I am not just into football, meat pies, kangaroos and ----, but cricket too. I had fun playing barefoot in the backyard; with neighbours on quiet streets using tennis balls and fruit box wickets; and competitively in Sydney Shires. ‘Our Don Bradman’ and the ABC’s unusual postcode of ‘GPO Box 9994’ make sense to me. I like using terms such as ‘being on a sticky wicket’, ‘he received a googly’, ‘played a straight bat’ and ‘let that one go through to the keeper’. I know who the ‘croweaters’, ‘banana benders’, ‘sandgropers’ and ‘apple islanders’ are; and even the more obscure ‘cabbage patchers’ and ‘cornstalks’. At home the old wireless still works and looking at it brings back memories of ‘Yes What’, ‘Biggles’, ‘Dad and Dave’, ‘Bluey and Curly’, Jack Davy and ‘Pick-a-Box’, although ‘Blue Hills’ was never my ‘cuppa’. I still enjoy listening to Slim Dusty songs – especially ‘The Man from Snowy River’.

At school I enthusiastically honoured my God, served the Queen and saluted the Flag before learning of Simpson, