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Cultural awareness: to stereotype or not? Argentina America China Canada England France Germany Ireland Indonesia India Japan New Zealand Papua New Guinea Russia South Africa Singapore South Korea "Australians appear very naive to the newly-arrived Japanese. They speak the same way with everyone." "Australians risked becoming ‘the poor white trash of Asia." "I can personally affirm that to stand before an audience of beaming Australians and make even the mildest quip about a convict past is to feel the feel the air conditioning immediately elevated."Bill Bryson - American "You have no need to feel iffy about a country where "relaxation is the aim". There's nothing to be worried about if "no worries" is your mantra. People have killed for less." " What sort or peculiar capitalist country is this in which the workers' representatives predominate in the upper house....and yet the capitalist system is in no danger?" "You feel free in Australia. There is great relief in the atmosphere - a relief from tension, from pressure, an absence of control of will or form. The skies open above you and the areas open around you" " The Australian, who are the men our troops have had opposite them so far, are extraordinarily tough fighters. The German is more active in the attack, but the enemy stakes his life in the defence and fights to the last with extreme cunning." "New Zealanders who emigrate to Australia raise the IQ of both countries."
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Germany |
Australia |
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| Population | 82,369,552 (July 2008 est.) | 20,600,856 (July 2008 est.) |
| GDP per capita ($US) | $34,100 (2007 est.) | $36,300 (2007 est.) |
| GDP - composition by sector: | agriculture: 0.9% industry: 30.1% services: 69% (2007 est.) |
agriculture: 3% industry: 26.4% services: 70.6% (2007 est.) |
| Public debt | 64.9% of GDP (2007 est.) | 15.4% of GDP |
| Racial groups | German 91.5%, Turkish 2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish) | White 92%, Asian 7%, Aboriginal and other 1% |
| Export partners | France 9.7%, US 7.5%, UK 7.3%, Italy 6.7%, Netherlands 6.4%, Austria 5.4%, Belgium 5.3%, Spain 5% (2007) | Japan 19.6%, China 12.3%, South Korea 7.5%, US 6.2%, India 5.5%, NZ 5.5%, UK 5% (2006) |
Thinkers
Germans are very cognitive people and have produced most of the world's great thinkers in a range of disciplines. Karl Marx became one of the world's most influential economists. Marx argued that society has always been in a state of class war due to the capitalists exerting their self-interest to the detriment of the whole. Marx believed that this would eventually result in market failure and social revolution. Once the capitalists monopolised all the wealth, the majority would no longer have the ability to provide market demand. Therefore, capitalism would destroy itself.
In Europe, Marxist ideas became the basis for the welfare state and government regulation of the market. Via taxation and the provision of government services, the government believed it could protect capitalism from itself.
In Germany, Russia, Cuba and China, Marxist ideas were taken a step further and became the basis for right-wing governments that aimed to stifle self-interest in order to serve the greater good.
Freud was another great thinker that spoke German but resided in Austria. Whether he was actually German depends on whether a German was defined by national boundaries or culture. (Technically, Hitler was Austrian as well.)
Freud pioneered the practice of clinical psychoanalysis, which advocated curing mental problems through dialogue between a patient and psychologist. He also argued that most motivations in life were sexually derived. One of his most famous theories was penis envy, in which he argued female neuroticism stemmed from a subconscious desire to possess a penis.
Einstein was a great physicist who developed e=mc2. This basically proposed that energy = mass times the speed of light squared, or in more simple terms, there was a lot of energy in atoms. Einstein also developed the theory of relativity, which was used to predict the existence of black holes, as well as the mass and size of things travelling at different speeds. Many of the predictions of relativity were later found to be correct.
In addition to the thinkers, Germany has produced a great number of Nobel Prize winners. As of 2007, German had produced 80 winners.
