Australia's un-doing
March 15, 2005
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Pauline Hanson has been accused of being un-Australian, as have those that condemn the on-court antics of Lleyton Hewitt.
The term "un-Australian" has become so widely used that the Macquarie Dictionary is revising its definition, writes Judith Ireland
It's not easy being Australian. Men who like cats, bosses who block internet access to footy tipping websites and anyone who refuses to eat lamb or support Lleyton Hewitt are un-Australian, say recent media reports.
Striking workers, utes that can't do burn-outs, broadcasting the Ashes on pay TV, paying for beach access or for someone to clean your house are among 27 things deemed un-Australian in newspaper reports this year. And it's only March.
Use of the word "un-Australian" has been on the rise since the mid-1990s, says Bruce Moore, director of the Australian National Dictionary Centre.
Despite Don Watson's 2000 plea for a moratorium on the "weasel word", a Media Monitors survey of metropolitan Australian newspapers found mentions of un-Australian have increased from 68 in 1995, to 406 in 2000 and 571 last year.
Use of the word has become so widespread that The Macquarie Dictionary - which first added un-Australian to its 2001 Federation edition - has decided to upgrade the definition in its fourth edition, due out in October.
Used as far back as the 1850s, the term has undergone a revival in the past decade. While its use in the 1990s was largely on the political stage - notably in reference to asylum seekers, Asian immigrants, protesters and monarchists - today the term has wider application.
"My sense is that out of the culture wars of the 1990s we can see the emergence of an entirely new kind of usage of un-Australian," says Tim Phillips, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Tasmania, who has conducted research into popular understandings of the word. "[It] is becoming part of the popular vernacular, rather than having the serious overtones of its usage in political life.
"My guess is this has resulted to some degree from a public awareness of its growing presence in broader political life, and perhaps a level of cynicism."
Comedians may have been the word's conduit into the public vernacular. It's a favourite expression of Roy Slaven - one half of the ABC's Roy and H.G. - who has noted "something un-Australian about being paid to do nothing". The Chaser's Craig Reucassel says it is "un-Australian" to deny someone a "charity shag". Wil Anderson and Dave Hughes proudly outed themselves as "un-Australian" vegetarians.
Light-hearted weasel word or not, un-Australian still packs a punch. With obscenities having lost much shock value - witness Cate Blanchett dropping "you asshole" into her Oscar thank-yous - calling someone un-Australian could be the last of the big insults.
Joseph Pugliese, an associate professor at Macquarie University who teaches a unit on un-Australian cultural studies, says the term is often intended to exclude people from the nation. "What's at stake is that sense of belonging," he says. "I see it as a term used to discriminate between individuals and groups that refuse to conform to the dominant culture. I see it as a divisive term, one that's predicated on an 'us and them' mentality."
One only has to look at a recent lamb advertisement to experience the emotional power of the term.
On January 16, Meat and Livestock Australia launched an ad campaign featuring ex-Aussie Rules footballer Sam Kekovich sitting in front of an Australian flag, declaring it "un-Australian" not to eat lamb on Australia Day.
Disgruntled vegetarians and vegans hit talkback radio to demand an apology from Kekovich and threaten a lawsuit against media outlets that ran the ads. A complaint was also made to the Advertising Standards Board in a bid to have the ads banned. (The board ruled the advertisement was "clearly satirical", having received just as many compliments as complaints regarding the ad.)
THE Macquarie Dictionary first included a definition in response to a "burst" of use among politicians such as John Howard and Pauline Hanson in the 1990s, says the dictionary's publisher, Sue Butler.
The definition is two-fold. In reference to art and literature, un-Australian describes a work "not Australian in character". Un-Australian conduct is "not conforming to ideas of traditional Australian morality and customs, such as fairness, honesty, hard work, etc".
Butler has approved a third variant reflecting a more common use. The dictionary's fourth edition will further define un-Australian as "violating a pattern of conduct, behaviour, etc., which, it is implied by the user of the term, is one embraced by Australians".
