Lifting the Cloak

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The cloak of nationalism is indeed magical. It hides and projects all at once. 

It projects the strength, unity and the sugar dusted way of life that so many would have us believe is the American or the Australian way, which so many would have as the American way. What the cloak of nationalism hides is the inequity of those that stand forgotten at the foot of capitalist mountain ranges unimaginable to traverse. 

Behind the cloak, lies armies of police, a system of justice in which justice denied is considered justice done.  The cloak only shields those who it wants to shield, it was designed that way. Only those deemed suitable get to become embroidered into its fabric. 

The cloak is not technicolor, and it’s not a dream, it casts only shadow and it is cold under its’ shroud. 

“Is it any wonder the glowing embers of the oppressed, stoked for so long, exploded in the night? ”

In Australia, we have been less successful in creating an image of ourselves that shines anywhere as near as bright as the image, with all its’ falsehoods the United States of America has created for itself.   

This is partially because some of us see ourselves as the 51st state, but mainly the reason is that we are a western Judea colony smacked close to the heart of Asia in what is quickly turning out to be the Asian century. We are big, yet small at the same time. We are wealthy, yet vulnerable. We wish to assert, but assert what?

We shroud ourselves in fake history, half-truths and faint whispers. The cloak makes it almost impossible to have a nuanced national conversation. This is the case here as it is the case in America. 

Nationalism has become the retreat for lazy political operatives and not so lazy ideologues. 

It has been the capitalist leader’s job, whether a captain of industry or captain of ‘team Australia’, to try and get the masses to buy into their dream, and the cloak of nationalism has been one of the strongest suits in their armory. This makes it difficult for any subject matter, any contrary truth which contradicts the happy, sunny narrative to be heard. 

Our leaders sit at the feet of American spin masters and dream merchants, no matter how sycophantic and absurd that makes us look to the rest of the world.  

It has become the way of politics to pretend all is good, there are entire networks dedicated to reiterating the mantra of conservative leaders. Echo chambers have burst out of the limitations of social media and now reverberate across continents, if you have a world view, there’s a station for you, there will be a pundit assigned to you shortly. 

There has been no clearer example of the cloak in use in recent times than seeing the President watching the launch of a distant rocket bound for the International Space Station. A celebration of the spangled banners might and power, the only flames the President was prepared to see while at the same time the rest of his country burned, fires roaring at racism, injustice and the real American way.

The fires were as hot as the refrigerated trucks acting as makeshift morgues were cold. A result of a virus and an inadequate healthcare system. Over 100,000 dead and counting. 

Is it any wonder the glowing embers of the oppressed, stoked for so long, exploded in the night? When you have one more death under the despotic knee of a pitiless cop and his accomplices, African Americans dying at twice the rate from COVID19 as the rest of the population.  The same oppressed see the President on the nightly news touting bizarre and potentially dangerous treatments while refusing to wear a mask to protect others around him while 40 million people lose their jobs overnight in order to suppress the same virus.

Many here in the land of Oz looked at the tragedy unfolding in America with a slow shake of the head, the occasional tut and hand over the mouth – oblivious to the unfolding tragedy played out here with my people. Oblivious to the deaths of 432 brothers and sisters, uncles and aunties dead while in custody since the release of the Black Deaths in Custody royal commission report in 1991. 

 
 

The hundreds, perhaps thousands of Aboriginal men and women dead at the hands of justice prior to 1991 remain a truth too shameful, too problematic for a nation that sees itself as the lucky country to deal with. Like the oppressed in America, Aboriginal people have been brutalised by cops, sheriffs, lawyers, judges and prison wardens since invasion. 

Yes, there are of course differences between the African American and the First Nations experience in Australia, but just like in America, First Nations people and people of colour are forced on a daily basis to think about identity, to consider race. Because racism, systemic or interpersonal shapes our daily lives. It’s inescapable.  

As a nation we must realise that it’s ok for the mood of the country to ebb and flow, through certain times of the year. We can’t always be up, because most of us can’t be. 

It is time to lift the cloak, our national identity is far more layered, far more complex than nationalists, white or otherwise would have us believe. It shouldn’t be left to the oppressed to educate the those that run the systems that oppress us, we shouldn’t have to remind the masses that Aboriginal lives matter, but we do, because we must.