Even though Australia is roughly the same age as Germany, it has yet to produce the same number of world-renowned intellectuals. Amongst Australian intellectuals, the lack of fame is explained as stemming from the tall-poppy syndrome, which proposes that the average Australian is jealous of their superiority. In truth, Australia's intellectuals really aren't very intellectual. Their tradition is defined by a culture of advocacy over a culture of inquiry. This makes it difficult to discuss things with an Australian intellectual because their mind is already made up. Instead of discussion, they are focussed on using derogatory caricatures, sarcasm and insults to persuade others to think the same way. In 2008, Paul Kelly, editor of the Australian, wrote:
" I think that one of the problems with the public intellectual class in this country as I see it is that they have been too hostile or suspicious of the policies which have underpinned our successes over the course of the last 25 to 30 years and they have been quite unhelpful in helping us address our policy failures...I think that the task of intellectuals is to clarify, is to inform, is to enlighten, is to guide public debate in an effective and intelligent way and I think far too often what we get is a polemic. A polemic which is designed to create anger and indignation, a polemic which doesn't enlighten or clarify at all."
Even though Australia hasn't produced any great theoretical intellectuals, Australia has produced some good scientists and great inventors. Australian inventions include the Jindalee radar system that transformed the $16 billion American "stealth" bomber into nothing more than an unusual looking aircraft. Other inventions include the cochlear implant, the winged keel, the electric drill, the refrigerator, black box flight recorder, nuclear fusion, differential gears, orbital combustion engine, penicillin, ultrasound, gene shears and the scram jet. The sheer number of inventions seems to show that critical and independent thinking can have an upside.
As of 2007, Australia had produced ten Nobel Prize winners. Nine of the Australian winners were for science or medicine and one was for literature. Another eight people with links to Australia have won Nobel Prizes.
German man talks about Australian stereotypes
Cultural identity
Germans have some trouble defining German culture or defining what it means to be German. If suggestions are made that German culture is drinking beer or dancing while wearing funny hats, they usually say such cultural acts are just stereotypes or Bavarian.
Australians are likewise reluctant to use the culture of minorities to define Australia as a whole. For example, after Paul Hogan’s Crocodile Dundee created a perception that Australians were good natured larrikins, many concerned Australians felt the need to inform international tourists that they don’t say g'day or wrestle crocodiles. For Geoffrey Barker of the Melbourne Herald, Hogan's character reinforced international perceptions that "Australians are gauche, provincial and philistine".
A quote by Albert Einstein may explain why both German and Australians are reluctant to see minority expressions in their countries as representative of the whole country. According to Einstein,
"If my theory is proven correct, the French will say I am a citizen of the world and the Germans will say I am a German. If I am wrong, the French will say I am a German and the Germans will say I am a Jew."
Basically, Einstein was saying that if he was considered worthy of respect, people would want to associate themselves with him. If not, they would want to distance themselves from him. The same psychology can be seen in German and Australian attitudes to minority culture. If the minority culture was seen in a positive way, then Germans and Australians would celebrate it as representative of their culture even if they personally didn't conform to it. For one reason or another, not many Germans and Australians have been raised to see examples of their culture in a positive way, which in turns makes them reluctant to associate themselves with examples of it.
High culture and the Cultural Cringe
In a speech for the Centre of Independent Studies, German sociologist Jens Schroeder explained why Australia’s “elites” tend to be so critical of their country. According to Schroeder, in Germany, high culture acted as a social glue to bind the German people and in the process, gave status to those individual Germans who held mastery over it. In Australia, just as many people went to art galleries, attended the theatre or read books; however, there was no status for doing so in egalitarian Australia. The lack of status in turn led to criticism of Australia from those individuals who felt they were deserving of it.
Beer
World-wide, Germany is famous for its beer. It was the first European nation to introduce beer standards and the desire for a form of quality control helped Germany build its reputation. In addition, German beer brands benefit from the impressive culture of the Bavarian minority. With an average annual per capita consumption of around 170 litres, Bavarians are known as the world's most beer loving people. They celebrate their love with the Oktoberfest beer festival. While many Germans often dismiss Bavarians as not really German, the rest of the world sees them as German and gives praise to all of Germany in the process.
Australia is also quite famous for its beer, although the fame stems from stereotypes of beer love instead of an obsession with quality. Per capita beer consumption in Australia is actually quite low. In 2009, per average per capita consumption for Australians over 15 was 106 litres of beer a year, or about 8 glasses a week. Most of the consumption is done by the ocker Australian male who comprises just 10 per cent of the population but consumes around 80 per cent of the beer. The high consumption rate by the minority also helps define Australia's positive reputation as a whole.
