The recent chatter about an Australian republic, prompted by Treasurer Wayne Swan and Opposition minister Malcolm Turnbull, brought to mind a gilt-framed image of Queen Elizabeth II; a large portrait propped in front of the hall during my citizenship ceremony. I giggled when I saw it. In fact I had to avoid setting eyes on it for the rest of the evening, worried that I would not be able to stop.
It wasn't for lack of respect, as I do acknowledge that Her Majesty is our head of state. But there was something comically irrelevant about her refined visage in that space, at that time.
She had had absolutely nothing to do with my angst-ridden and protracted discernment over citizenship, nor did she feature in the application process as anything more than a footnote. In the midst of the pledging (which makes no mention of her), the singing of the national anthem ('Advance Australia Fair' since 1984), and the hand-shaking with the mayor, she stood in full regalia like an afterthought. It was jarring.
In a country where over 260 languages are spoken, it bears wondering where the British monarchy sits within our self-narrative. Over half a million Australians identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. One in four of us were born overseas, and a further fifth of our population have at least one overseas-born parent. Our heritage can be traced to more than 270 different ancestries.
It is difficult to reconcile this reality with the monarchist mission 'to preserve, protect and defend our heritage'. Whose heritage? For what end?
Monarchists argue that there's no point in fixing what isn't broken, that the constitutional monarchy has served us well. But they miss the fact that it is these very ties to a colonial past that keep us from maturing, especially when it comes to issues about race. These ties are not a form of harmless sentimentality — they are a source of enduring xenophobia and racism.
I realised as much during a conversation with high school students about multiculturalism. One of them strongly identified with England, 'the motherland'. It would have been an unremarkable thing for him to say, since family histories bear it out. But he went on to declare that migrants ought to 'fall in line' with the dominant culture.
He viewed Australian identity as unequivocally Anglo-Celtic and spoke of the rule of law, human rights, democracy and secularism as distinctly Australian values. The