In response to Mark McKenna's Comment in the March issue: I like the word "country". When the prime minister says "this nation", I feel a bit uncomfortable. Apart from sounding American, it has some unpleasant connotations: One Nation, nationalism, National Socialism. The word "land" affects me in a similar way, but not quite as much. ‘Land of Hope and Glory' and ‘This Land is Your Land' are great anthems for the UK and the US; but in Australia, land is something which erodes, or upon which merinos graze or project homes are built. The word "homeland" just gives me the creeps.
"Country" is a word everyone uses in a geopolitical sense, yet in Australia it seems to mean something more. Aboriginal people say "my country" to describe the places where they belong. A less familiar, yet beautiful, line in Dorothea MacKellar's famous ‘My Country' reads: "Core of my heart, my country". When we travel, we tell people about how things are "in my country", not in "my nation" or "my land" or (I sincerely hope) "my homeland".
That magnificent phrase "We, the people" announces the most stirring constitutional declaration of all. The people of the US should swell with pride every time they hear or read it. It is theirs. For our preamble to the Constitution of Australia, I would like to see something like: "This our country is hereby constituted a free and democratic republic ..."
