Meet Australia: A Mere Exercise in Rhetoric

Unfortunately, I have not had many adventures as of late and am more recently concerned with graduate schools, James Cook subjects and scheduling, and small nagging "to-do's" that remain undone. Since I am concerned for my writing skills with regards to the upcoming graduate level examinations (GREs), I will instead enlighten you about the general geography and background history of this wonderful country, for your edification and my practice. At the post's end, I'll zoom in on Queensland for smaller locations and possible adventures. Cheers!

For my American readers, Australia can be considered similar to our home country in many ways. It's about 80% of the size of the U.S., area wise - a number that rises to 95% if we exclude Alaska. Australia's slightly closer to the equator than the USA, in a range from 10 degrees latitude to 40 degrees latitude compared to the USA's 24 degrees to 50 degrees. Of course, they are in different hemispheres and thereby exhibit opposite seasons, but the range of latitudes within each country represents somewhat similar internal seasonal differences. Both countries' eastern coasts experience similar climates due to similar oceanographic features - each country's east coast is moderated by large ocean gyre currents headed poleward after traversing the equator. Both countries were settled by Europeans between the 17th and 18th centuries.

But Australia and the U.S.A. are not the same country. Australia's population is 1/15th that of the United States, a mere 20 million Aussies as compared to 305 million Americans. While I've noticed this large difference, manifested as a greater sense of space, its effects are mediated by the fact that much of Australia's inner region is a gigantic uninhabitable desert - pushing most people to the coasts. For example, a comparison of each country's largest city's population density reveals that the 1/15th value for overall population does not hold. New York City has a population density only about five times that of Sydney (which is also not the country's capital), not fifteen. Sydney also holds almost 25% of Australia's entire population. This point is pretty erroneous, but worth thinking about.

The country itself is divided into seven states - most of which are on the east coast along with the country's population. Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania are the easterly states. The geographic locations of the rest are quite self-explanatory: South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territories. A small within state area, known as the Australian Capital Territories, houses the country's capital of Canberra - similar to Washington D.C. in the District of Columbia.

The history of colonization, while similar to the United States in its mistreatment, disrespect, and neglect of native peoples, is also vastly more prominent in the country's awareness. Consider that Native Americans were living in their lands for around 20,000 years before European disturbances (Vikings the earliest visitors?) and colonizations (for America, 1600's in Virginia). Australia is much more profound - Aboriginal peoples were alone in their lands for at least 40,000 years, and European visits began much later - 1500's before Australia was even "discovered," and even then only settled in 1788. Think of it this way - temporally, Native Americans would be as foreign to Aboriginals as American settlers were to Native Americans. Australia's history also recalls abusive treatments to its indigenous peoples, including a particularly well known injustice referred to as the "stolen generations." This term refers to a governmental plan to integrate Aboriginal peoples into European culture by removing Aboriginal children and raising them into white Australian culture. The idea was that after years of mixing and marriage to Europeans (now Australians), the skin color would be washed out over time in future generations. My summary of this (and most of this Australia post) is highly erratic, and you're best to look up the details yourselves.

This mention of indigenous peoples and events concerning multi-cultural interactions illustrates that native culture here is even more foreign and separate than clashes we are familiar with when we speak of Native Americans. To get a sense of this more mystical and distant cultural gap, one only has to try to understand Aboriginal beliefs. Many of the peoples refer to "the Dreaming," an event without reference to time which merely preceded the presence of the Aboriginal peoples. They tell of how gods, who were just like people, wandered the land creating the laws by which people live before departing the world. The Dreamers' influence and spirits are left behind at sacred sites - locations to which they are believed to have been - and in "totems" or "Dreamings," objects or organisms representative of their qualities. Aboriginal individuals are assigned these "totems," objects of the Dreamers that give courage, strength, wisdom, and other characters - a figure symbolizing a way of living.

Eventually I'd like to delve into modern culture as well, and tell you about Australia's transit (they drive on the left side of the road as well), their commodities and trade items (lots of sugar, aluminum, zinc), mythologies (bunyips and dropbears), and biology (marsupials, bark-shedding trees). Maybe on another free day.