Music
The independent German speaking states that existed prior to the federated German state produced some of the world's greatest classical musicians. These composures include Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Johann Sebastian Bach.
After World War II, Germany continued its impressive musical tradition. German composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen and Hans Werner Henze began experimenting with electronic sounds in classical music. It was their experimentations that eventually gave rise to technotronic. Today, Germany has the largest electronic music scene in the world.
Rammstein is one of the leading German bands. Their music and video clips are highly artistic and confront taboo topics such as terrorism, homosexual cannibalism, national socialism, and religious temptation. Rammstein’s videos showcase a lot of Nazi themes, which is quite understandable considering that Germans are constantly informed of their Nazi history, if only to make them ashamed of it. The brutality of Nazi history perhaps desensitises Germans from confronting brutality in other areas of life. Another feature of Rammstein's video clips is the band's willingness to act as the bad guys. It is a relatively unique trait amongst world musicians.
In the realm of Australian music, the name AC/DC stands alone. Since their inception in 1973, they have sold 200 million albums worldwide and their songs used in countless car commercials over the decades.
Unlike some global rock bands, AC/DC never portrayed themselves as the saviours of the environment or the poor. Instead, they just sang about drinking, having fun and sex. In many ways, their music seems to show a penal fingerprint. They reignited a sense of defiance with songs such as "TNT." They continued the Australian tradition of taking the piss out of the pompous with "Big Balls"; a song that equates the elite's quest for social esteem with a proud declaration of testicle size. They sang of debauchery with "Touch to Much" , female empowerment with "She's Got Balls" and explored the criminal element with "Dirty Deeds", "Sin City" and "Jailbreak."
Rammstein - Rosenrot
An interesting exploration of the conflict between morals and emotions. 6 travelling monks from different religious orders visit a small village and are tempted by the emotional and physical pleasures on display. The monks deal with their temptation by violently whipping themselves. One of the monks gives into his desire and kills a young girl’s parents at her request. The girl then cries out and the other monks lead the villagers in the bashing of their colleague. The monks further liberate their emotions by leading the villagers in the burning of their colleague at the stake. While morality and emotion are in conflict for much of the clip, in the punishment of their colleague, they are in synergy once more.
RAMMSTEIN ich will
Released the day before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Ich will (I want) shows bank robbers/terrorists/attention seekers being celebrated as heroes. It may demonstrate the media's obsession with a good story that allows immortality to be achieved by those that do wrong. When the crowd cheers that they are heard and felt, the band yells that it doesn’t understand the crowd. In the final scene, an exploding bomb releases scenes from the bands other video clips. This could imply that the band itself is composed of bad people who are made into heroes as a result of media criticism of them. Alternatively, it could imply that the issues the band sings about are by-products of certain psychological conditions fuelled by the media.
Travel
Both Germans and Australians are keen travellers, but both approach the world in slightly different ways. Many Germans approach the world in fear that they will be seen as a Nazi. In Europe, the fear is well founded. A large number of western Europeans view Germans as the same people who supported Adolph Hitler. In China, Russia and Japan, the opposite is the case. Japan was a Nazi ally so there is no social status in criticising Germans. As for the Chinese, many view Adolph Hitler as a strong socialist, like Chairman Mao, who stood up to America. Furthermore, Communist theory is based on the work of Marx and Engels. The Communist Party of China has historically praised Germany for that reason. Russians also seem to like Germans, perhaps because East Germany was turned into a Communist state that was praised by the Soviet leadership.
Australians have traditionally approached the world in a positive way. Songs such as Land Downunder, and I Still Call Australia Home have created an idea that the world is exciting and there is adventure to be had. Unlike Germans, Australians don’t fear being disliked. Of course, there are many countries that don’t like Australians. For example, Asians generally view Australians as rude, lacking in culture, disrespectful and unrefined. That said, many like the fact that Australians are mostly relaxed and fun. Likewise, the English have traditionally seen Australians as corrupted by the Convict streak, which, for many English people, makes Australians a lot of fun. Even though some nationalities criticise Australians for lacking culture, it has never really bothered many Australians to the extent that they worry saying they are from Australia.
