Identity and Belonging Karen Ford February 22, 2010

Witness and Bruce Dawe's poetry In 2009 Vanessa Amorosi had a huge hit with This Is Who I Am and part of its appeal is its celebration of accepting oneself and rejecting social pressures to conform. In it, Amorosi sings, ''Well it's all right to be myself/Now I've learned to stand/Well it's OK to be just who I am''. But the song also points out that having the confidence to reject peer pressure can be a struggle. After all, we all want to be accepted and loved for who we are. If we think about it, we are all part of a family, a community and a culture. While we think of ourselves as being individuals, we must also accept that as social creatures we like to feel like we belong and feel safe. This, in turn, gives us the confidence to be ''me''. The clothes we wear, the music we listen to, the football team we belong to, even the school we attend is part and parcel of who we are. In Bruce Dawe's poem Life Cycle the thrill of having an AFL team and the positive effect this can have is articulated in the lines ''Hot pies and potato-crisps they will eat/They will forswear the Demons, cling to the Saints/And behold their team going up the ladder into Heaven''. Many of us know that excitement and joy when our team wins, and what a great feeling it is to be proudly wearing the colours of our team as we make our way to the game. In this instance, we are part of a community, a ''family'' sharing the same goals and interests. However, while being part of a community, whatever form it takes, can be empowering, it can also lead to conflict. Because we don't all think the same, behave the same way, have the same beliefs, often this sense of identity can lead us into conflict; with others and within ourselves. In Drifters, Dawe makes this point as two sisters contemplate moving, ''and notice how the oldest girl is close to tears because she was happy here/and how the youngest girl is beaming because she wasn't''. One home, two very different perceptions of it and what it meant. As an observer of culture and what it means to be Australian, Bruce Dawe's poetry is more a commentary than poetic verse. His language is unaffected, simple and often colloquial. So what are the factors that contribute to our sense of identity and belonging? Why do some people listen to heavy metal music while others see it as the ''Devil's music''? Why do some believe in Christianity while others believe in Islam, others rejecting any notions of a God completely? Patriotism and national pride are often regarded as cementing our identity and making us feel proud of the country in which we live and work. On January 26 each year we celebrate Australia Day - but what does this mean? We like to think we embrace the values, traditions and cultures living in Australia brings. But we can also look at national pride and see the negative consequences of it - in war. Battles and wars over territory and invasion go back thousands of years - all because one country, one culture believes it is more worthy or more important than another. To many Aboriginal Australians, Australia Day is seen as

''Invasion Day'' - the day they lost their territory and their home. British settlers saw Australia as uninhabited and declared it part of the British Empire. As a consequence, Aborigines became exiles in their homeland, ''We took their hunting-grounds to graze our cattle/We took their streams, we took at will, their women/We drove them from their temples in the land''. (Exiles) Peter Weir's film Witness also looks at these themes of different perceptions and how who we are can lead to conflict. In the film, John Book, a cynical, aggressive and foul-mouthed cop in urbanised Philadelphia is forced to live among the passive, traditional and religious world of the Amish. But it is not only Book whose life is changed because he is taken out of his familiar world, the Amish are ''tested'' too as their familiar world is affected by the presence of John Book. To use the cliche, ''you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy'' and this film highlights just how powerful social environments and family can influence who we become. Not only does John Book have to change his clothes to ''fit in'' but his language and his manners must change accordingly. As a man whose life is affected by brutality, violence and corruption Book finds the calm, peaceful and tempered world of the Amish community difficult, even eccentric. The interesting thing about this film as we watch this conflict take place is how WE are more familiar, more comfortable with Book's world than we are with Rachel and Samuel's. One of the most potent scenes is between Book and the boy Samuel. Samuel's fascination with Book's gun becomes a lesson in how to ''control'' the weapon so it is ''OK''. Book's belief that by removing the bullets the gun becomes ''harmless' is a powerful acumen for the acceptance of violence and weapons in the modern, ''civilised'' world. As Samuel's chubby, innocent hands caress the gun, the audience is made aware of the destruction of this mind and the lasting influence Book and his world will have on the child. It takes the wise words from Eli to redress the damage: ''Don't you understand? What you take into your hands, you take into your heart. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.'' Weir uses the birdhouse to represent Book's - and the ''civilised'' world's impact on this community. When Book arrives, wounded and bloody, his car crashes into the birdhouse. Just like his ''invasion'' into their world, Book destroys their ''home''. During the course of the film as Book begins to understand and accept their ways, he sets about ''restoring'' the birdhouse. At the end of the film, when Book realises he cannot stay because his world is so different, Book and Samuel restore the birdhouse to its original place. The parallels between this motif and Dawe's poem, Exiles, are very strong and many non-indigenous Australians are trying to ''mend fences'' and ''restore'' the damage done to the original occupiers of Australia - Sorry Day being one step towards this. Knowing who we are and where we belong is fundamental and it allows us to live as happy and confident individuals able to reject conformity. However, as members of a society, a global family, it is also important to recognise that difference is what makes our world great. Karen Ford is lecturer with the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. Further Resources: Vanessa Amorosi This Is Who I Am from CD Hazardous Universal Music. Other Music links: Nickleback Gotta Be Somebody from CD Dark Horse Roadrunner. The Who My Generation from CD My Generation Brunswick. Michael Jackson Man In The Mirror from CD Bad Epic Records. Witness, Director Peter Weir. DVD Paramount Pictures 1985. Sometimes Gladness Collected Poems 1954 to 2005, Bruce Dawe (Sixth edition) (Pearson Education Australia, 2006, Available from Freedom Publishing)