activities”, ie, the Macarthyist campaign during the Cold War. Perhaps there was an earlier history than that, but I doubt it’s an Australian history.

Overland did an issue on the theme of "Un-Australian" behaviour. Here are some telling quotes from the editorial:

“The great political achievement of the Howard Government has been to redefine Australia as a monoculture”

“The degree of idealisation [of the Anzac tradition] has only become possible since the original Anzacs, in all their human fallibility, have disappeared from view”.

“Implicitly and explicitly, the concerns and desires of people who do not fit the cultural norm have been presented as selfish, sectarian, divisive or threatening, as though the government-led refusal to acknowledge cultural difference is not political”.

“Even when a deeply paranoid and mean-spirited white Australia is detaining refugees in concentration camps, it is actually us who are under threat; from their ‘moral intimidation’.”

“Ironies abound. These groups most loudly proclaiming who is and isn’t Australian are generally direct offshoots of American organisations and closely follow a political-, economic-, and cultural-campaign model established by the far Right in the US.”

“…if Australians have traditionally understood their culture as being most strongly characterised by antipathy rather than acquiesence to authority, as historians and sociologists generally suggest…”

And on the other hand, “the Australian Left denies and diminishes anti-Jewish violence”.

Un-Australian behaviour [editorial] by Nathan Hollier. In Overland 175, Winter 2004, p. 2-3.