Ironically, even though few Australians fear saying they are from Australia, Australia has developed a culture of one Australian criticising other Australians in an international environment. For example, Men at Work’s Downunder, which most Australians thought was patriotic, was really intended to be an insult. It seems that when they were singing, "I come from a land down under where women glow and men plunder", Men at Work didn't think Australians would see the lyrics as a compliment. A similar form of cultural confusion was seen in the song Red Gum’s “I’ve been to Bali too.” The song was intended to be a criticism of Australians going to Bali to have fun instead of to learn about local culture. The criticism went over most Australians' heads and they just thought it was celebrating going to Bali to have fun.
A particularly odd characteristic of some Australians is to work through the media and education industries of other countries to portray Australia as a racist country. Despite defining their homeland with racist stereotypes, the Australians don’t feel they will be seen as personally racist. Therefore, they still proudly say that they are from Australia.
Nazis
Since World War II , many Germans have been trying to convince the world that they are not Nazis. In contrast, many Australians have been trying to convince the world that they are. One such Australian was the late politician Al Grassby. According to Grassby, identifying one's ancestors as Australian on a census form was a sign of racial supremacist attitudes that would be comparable to killing 6 million Jews. In his own words,
"It would mean there was a secret master race that considered themselves pure Australians...It would be worse than the Third Reich."
In 2006, 37.1 per cent of Australians cited their ancestry as Australian on the census forms. If the Grassby stereotype were to be believed, then Australian businesses that construct gas chambers should be doing a roaring trade.
In 2008, actor Hugh Jackman told an American audience that a policy of eugenics ruled in Australia up to the 70s. According to Jackman, the Australian government devised a policy of removing mixed-race children from Aboriginal communities and raising them in white society. According to Jackman, mixing Aboriginal blood with white blood somehow preserved white blood and prevented its corruption. In Jackman's words:
"The stolen generation was a policy that was born out of eugenics. Eugenics in Europe, as we saw with Nazi Germany, was sort of popular at the time. This idea that if you mixed races or mixed breeds you lessened the blood or something and that you had an inferior human being, right?
So many well-intentioned people thought this was a good idea and in Australia if you had an Aboriginal parent and a white parent or a European parent, the government would take you away from your family, they would tell you your family had died or been killed in an accident, they would put you in an institution. "
Jackman's thinking was unsound. If the Australian government was motivated by eugenics, then it would have believed that it was making whites inferior by bringing Aboriginal blood into white society. Meanwhile, it would have believed that it was protecting black supremacy by keeping white blood out of black society.
In 2007, Australia's leading intellectual (as voted by his peers) Robert Manne, sent The Australian newspaper an article which argued that Australia was entering a Nazi style era of political control. In an editorial, The Australian responded:
"There is no better way to start the day than with a good chuckle. Happily, there was Robert Manne in the letters pages of The Australian yesterday to give us one...Manne says debate is "presently under threat", which would be why people were too terrified to march in their hundreds of thousands against the war in Iraq. You hardly ever hear a word against the Government's Work Choices legislation either, do you? David Marr can never get a word in...Pity we won't be able to hear through the mouth gag he is forced to wear, both hands tied behind his back to prevent him from writing books, essays, columns and, now, letters to The Australian."
In 2009, journalist Gerard Henderson provided a good summary of the culture of equating Australians with Nazis:
"If he were the first to attempt to equate contemporary Australia with Nazism, or the communist regime established by Lenin and Stalin, he would deserve the bagging he received. But it seems Sandilands is simply repeating a line of attack which he has heard well-educated Australians use over many years.
At times the democratic-Australia-equals-totalitarian-dictatorship line is run by quite able commentators who should know better. Just before the November 2007 election, Bruce Kent (an academic at the Australian National University) wrote an article alleging there was worrying similarity between some of the policies of the Coalition government and the Third Reich. Kent linked John Howard with such mass murderers as Hitler and Himmler.
