Below, two possible results of inappropriate treatment of blended identities are considered: 1) increased identification following threat to one (national) identity; and 2) variations in identity attachment. The concept of honourable citizenship^[46] is also discussed below as a guide to how some migrants may wish their blended identity to be respected: needing their country of origin to be acknowledged and respected, rather than demonised or treated as if it is no longer psychologically significant. This section of the article considers whether the Howard Government’s citizenship reforms and policies widen rather than bridge the gap between citizenship law and healthy psychological enjoyment of blended identity in diverse societies.

A single Australian identity: is keeping it simple stupid?

In the citizenship testing discussion paper, the Howard Government defined the desired normative content of an Australian identity:

These values are similar though much more detailed and, perhaps, ideologically driven than the current citizenship pledge, which reads: ‘From this time forward [under God],^[48] I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.’^[49]

Zevallos cites Kukathas’ warning that conflict is likely when culturally pluralistic societies such as Australia attempt to endorse a strong sense of national identity via reshaping of Australian institutions (including citizenship law) with the aim of further defining what it means to be an Australian.^[50] In light of these warnings, the most troubling aspect of the Howard Government’s rhetoric surrounding its 2007 citizenship reforms was the official endorsement of citizenship as the celebration of a simple, single national identity and as the best solution to inter-group tension or personal maladjustment. As attractive and consensual as this focus may at first appear, it asserts equivalence between a single citizenship identity and real psychological identification that may not exist in all cases. The government’s preferred approach in 2007 was to encourage use of a single ‘superordinate identity’ to all new Australian citizens irrespective of their migration history and the extent to which a blended identity was important to them.

Instead of suggesting that true celebration of blended identity could create stability in a diverse society, the Howard Government’s Discussion Paper on citizenship testing suggested that sustainable unity came via a simple, single national identity: ‘Australian Citizenship is the single most unifying force in our culturally diverse nation. It lies at the heart of our national identity—giving us a strong sense of who we are and our place in the world.’^[51]

Unlike our thesis—that true recognition of blended identity may sometimes reduce social tension—the official endorsement of citizenship in 2007 was linked simply to identification as Australian; suggesting that diversity and harmony was strengthened rather than weakened by emphasising one Australian national identity in all contexts and in response to all social comparisons within Australia. Testing English language proficiency, Australian civics knowledge and asking applicants for an endorsement of Australian values were tools thought by the Howard Government to facilitate adoption of this simple (non-blended) identity. No other route to harmonious multicultural relations was considered to be as effective. For example, there was minimal if any emphasis upon unity in diversity and little suggestion that the celebration of blended identity could assist relations in some, even if not all, possible social contexts.

Identity threat

The Howard Government’s one-citizenship-satisfies-all approach to unity in diversity may result in threats to some of the identities comprising a blended identity. Much social-psychological research confirms that one reaction to identity threat is increased rather than decreased identification with the threatened identity, especially for those who strongly identify with the threatened identity.^[52] For those who highly identify with a threatened identity, and who wish to continue to self-define in those terms, rejection of a single Australian identity that threatens other components of their blended identity seems likely. This prediction, supported by results of designed laboratory research, has also been demonstrated in recent field studies. For example, in response to assimilationist citizenship policies in the Netherlands, Islamic groups whose religious identity was threatened strongly identified with that identity in response to public condemnation of continuing identification as a Dutch Muslim.^[53] Such results would be at odds with the Howard Government’s claim that using (simple) notions of Australian citizenship and identity was the single most unifying force in our diverse society, producing ‘a strong sense of who we are’.^[54]

Attachment to Australia

Attachment to Australia was important for the Howard Government in 2007, stating that:

Becoming an Australian is much more than a ceremony. It is an opportunity to fully embrace the Australian way of life, to broaden education options and employment opportunities, to vote and to have a voice in the country’s future…People taking up Australian citizenship are welcomed into one of the safest, most tolerant and peaceful societies in the world.^[55]

