Imagined Communities National Identity - MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Multicultural Imagined Communities for National Identity. Answer: Inbtroduction: Australian rules football also known as Australian football or footy. It is a contact sport played between two teams of eighteen players and it is played in a oval shaped field just like a modified cricket ground. The way of scoring points is by kicking the ball between the two long goal posts the team with the high score by the end of the match wins unless a draw is declared (Dawson et al. 2004). The origin of this sport is found to be in Melbourne, Victoria in 1858. It was inspired from English public school football games. The Australian football league (AFL) is the professional completion in the football sport which is linked with Australian rules football. The AFL serves as the sports governing body with the help of AFL commission and it is responsible for controlling the laws of the game. This AFL was was founded as the Victorian football league inaugurating at 1897 (League 2005). Initially it comprised of only team based in Australian state of Victoria. The name was changed to Australian football league later in 1990. There is huge popularity of this sport in Australia but also includes racism and cultural diversities. AFL is having growing popularity among aboriginal community and indigenous people but there is a sense of unhappiness among the foreigners in Australia. Because AFL is mainly concerned about indigenous players and less about overseas players. This essay contains a brief description about Australian culture history and identity of Australia. Also there is a fact given which shows the differences in culture which is followed in the Australian football league. The culture of Australia is a type of western culture which is firstly derived from Britain. It influenced by various inputs from aboriginal and islanders of Torres Strait, oceanic people and geography of Australia ( Clark 2002). British colonization in Australia started in 1788 and after this many migrations of multi ethnic people happened. British and Irish heritage is found in Australia which is evident by the 1) dominance of English language, 2) democratic government, 3) Westminster government, 4) Christianity as a dominant religion, 5) popularity of sport influenced by British Isles. Australian aboriginal people have arrived as early as 60,000 years ago and due to which the evidence of Aboriginal art in Australia has emerged around 30,000 years ago. The people of Australia are termed as Aussie who are of British or Irish ancestry. The term Australia was adopted and popularized. The dominant language is English which is being followed since colonization. Before the invasion of Europeans there were about 250 aboriginal languages. Still now 90 percent of these languages are still spoken but some are mixed with English (Bruce and Hallinan 2001). After the invasion by Britain in 1788 the indigenous or local population was captured and dominated by force by Britain. The aboriginal societies all over the continent has experienced violence and disease. After they were colonized there were lots of discrimination and racism along with many policies (Stratton and Ang 1994). Among the policies one policy was the policy of mixing of aborigins with the mainstream culture. In twentieth century the children of mixed aboriginal- European descent were taken away from their aboriginal parent just to make them more civilized as they will be raised in the white society (Smith 1980). The idea of mixing permeated relations among indigenous population and also with immigrants. After the arrival of Irish catholic settlers the it became Anglo catholic society. Australians are very down to earth and always mindful that they dont give an impression of superiority. They value authenticity and sincerity. They do not draw attention to their academic achievements. Australians keep a high value on relationship. Australian society is a multicultural society. They try to attract immigrants to boost population and work force. They have legalized its immigration policy. The etiquette of Australians are very casual including a small handshake and smile. they normally likes to exchange small gifts. There are diverse religious societies including Muslims, Buddhists, Jews and Hindus. The national celebration of Australia includes the following Chinese new year(February), Anzac day(25 April), sorry day ( 26 may) reconciliation (27 may to 3 June) Melbourne cup( November) (Jackson 2006) Murrie humor is an integral and warm concept of aboriginal society. Black humor is vey delicate and very hard to locate. Aborigines draw humor from situations and the definitions about them which prove painful and offensive if told by Europeans (Meaney 2001) Non Aborigines often comment about how aborigines laugh all the times. The aboriginal people joke on individual basis. This humor is shared by group identification which widens the gap between those who are inside and outside of the laughter circle. The absence of humor displayed by non aboriginal society is conspicuous to aboriginal society who observes white Australians as those who can never take a joke ( Johnson 2006). Based on British system of government Australia is a parliamentary democracy. The federal , territorial and state elections are held every 3-4 years. Voting is compulsory at