In July, writing in the Crikey newsletter, Guy Rundle attempted to equate News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch with Stalin. Rundle assigned News personnel in Australia to the leading Bolsheviks of their day. John Hartigan was Lenin, Chris Mitchell was Bukharin and so on. Sure, Rundle is a part-time comedian. But there was a serious message to his historical vaudeville.
In the past decade, politicians have taken to casting the totalitarian stone with a vengeance. Just before the 1996 election, the Liberal frontbencher Amanda Vanstone devoted an entire speech to equating Paul Keating with Goebbels. I spoke to Vanstone about this at the time but failed to convince her there was no causal relationship between a democratic politician and a regime propagandist. In May, Steve Gibbons, the Labor MP for Bendigo, criticised Tony Abbott's position on the pension by declaring he showed "all the compassion of the Third Reich".
The desire of some Australians to see themselves as Nazis partly may stem from the lack of drama in Australian life. For more than a century, Australia has seen almost no social conflict (by world standards) and there has been no great human rights barriers to kick down. Amazingly, even though 20% of the Australian population are migrants, Australia has been spared the type of cultural conflict seen in France, England and America. In the absence of social drama, Australians wanting to pride themselves on their social conscience have had to create mythical problems that they can subsequently solve. In some ways, these Australians envy South Africa with its apartheid history, America with its Ku Klux Klan history and Germany with its Nazi history. Human rights problems provide opportunities for human rights heroes. Australia's social stability does not. Admittedly, the last 40 years of government policy in relation to Aborigines has been a disaster, but that has been because Australians with a social conscience have acted stupidly, rather than with malice. As painful as it is for some Australians to admit, Australia just doesn't have the human drama that leads to the kind of humanistic symbolism that wins Nobel Peace Prizes.
National service
Germans probably fret a lot about Nazi stereotypes because they have a strong desire to be proud of Germany. Some of the desire to be proud of Germany is reflected in Germany’s national service law. Men must serve either nine months in the military, or at least six years in a civil protection organization. Families oppressed by the Nazi regime do not need to do the national service. Women are not required to serve either.
Australia does not have national service and attempts to introduce it have always been divisive. In World War 1, the Australian government tried to introduce conscription. This led to division between Australians whose loyalty was to Britain and Australians whose loyalty was to Australia or Ireland. In 1916, the Government held a referendum to give itself the power to conscript Australians and send them to war. Australia voted no. An anti-conscription poster said at the time:
"To Arms!
Captalists, Parsons, Politicians,
Landlords, Newspaper Editors, and
Other Stay-at-Home Patriots
your country needs
YOU
in the trenches
WORKERS
Follow your Masters"
In 1917, the Government again held a referendum on conscription, but censored any advertisements that promoted the no case. Australia voted no again. The majority of volunteer soldiers fighting in the war also voted no.
In World War II, the government introduced conscription but limited it to the defence of Australia in the pacific. Because it involved protecting Australia against a Japanese invasion, it was accepted without much protest.
In 1951, conscription was introduced during the Korean War. All Australian males aged 18 had to register for 176 days of training and five years of service in the central military force. The system ended in 1959.
In 1964, conscription was again introduced, and conscripts were sent to fight in Vietnam in support of America battling a communist insurgency. Because it involved forcing Australians to die in a foreign country, it provoked a violent backlash that led to intense social division on Australian streets. Conscription was banned by the Australian parliament in 1972.
Questions to think about
Comparing Keating to Hitler
In Australia, it is common to refer to people as Nazis if one doesn't like their politics. Arguably, the insult is not really believed but it is effective in silencing dissent. Perhaps comparing former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and German fuehrer Adolph Hitler provides the best illustration about the propensity for Australians for Nazism. Both exploited Catholicism, nationalism, race and high arts to achieve their individualistic political objectives. Their methods of exploitation, as well as the social response to them, reveal quite a few differences between Australian and German culture.
In regards to Catholicism, both politicians embraced it publicly while privately acting in a contrary manner. For Keating, Catholicism was a link to the Irish tradition in Australia. It helped Keating build his working class credentials and associate him with Australian progressive movements. For Hitler, Catholicism was a link to the Holy Roman Empire that was part of German heritage. Rather than be associated with rebellion or the working class, the Germans associated Catholicism with the refined establishment.
