All that is great about Western civilization is being undermined by a progressive political and cultural project that aims to reject and rewrite history, prioritize group identity above the individual, and embed this agenda into laws and institutions. Welcome to The Western Surrender, an NP Comment series ranking the five Anglosphere countries by their adoption of these ideas. Today we feature No. 4, Australia.
MELBOURNE — Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott is a formidable political intellect. Unlike many of his parliamentary contemporaries, Abbott is steeped in history and political philosophy, and recently published a bestselling history of Australia, highlighting the good in the colonization and European settlement of the southern continent.
As incoming federal president of Australia’s centre-right Liberal Party, Abbott summed up the state of the nation in a radio interview recently. “Obviously, our country is in trouble,” Abbott said. “Our economy is stagnant. Our society is fragmenting. Our security is imperilled. And yet, we don’t believe in ourselves nearly enough.”
Abbott is absolutely correct. Australians retain a national self-image of a resilient and tough people who tamed a vast and inhospitable continent. We cherish elements of the Australian story burnishing those self-perceptions, especially our outstanding military contributions in the world wars. “The spirit of Gallipoli” is more than just a phrase: the solemnity of Anzac Day reminds us of what we believe makes us Australian: courage in the face of daunting odds; a willingness to die for causes greater than ourselves; and that quintessential Australian quality of “mateship.”
Self-Perception vs. Reality
But self-perception is not reality. Abbott succinctly and eloquently called out the national malaise eating Australian society and culture from within. Australians are consistently told by left-dominated political, social and media elites that they’re “living on stolen land”; their history is a travesty; their biological sex is an irrelevance; and the British and Christian cultural traditions that were founding values of the nation are instead matters of national shame.
The Black Armband View of History
Over decades, Australian elites have imposed what another former prime minister, John Howard, famously described as a “black armband” view of our history and national character. They demand the rest of us cower in shame at what we and our ancestors have wrought, and tell us we must be welcomed to our own country. Identity politics runs through our political and educational institutions. Federal and state politics, currently dominated by the Australian Labor Party supported by the Marxist-left Australian Greens, prioritize woke social agendas ahead of economic prosperity and national security, and use their bully pulpits to denounce and demonize those who dare contradict them. Former prime minister Abbott is one of the relatively few Australian public figures fearless in calling out wokery wherever they find it.
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