The recent chatter about an Australian republic, prompted by Treasurer Wayne Swan and Opposition minister Malcolm Turnbull, brought to mind a gilt-framed image of Queen Elizabeth II; a large portrait propped in front of the hall during my citizenship ceremony. I giggled when I saw it. In fact I had to avoid setting eyes on it for the rest of the evening, worried that I would not be able to stop.
It wasn't for lack of respect, as I do acknowledge that Her Majesty is our head of state. But there was something comically irrelevant about her refined visage in that space, at that time.
She had had absolutely nothing to do with my angst-ridden and protracted discernment over citizenship, nor did she feature in the application process as anything more than a footnote. In the midst of the pledging (which makes no mention of her), the singing of the national anthem ('Advance Australia Fair' since 1984), and the hand-shaking with the mayor, she stood in full regalia like an afterthought. It was jarring.
In a country where over 260 languages are spoken, it bears wondering where the British monarchy sits within our self-narrative. Over half a million Australians identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. One in four of us were born overseas, and a further fifth of our population have at least one overseas-born parent. Our heritage can be traced to more than 270 different ancestries.
It is difficult to reconcile this reality with the monarchist mission 'to preserve, protect and defend our heritage'. Whose heritage? For what end?
Monarchists argue that there's no point in fixing what isn't broken, that the constitutional monarchy has served us well. But they miss the fact that it is these very ties to a colonial past that keep us from maturing, especially when it comes to issues about race. These ties are not a form of harmless sentimentality — they are a source of enduring xenophobia and racism.
I realised as much during a conversation with high school students about multiculturalism. One of them strongly identified with England, 'the motherland'. It would have been an unremarkable thing for him to say, since family histories bear it out. But he went on to declare that migrants ought to 'fall in line' with the dominant culture.
He viewed Australian identity as unequivocally Anglo-Celtic and spoke of the rule of law, human rights, democracy and secularism as distinctly Australian values. The underlying presumption in his statement that migrants 'fall in line' is that they are somehow ignorant of or resistant to such values. As if people born here never flout them.
I don't think there was necessarily any malice in his views. But his monochromatic understanding of national identity was a concern. It is the platform upon which people leap into Islamophobia, racism and xenophobia. It is permission to exclude.
I took it as the result of a whitewashed history education that emphasised settlement, federation and two world wars. Many Australians draw lines from the First Fleet to the squatters, land barons, gold miners and diggers, to create a picture of civility and prosperity that was apparently at no expense to anyone. In this picture, Australia became what it is due to colonisation, and so therefore it must remain 'colonial' in order to preserve its existence.
That is, persist in being white and Christian, ruled by a monarchy half a world away.
It almost sounds logical, or at least it does to people who have latched onto political parties like One Nation and the Christian Democratic Party. But it is a fundamental denial of contemporary reality: Australia is a multicultural society — by default not by government policy — and always will be. It is one of its defining and stellar qualities.
An Australian republic would validate this reality, though not at the expense of its colonial history as monarchists believe. The past is fixed, so nothing gets lost in relinquishing the legal and symbolic ties that bind us to England.
There is no denying that our nation was forged by men and women who settled here from different parts of the United Kingdom. There is also no denying that men and women from other parts of the world came after them, and that there were countless generations who were already here before them. Until monarchists can reconcile themselves with these facts then the image they hold of Australia is incomplete and false.
Holding on to this image doesn't speak to me of pride or confidence in identity, but a reluctance to let go of royal apron strings.
Fatima Measham is a Melbourne-based social commentator who contributes regularly to Eureka Street. Her work has also appeared in The Drum, ABC Religion & Ethics, and National Times. She is a recipient of the Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship in 2013. She tweets as @foomeister.