Dual in the Sun

Australians all, let us rejoice
For we are young and free.
We've golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea.




The older I get the more I enjoy singing the bit about being young in "Advance Australia Fair", which celebrates its 25th anniversary as our national anthem this year. The song meets some of the requirements for national anthems, but misses the mark on others.

Its main achievement as a national anthem is that by the fourth line it uses a phrase that no one has any idea what it means. (Just go up to someone today and work in the phrase "girt by sea" and you'll know what I am talking about.) It also can lay claim to being a proper anthem in that virtually no one knows the words, especially if you get to the second verse. (I can almost hear some of my Aussie friends saying, "What? There's a second verse?")

Unfortunately, the song falls down miserably as a national anthem in one key area. It is easy to sing, upbeat and has a refrain that everyone knows and joins in even if they don't know the rest of the words. No high notes challenging even professional singers. No dirge-like rhythm. Nope, certainly not a world-class anthem when it's that easy to sing.

All of which is on my mind because yesterday was Australia Day, the holiday that celebrates the Europeans first landing here. I won't go into the obvious conflict this makes with the aboriginal tribes who think of it as "Invasion Day", but instead recall that this is the anniversary of the day Linda and I became citizens four years ago. We are very fortunate to be in one of the countries that has dual citizenship with the US, the chief benefit being that we get in the shortest lines at both immigration checks.

To qualify for citizenship we had to prove that we understood the English language and knew the benefits and responsibilities of Australian citizenship. In what I took to be a very clever way of checking on both with the least amount of trouble, the person interviewing me gave me a sheet of paper listing the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship. Obviously, in English. She then asked me to name three benefits and three responsibilities. I aced it and became true blue dinky-di.

At the oath-taking ceremony they gave us an odd assortment of flag-themed gifts. We got baseball caps with part of the flag design, the flag itself and some cotton shopping bags with the flag on it. The bags were made in Malaysia, of course. You know you're in a country with the right attitude when they celebrate your new citizenship by giving you a foreign-made shopping bag with the flag on it.

One of the benefits of becoming citizens that wasn't on the test was that we inherited a queen. For most Americans, having a monarch is the stuff of Disney movies. And here we were with regal, grand Elizabeth now our very own head of state.

Those of you in the US need to know that this is not necessarily the most popular part of being an Aussie for many of our fellow citizens. A few years ago a vote to become a republic and break from the monarchy failed, primarily I think due to some oddly detailed options for the proposed new government that were not very appealing to many. However, it seems inevitable that there will eventually be a legal break from our old UK ties. (And in case you're in doubt, the Queen is mostly just a symbolic head of state as we are completely self-governed by our own government. Confused? You should be,)

But for our four years as Aussies it has been in place, and we have enjoyed a real benefit of dual citizenship as we have been able to downplay the fact that our US citizenship gave us President W and could concentrate instead on having QE2 as our monarch.

But now there's a new guy in the White House, and someday Charles will inevitably take over at Buckingham Palace. And if Oz hasn't dumped the monarchy by then, that may well be the time to hum the Star Spangled Banner, even if no one can hit those high notes.