There is a poster on the wall of the underpass leading to Auburn station in Sydney. If you look closely you can make out the profile of a red turban poking out from under a black smear of paint covering the face of the man beneath it.
Below his chin the word 'Aussie' has been similarly obliterated by the slash of a paint tin wielded by one unknown.
The poster is part of a campaign by street artist Peter Drew, and the man wearing the red turban is Monga Khan, an 'Afghan' cameleer.
This campaign seeks to create inclusivity through asking the question 'What is a Real Aussie', but as the hasty defacement of Monga Khan's poster in Auburn illustrates, not everyone is on board.
Drew's 'Real Australians say welcome' campaign, and the 'What is a Real Aussie' campaign which followed it, have received extensive coverage and a large amount of private donations. This campaign ties into an increasingly common brand of Australian nationalism. It is a 'civic' nationalism in which belonging is according to contribution to the state, and appeals because it seems free of the normal ethnic and religious requirements of nationalist mythology.
Instead of national identity defined along the lines of a primarily cultural (here: white) heritage, it offers a tale of a shared investment in the 'Australian' state, first as colonies and then as Commonwealth.
The Afghan cameleers seem the perfect candidates for an anachronistic projection of civic nationalist legitimacy into the Australian past. But at the same time they illustrate the problem with such appeals.
Recruited from within the British Raj and the border regions of Afghanistan (later a British protectorate), the cameleers were an indispensable part of the exploration and exploitation of large swathes of the Australian continent. Working short contracts and frequently returning home, they were often treated with disdain by those they served.
"While at first glance the story may seem to have an inclusive potential, it is an inclusion predicated in efforts expended in the expansion of British territory."
As victims of Australian racism, they were simultaneously an integral part of the displacement of Aboriginal people and the spreading of British Empire into the interior of Australia.
The story of the Afghan cameleers, many of whom we can speculate would have baulked at the title 'Aussie', is an important one. Firstly, it presages some of the issues that arise among many Muslims today; as targets of Australian racism but also as settler