Quote:
Originally Posted by quantum-x
I'm Australian - but I do have to agree with the comment about culture.
It might not be spot on, but it's close.
Aboriginal culture is not white australian culture culture exclusively, and visa versa. Australia's identity is multi-national, and truly multi-cultural. You can be white, black or yellow or anywhere in between and be as Australian as any other.
Our history, whilst not vapid, is not as expansive as typical european culture, for example, which stretches back ten to twenty fold of ours - which is the point the PP was trying to make.
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Culture isn't defined exclusively by nation. We are an extenuation of Europe, of European culture, customs and values. Hell 100 years ago we were still proudly part of British Empire, and of course we quite legitimately laid claim to having the same culture and cultural practices as the British themselves. Since we formed our own self-governing body does that mean suddenly we are devoid of any of our 'own' culture?
Culture isn't developed within the borders of a nation-state exclusively, it is much more pervasive than that, and I would of thought that was pretty obvious. We are apart of Western-civilisation, which generally shares the same culture (with some minor deviation) and there is no reason to say that we can not lay claim to the same '10-20 fold' history of our European counterparts, after all it is certainly our history too, and our everyday life is a reflection of that in so many ways.
And yes, fingerprinting, etc is culture, but it certainly a pretty primitive form of it no matter how you paint it.