Nature Or Nurture? Rise And Fall Of Britishness In Australian National Identity

The distinctive trajectory of the development of Australian national identity helped shape Australian society. Since Britishness is a recurrent theme in discussions of Australian national identity, to understand it is an indispensible step to penetrate deeply into Australian society.It was a long tradition for Australians to define themselves as a people through their connections with Britain. Australia regarded itself as an inherent part of the British Empire and Britishness was the essential constituent of Australia's self-identification. Whether expressed in its loyalty to Britain; in its biased way of looking at things through British value, tradition and custom; in its prioritization of British interests, be them military, political, economic or cultural over its own, this Britishness in Australian national identity was found vigorous and essential even in the first few decades after Federation; the rest of Australian history, however, contradicted that vitality and essence, especially after the adoption of Multiculturalism as government agenda.For many researchers, the rise or the fall of Britishness in Australian national identity was very often received as a hard fact too readily and conveniently. By applying a deconstructive analysis, this thesis argues that both the ascending and descending of Britishness were fictions constructed on the basis of partial facts that are selectively addressed for a variety of purposes and the ramifications of these constructs were primarily determined by their enduring influence on public mentality and their incongruity with changed realities over time.The reinforcing effect of Federation on Britishness and the construct of its dominance were only made possible by deliberately overlooking the fact that starting to develop its distinctive national identity at the time was both rational and legitimate; the chosen reality of unchanged loyalty to Britain was exaggerated and emphasized to the level that it became the single story in the following decades after Federation. Likewise, despite the fact that the vast majority of Australian population was still of British and European descent and the United Kingdom still topped the list of source countries ranked by the number of immigrants, Multiculturalism was invented as the only reality and the persistence of Britishness in public mentality was completely neglected and even denied. That is to say, the fundamental measure taken to the construct of the rise and fall of Britishness was to adopt, exaggerate, and mythologize a selective part of reality and depreciate other components of it that were equally important or to turn a blind eye on the other equally valid alternatives.Relying on thorough-going research and relentless presentation of evidence, this thesis clarifies the manifestations of the rise and fall of Britishness in national identity, how they were constructed, reasons behind the constructs and their historical effects. The thesis concludes that in any given time of Australian history, the changing importance of Britishness was invented for particular social, economic and political purposes to continually adapt to changed circumstances domestically and internationally. The absolute reality was basically non-existent and illusionary since reality was distorted, invented, deployed and utilized for realistic and immediate benefits. There was no true or false, right or wrong concerning Britishness; it was only the effectiveness and accuracy of the deployment of it and its corresponding historical effects proved only by time that count at last.