The search for national identity

Abstract

This article, extracted from a political memoir, discusses the author's own experiences of identity as a first generation migrant in a country undergoing rapid transformation from one with a dominant Anglo-Irish culture to one in which multiculturalism, while contested, has become a reality. It further reflects upon the impact of the American counter culture on Australia in the 1960s and 1970s, and the importance of this for political identities and beliefs.

Keywords:

• Australia
• counter culture
• multiculturalism
• social democracy
• Labor Party

Acknowledgments

This article was previously published as a chapter in Dennis Altman, Defying Gravity: A Political Life, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1997 (republished by API Network, Bentley, 2004).

Notes

 1. Adam Gopnik, ‘Cinema Dispute', New Yorker, 5 February 1996, p 34.

 2. Christos Tsiolkas, Loaded, op. cit., p 131.

 3. April Bernard, ‘Un-Efican Activities’, New York Review of Books, 22 June 1995, p 44.

 4. Theodore Roszak, The Making of the Counter Culture, Doubleday, New York, 1969.

 5. Dennis Altman, ‘The politics of cultural change’, Other Voices (Sydney), vol 1, no 2, August–September 1970, p 27.

 6. First published in Arena, no 21, 1970, it was republished with several commentaries in R Gordon (ed), The Australian New Left, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1970.

 7. See Frank Moorhouse, ‘The End of Anti-Communism—Anti-Communists at a Conference’ in Days of Wine and Rage, op. cit., pp 306–9.

 8. Kate Jennings, Come to Me My Melancholy Baby, Outback, Melbourne, 1975.

 9. Frank Moorhouse, ‘It's siege and hysteria out there’, Bulletin, 18 May 1974, p 17.

10. Elizabeth Reid and Dennis Altman, Equality: The New Issues, Victorian Fabian Pamphlet no 28, Melbourne, 1973.

11. Dennis Altman, ‘Labor in the age of Whitlam’, Outlook, December 1968, p 12.

12. Michael Harrington, The Next Left, Holt, New York, 1987.

13. Andrea Bernstein interview with Tony Kushner, Mother Jones, July–August 1995, p 59.

14. David Williamson, ‘Truce in the Identity Wars’, Weekend Australian, 11–12 May 1996.

15. R W Connell, Which Way Is Up? Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1983, p 160.

16. ‘Mr Packer gives forth on the state of the nation’, Age, Melbourne, 17 February 1994.

17. See Dennis Altman, Paper Ambassadors, Angus & Robertson, Sydney and London, 1991, p 57.

18. Vivien Altman, ‘To feel passionate again’ in J Scutt (ed), No Fear Of Flying, Artemis, Melbourne, 1993, pp 33–42.

19. I had some peripheral involvement in these debates. See Dennis Altman, ‘Palestine: Litmus Test for the Left’, Politics (Sydney), vol 10, no 2, November 1975, pp 169–77.

20. Rod Myer, ‘In Search of my Jewish Soul’, Good Weekend, 12 August 1995, p 38.

21. The transcript of the interview (December 1991) is held in the Oral History Collection of the National Library, Canberra.

22. I develop this argument in a chapter in Richard Nile (ed), Australian Civilisation, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1994.

23. Amanda Lohrey, ‘Australia Day 1994’, Republica (Sydney), no 1, 1994.

24. Louis Menand, ‘Mixed Paint’, Mother Jones, March–April 1995, p 33.

25. Pamela Bone, ‘Heaven knows why we can’t debate religion’, Age, 22 December 1992.

26. Quoted in Bulletin, 7 July 1987, p 51.

27. Ali Mazrui, ABC Guest of Honour Broadcast June 4 1972, quoted in W Bostock, Alternatives of Ethnicity, Cat & Fiddle Press, Hobart, 1977.