the federal and state level but not in local government level. Two major political parties are Australian labor party and liberal party. Three levels of government leadership are there. Federal government, state premiers and the mayors in local government. This AFL is of great excitement among the aboriginals and residents of Australia, but the foreigners in Australia or non aboriginal community people are not very much interested in following the Australian football. Because of the culture differences among the various groups of people in Australia. Australia have a diverse cultural difference. To understand this we need to study the various aspects of Australian cultures and history related to it. Australian rule football normally supports indigenous players. Players who are of overseas origin are not so much included in the game. They are included in very less number as compared to indigenous players. Thus the outsiders or foreigners in Australia dont support the game so much. The AFL has nothing to celebrate in terms of its cultural diversity. But the AFL diversity website has claimed that the Australian football has so much extraordinary power that it can bind people together without thinking about their background. But there no s ufficient proof for this claim. According to some research and study it is found out that among the 817 listed AFL players only 22 were of overseas player. It is just 3 percent of the total. This data can be compared to the general Australian population in which almost 25 % of them are born overseas. It can be argued that this AFL figures are not representative of the game as whole but it is an indication of the development pathways which are available for the non Australian born (Tatz 1987). There is a claim by AFL about a higher figure in relation to those of a multicultural background. It is found that about 15 % of the listed players fit the AFLs multicultural criterion of having at least one parent born overseas. Thus here also the AFL falls down because more that 45 % of the Australian population fits this criterion. If we further research we find that out of the 121 multicultural players more than half have one parent from other countries like Britain, Ireland and New Zealand. Steele Sidebottom who is a profession AFL player is born is Australia to an Australian father and mother is from England. This also does not give an idea about the significant embodiment of cultural diversity. More examples of this are players like Simon Black and Dermott Brereton. This definition will allow most of the games Anglo- Australian founders to be described as multicultural and are eligible for selection in the all time multicultural Australian rules team. Yet this construction of multicultural identity is not universally applied in the AFLs thinking. The problem with all of this lies in the creation of a multicultural identity. The so called diversity gurus in the AFL thinks that in breaking Australian society in two categories like insiders and outsiders or native born and migrants or Australians and multicultural. These all factors create a rift between the people who are outsiders and aboriginals. Thus the foreigners avoid the sport and hardly take interest in the game because they feel that they are not treated equal and players of their community are not given equal opportunities as given to indigenous players. Here the indigenous players gets privilege as compared to other overseas players. AFL supports the indigenous players in their struggle so that they can be recognized as powerful and legitimate contributor of the game. AFL is increasing in popularity day by day but still popularity is not there among the overseas fans. This league is now consisting of 18 teams which spreads over five Australia. Thus in this literature we had a brief idea of the history, culture and the details of Australian culture. It also contains brief idea about Australian rules football and the facts regarding the cultural diversity which is followed in the AFL. This will help us to get to know about the Australian customs and etiquettes and also about humor and politics. References: Bruce, T. and Hallinan, C., 2001. The quest for Australian identity.Sport stars: The cultural politics of sporting celebrity, p.257. Clarke, F.G., 2002.The history of Australia. Greenwood Publishing Group. Dawson, B., Hopkinson, R., Appleby, B., Stewart, G. and Roberts, C., 2004. Player movement patterns and game activities in the Australian Football League.Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport,7(3), pp.278-291. Jackson, S., 2006. Re: Focus Design Sacred Objects: Australian Design and National Celebrations.Journal of Design History, pp.249-255. Johnson, C., 2007. John Howard's values and Australian identity.Australian journal of political science,42(2), pp.195-209. League, A.F., 2005. Australian Football League.I Odh Annual Report 1996. Meaney, N., 2001. Britishness and Australian identity: The problem of nationalism in Australian history and historiography.Australian Historical Studies,32(116), pp.76-90. Smith, L.R., 1980. The aboriginal population of Australia.Aborigines in Australian Society, (14). Stratton, J. and Ang, I., 1994. Multicultural imagined communities: cultural difference and national identity in Australia and the USA.Continuum,8(2), pp.124-158. Tatz, C., 1987.Aborigines in sport(No. 3). Australian Centre for Egyptology.