Our national and cultural identity has developed through the years: From colonial beginnings (1788 to early 1800s), to the currency lads and lasses (1800s), to the wild gold rush days (1850s), to the nationalist blossoming (1880s to 1890s), to Federation (1901), to World War One (1914-1918), to the Depression (1930s), to World War Two (1939-1945) with its threat of invasion (1941-1942), to the prosperous Menzies era (1950s-1960s), and even to the internationalist era of today (1970s to the present).
This identity arose from among those Australians (especially the native-born) who saw this country as their home, loved it as their own, and drew their inspiration from it.
In many ways, the Australian identity grew in spite of, not because of, the various foreign cultures that threatened to swallow, or at least graft themselves onto, our native identity. We suffered the ever-present "British mind-set" (especially prevalent 1788 to 1950s, but still existing today) which thought of Britain as "home" or "the mother country", and which viewed anything British as being vastly superior to anything that was Australian or "colonial" (the "cultural cringe"); and which taught and promoted the concept that Australian culture was "British", thus stifling the development of our own national culture. That same sort of cultural threat continues today with the "multiculturalist mind-set" (1970s to the present) which, while sometimes paying lip-service to the ideal of Australian culture, believes that it needs to be "changed" or "enriched" (actually meaning "diluted", or "contaminated") by every possible culture from around the globe, and is doing so to such an extent that our Australian national culture and identity is actually being slowly but steadily destroyed; and which views almost anything foreign as being somehow superior to the way of the Australians (this prejudice may sometimes be hidden, but look closely - it is there: the new "cultural cringe").
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