Retaining the frisson of the 'other' : imperialism, assimilation, integration and multiculturalism in Australian schools

In Australia, the 1960s saw a broadening of music offerings from other cultures in school materials from the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). This is a useful indicator for changing perceptions. Since then, increasingly 'authentic' materials have become available but how far have we really come? Blacking (How musical is man? University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1973) identified the difficulty of acquiring and understanding, skill and authenticity in the music of another culture. He stressed that musical acquisition should occur in a cultural context. Removing music from one culture and presenting it in the symbolic gestures of another may strip its meaning. This is particularly true for musics from cultures removed from the Western paradigm. The further we move from our cultural norm, the harder it is to produce authentic experiences for students. By considering the African music resources offered to schools by the ABC, we can explore the attempts we have made to move from colonialism to multiculturalism.

The modern Medea : Euripides, anti-imperialism and infanticide

Euripides' Medea has been reinvented several times in the twentieth century. This paper uncovers the impetus that informs the lineage of Medeas that are overt in their politicisation of the problems of colonialism and/or institutionalised gender dissymmetry: the Medeas of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Heiner Mller, Brendan Kennelly, Liz Lochhead, Christa Wolf, Diana Wakoski, Tony Harrison - and more recently Wesley Enoch. What, however, lends the Euripidean narrative to such politicisations? To answer this question, the paper looks back to Euripides' play, offering a reappraisal of its representation of infanticide. The paper argues that while this motif is routinely dismissed in the scholarship as a demonising representation of the cultural and sexual Other, the infanticide motif is also the key to understanding Medea's radicality and politicisation of rights-bearing subjectivity in its ancient and modern incarnations.

Infanticide and anti-imperialism in Pasolini's Medea

Euripides’ Medea has been reinvented several times in the twentieth century. While some modern Medeas reiterate conservative tropes of the monstrous feminine or the evil of the cultural Other, the infanticidal figure of Medea is also open to more politically progressive usages. Indeed, several modern versions of Medea are overt in their politicisation of the problems of colonialism and/or institutionalised gender dissymmetry: the Medeas of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Heiner Müller, Christa Wolf, and more recently the indigenous Australian version by Wesley Enoch, for example, enact resistance to the interpretative closures that construct Medea as a caricature of the evil Other. But what lends the Euripidean narrative to such politicisations? And what role does the infanticide have in modern politicisations of the narrative?

To answer these questions, the paper examines Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1969 film Medea from his Trilogy of Life series. Focussing on Pasolini’s representation of Medea’s signature act, maternal infanticide, the paper outlines the complex ways in which this motif is integral to the film’s contestation of imperialist ideologies, values and practices, and its affiliations with Marxist and feminist criticism. Drawing upon theories of subjectivity and postcolonial discourse, the paper argues that the infanticide motif is politically enabling precisely because it exalts the politics of the ways in which subjectivity is defined. That is, the apparent blessing of the sun god over Medea’s murderous act speaks to the ways in which subjectivity is formed by the symbolic order: a point recalling Medea’s earlier articulation that society systematically demonises and oppresses foreigners and women. The films representation of infanticide, then, can be read in the light of the narratives politicisation of the discourses that define subjectivity and the hegemonic practices that subjugate and dominate the subaltern. So, while Medea’s infanticide is sometimes dismissed as a demonising representation of the cultural and sexual Other, it can also be read as the key to understanding Medea’s political radicality, drawing attention to the discourses of rights-bearing subjectivity in both its ancient and modern incarnations.

Pasolini’s project of anti-colonialism, however, is fraught with certain paradoxes. To politicise the predicament of imperial subjugation, Pasolini’s Medea places the burden of authenticity on the cultural and sexual Other, on Medea - and on Medea’s culture of origin, Colchis. In this way, Pasolini’s Medea mobilises the problematic discourses of ‘First World’ modernity that define the ‘Third World’ as the carrier of the symbolic burden of authenticity as well as of ‘the sacred.’ Pasolini’s Medea thus offers an overly schematic and abstract representation of the relationship between coloniser and colonised. However, Pasolini’s Medea is not simply or finally a reification of these discourses; rather it strategically mobilises them – just as it strategically mobilises the monstrous act of infanticide – to make its political point.

Popular imperialism, Scottish identity, and William Wallace in an Australian colonial city

The narrative of William Wallace holds a prominent position in the current conception of England as a negative referent for Scotland’s national identity—its binary “Other”, against which Wallace valiantly fought. This article considers a contrasting understanding of Scottish national identity from the late-nineteenth century, and explores the events surrounding the unveiling of a statue of William Wallace in Australia during the year of 1889. It illuminates how settlers interpreted this national hero in such a way that demonstrated loyalty to the Union and Empire, and accommodated a convergence of English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh migrants in a British colonial city. The article highlights how statues, the ceremonies surrounding them, and their public reception help us to investigate the symbolic, ritualistic, and performative dimensions of identity formulation. It considers how public monuments, providing a sense of authority to particular groups, can marginalise others by acting to settle cultural competition, and will reflect on competing interpretations of the statue at its unveiling.

A warrior nation

Under Prime Minister John Howard, Australia today appears to have turned away from Asia, returning to a Western oriantation. Has racial invasion fear, once expressed in the 'White Australia' policy, been the determinant of relations with Asia? I argue, in contrast, first, that invasion fear preceded race fear and, second, that Australia was unlucky, in coming to nationhood during the eras of Social Darwinism and New Imperialism, scaling ideas of race citizenship into its national formation. It was unlucky to associate national 'manhood' with Gallipoli and war, making the national tradition expeditionary nationalism, or ANZAC. War is central in national memory and public patriotism, primarily because war has been carried out overseas rather than through fighting on Australian soil, and the devastation of Australian cities. Even after the retreat of Western empires in Asia, and of racial ideology, why has this romantic and foolish view of war as an expression of the nation persisted? Paradoxically, Australians romanticise war even though, after 1788, there has been no other invasion of a continent which is harder to invade than it is to defend.

After decolonization: Australia and the emergence of the non-aligned movement in Asia, 1954-55

This article is a study of the response of the Australian government under Robert Menzies to the emergence of the Afro-Asian movement in the mid-1950s, especially the element of the non-aligned nations, which culminated in the Bandung meeting of April 1955. Non-alignment and anti-colonialism posed direct threats to the Menzies government's plans for the defence of Southeast Asia and its foreign policy for the region. The study of the Australian response to the Bandung meeting reveals the different legacies which European imperialism left behind in Australia compared with its neighbours in south and east Asia.