Says Butler: "That allows you to basically call anything you like un-Australian and hope the rest of the country will agree. We realised that far from being 'Australian' with an 'un' in front of it, it was actually a very complex term."
The concept is so complex because any discussion of what's not Australian ultimately leads to definitions of what is.
Australia has struggled to fashion a single national identity from a population of 20 million people with diverse backgrounds. But our multicultural background may be at the core of the word's popularity.
To Pugliese, the term's negative take on identity signifies Australia's failure to come to terms with its complex history. "For me it marks a profound anxiety about Australia's identity."
With destabilisation comes uncertainty and this may prompt some community members to yearn for an older, more homogenous Australia.
Phillips says the term came to the fore during widespread public debates around multiculturalism, Mabo and the republic during the 1990s. "As these debates worked to destabilise older, more one-dimensional conceptions of national identity, so too they opened up new imaginings of the nation in people's minds."
WITH the exception of the United States, Australia is alone in its invocation of an "un-national". Neither Moore nor Butler have come across equivalent terms in other countries. There is no such thing as "un-Welsh" or "un-New Zealand".
Australians often debate our love affair with American culture. But despite striking parallels with Joe McCarthy's "unAmericanism", un-Australian appears in very early Australian English, says Bruce Moore.
The earliest known use of the word was in 1855 by W. Howitt in the colonial journal Land, Labor and Gold. Howitt referred to a landscape with "an appearance perfectly un-Australian". At this time, it was used in a positive sense to describe things that were like the motherland, Moore says.
While John Howard may be partly responsible for the word's contemporary revival, its incarnation in the political arena was due to an earlier prime minister. In 1925 Stanley Bruce called striking seamen "un-Australian" agitators. In the '30s, Joseph Lyons campaigned to prevent "un-Australian" groups, such as communists and the "non-British", from entering the country.
After World War II, the term disappeared for several decades before creeping back into the vernacular in the 1980s. As premier of NSW in 1986, Neville Wran labelled an attack on a policewoman at a cricket match "un-Australian".
In the 1990s, Howard became an inveterate user of un-Australian - despite having been called un-Australian himself on numerous occasions. Last year 28.2 per cent of "un-Australian" mentions in major metropolitan newspapers were by Howard, says Media Monitors.
Howard used the term as far back as the '80s when discussing a proposal for a national identity card. He has used the term to describe trade unionists attacking Parliament House in 1996; striking wharfies in 1998; anti-globalisation protesters at the Melbourne World Economic Forum in 2000; anti-war marchers in 2003; and of "cutting and running" from Iraq in 2004.
"I think John Howard stands out with respect to his political skill in using the term," says Phillips. "He seems to have a real knack for knowing the issues it is relevant to, and his subsequent usages carry an air of authority."
While traditionally favoured by conservatives, the term is now used across the political spectrum, Phillips says.
The former Democrats leader, Andrew Bartlett, called Pauline Hanson's immigration policies un-Australian. Bob Hawke said the GST was un-Australian. The former Opposition leader Mark Latham had similar things to say about Tony Abbott.
Over the years, the word's meaning has kept changing. "I think essentially the word 'un-Australian' has come to take on quite an amorphous quality today, and it's the shifting social bases and evolving usages of the term that in many ways make it an interesting idea for us to keep thinking about," says Phillips.
Pugliese says there has already been an "ironic reclaiming" of the term. Those critical of contemporary Australian political culture use it as a "badge of honour", he says.
"Sooner or later someone is going to call you un-Australian," says the website argusonline.com.au, which sells T-shirts emblazoned with the word.
"It [un-Australian] has always annoyed the hell out of me," says Anthony Mason, editor of Argus magazine. "It plays up to all the nationalistic and jingoistic emotions. I figured that slapping the label on a T-shirt would stir people up, make them think about how the word is used to make it weaker and more nonsensical."
A mix of academics, public servants, activists and "ordinary Australians" has bought the shirts, says Mason. "Some have been abused, some have been stopped in the street, some have been engaged in lively conversations in the pub. I get some really strange looks when I wear mine to the local mall."
Perhaps people don't realise it's un-Australian to stare.