In regards to nationalism, Keating was a vocal proponent of Australia becoming a republic so that an Australian could become the Australian head of state. Furthermore, Keating saw the republic as a great unifying event that would make Australia one nation with himself the leader of it. For Hitler, nationalism meant gaining freedom from the treaty of Versailles and unifying the German people behind him.
As well as trying to free their respective countries from the shackles of foreign powers that they felt bound them, both Keating and Hitler found it difficult to come to terms with military failure. Keating said of the World War1 battle of Gallipoli,
"Dragged into service by the imperial government in an ill-conceived and poorly executed campaign, we were cut to ribbons and dispatched -- and none of it in the defence of Australia."
Keating also declared that he has never set foot in Gallipoli and never would. Hitler likewise felt that failure was the fault of an external actors and a shame to be erased. For Hitler, failure was a result of Germany being stabbed in the back by Fifth Columnists, or in Hitler's words: "a gang of despicable and depraved criminals!"
In regards to race, Keating exploited Aborigines for political advantage. In his 1993 Redfern Speech, Keating took responsibility for what we whites did to them Aborigines. In his own words:
"Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion."
By taking responsibility, Keating was showing himself as the wielder of power and uniting whites behind a race-based identity. Furthermore, he was continuing the tradition of paternalism that had existed since the days of the penal colony. Specifically, colonial whites held status for trying to teach Aborigines how to farm land, then gained status for putting Aborigines in reserves with a protector, then by taking mixed race children and putting them in missions. Keating's speech just tapped into continuing Australian support for a paternalistic attitude to Aborigines. As late as 2007, listeners of the ABC were ranking Keating's speech as the most memorable by Australian. Ironically, despite stating that he had done something wrong, Keating's popularity increased as a result of his speech. In other words, he gained political advantage for his actions. Furthermore, under his leadership, there was no alleviation of the statistics of disadvantage that were being used to define the Aboriginal stereotype.
Hitler used race in a very different way to Keating, but with the same outcome of uniting his people around a race-based identity. In Australia, the Aborigines were underdogs in need of aid but in Germany, the Jews were the capitalists that needed to be controlled. Rather than gain status by trying to help Jews as Keating did with Aborigines, Hitler gained status by vilifying them. Just as Keating's actions were a continuation of Australian culture, Hitler's actions were a continuation of German culture.
In regards to high culture, Keating liked to portray himself as a man of the arts. His passions were clocks, architecture and classical music. He also tried to use funding for the arts as a way shaping public opinion. For Keating, an association with the arts helped align him with Australia’s elites who felt that Australia was a cultural wasteland populated by bogans who loved sport but were otherwise racist, and uneducated. Ironically, the arts went backwards under Keating and by associating himself with the cultural elites he undermined the working class credentials he was trying to build with his Catholicism.
Whereas Keating found little electoral advantage in his arts policies, Hitler was far more successful. In Germany, high culture was a social glue that united the country and bestowed cultural capital on Hitler and other members of the ruling class.
While both Keating and Hitler had very similar personalities, because of the differences in the cultures they operated in, they had very different political lives. Keating won one election after arguing against a goods and services tax, but then lost an unloseable election. Hitler rode a wave of immense popularity and directed it towards war and genocide.
Keating and Hitler were forced to use different strategies because Germany and Australia were built on very different histories. Australian culture is basically built on the work of the oppressed; Aborigines who lost their land, Convicts who were exported from their land, economic, and refugees that had nothing going on in their homeland so choose to leave it for a desert land on the opposite side of the earth. As a result of the history, Australia is a culture of underdog people without stirring national myths or monuments to unite the country in praise. It is a culture with a marked political division between the government funded universities/media and the wider populace that the public universities/media are meant to engage with. In many respects, Australia has always been that way.
Unlike Australia, Germany is basically built on hierarchical leadership. As part of the Holy Roman Empire or under the leadership of barons, Germany set examples of excellence for thousands of years. Furthermore, unlike Australia, its intellectuals don’t just talk about excellence, they actually deliver, which makes it easier for Germans to feel pride in their achievements.