posted on 2017-05-21, 05:56authored byCarlo Salzani
The Howard decade in Australia has been characterised, among other things, by a strong emphasis on patriotism, national unity and national identity. The contemporary debates on Australian values, un-australianess, and the war waged on the term multiculturalism in favour of integration, reflect a politics which aims at consolidating the cultural borders of the nation-state and its internal cohesiveness. The effect has been the progressive marginalisation of cultural politics of difference: ethnic, social and cultural minorities have acquired a divisive unviability which must be surrendered to the unity of the social body. This unity is also set against the in-appropriate interference of supra-national bodies that meddle in internal affairs and limit the authority of the nation-state.
Against this background, Ravi de Costa tells the story of indigenous struggle in Australia emphasising its necessary transnational traits.