Davis, in his review of social-psychological theories of national attachment and his empirical study of Basque attachment in Spain, suggests that measuring subjective attachment to nation is much more complex than measuring values endorsement. Davis’s review suggests that values-based attachment is important, though it can be of less importance than measures of emotional ties to nation or of institutional responsibilities.^[56] Even Davis’s analysis of Basque attachment revealed two distinct perspectives: ‘guardian nationalism’ and ‘apolitical ethnicity’. Only the former of those attachment styles was defined centrally around values such as language maintenance, self-determination and armed separatism. Davis also emphasised that careful empirical work was required to understand subjective attachment to nation for those self-defining in terms of blended identities; rejecting the utility of understanding attachment to nation in terms of commonly asserted and universal dimensions of attachment.^[57]Arab Australian Waheed Aly suggests that the Howard Government’s policy of compulsory language testing and knowledge testing was mooted for political reasons and cannot provide an effective way to increase the attachment to Australia or the participation in civic life:

The tests would ask pointless questions about Don Bradman^[58] and Phar Lap,^[59] not because this assisted migrants with integration in any practical way, but because it was intended to send a symbolic message to a specific constituency in the electorate. A sector that seeks reassurance that the only migrants who will make it through are the good ones.^[60]

Aly believes that the testing regime could emphasise a ‘suffocating…parochial cultural paradigm’^[61] neither giving practical help to migrants living in Australia nor improving social relations and attachment to Australia.

Honourable citizenship

Ghassan Hage fears that Australians with blended national identities in diverse societies such as Australia, who even have achieved their clear entitlements to citizenship rights, can still feel ‘demeaned as a human being’^[62] when accessing rights offered to them. Hage argues that most Arab migrants to Australia are ‘reasonably likely to end up accessing Australian citizenship and/or the rights that come with it or with residency status’.^[63] Therefore, he argues, the real social problems (social exclusion or isolation, inequality and discrimination) revolve around the ways in which you must access these rights and how you feel when doing so.

Hage stresses that citizenship is primarily about a (psychological) sense of belonging and about ‘holding your head high’ as, say, an Arab Australian. Being able to do so is, in Hage’s terms, to be able to enjoy honourable citizenship. Such a form of citizenship in practice is determined by whether the legal conceptions of citizenship or, ‘rule over the self’,^[64] deliver a sense of dignity, autonomy and honour. He claims that this goes beyond the common situation in diverse multicultural societies where refugees or migrants are offered a chance to belong to Australian society because they cannot or no longer wish to live in and identify with their country of origin. According to Hage, then, honourable citizenship for dual nationals means that the mode of accessing rights and the official displays of inclusion and recognition should emphasise and celebrate the continued moral worth of all elements of a blended self-identity.

Hage argues that explicit and transparent efforts be made to consider the impact on blended identities when the Australian Government makes foreign policy or other official decisions. This, in effect, would involve considering how actions taken in the Australian interest may affect those with salient blended identities.^[65] Honourable citizenship also means that the history and origin of, for example, an Arab identity is honoured by being given clear support as a legitimate identity with past, present and future moral worth. Making simpler calls for integration or assimilation via citizenship and identification as (only) an Australian, who speaks good English, has good civics knowledge and who endorses Australian values, may sometimes be at odds with the notion of honourable citizenship.^[66]

Hage concludes by encouraging Arab Australians to treat Australia as a home and to participate in Australian society despite their real fears of being discriminated against and of not being able to live their blended identities in ways they would hope.^[67] In saying so, he hopes Arab Australians will be encouraged not to forget their other homes. He also notes that the movement of people to Australia is dynamic, continuing and less final than it may have once been, with many migrant families now going back and forth rather than making one-movement migrations to Australia.^[68] In contemplating the future of the citizenship test, the Rudd Government should recognise that many Australians juggle two or more national identities. For blended identification to be matched by sensitive laws on dual or multiple citizenship, ‘petty fears of double allegiance’^[69] must give way in law and practice to a diverse society in which blended identification can truly flourish for the benefit of all.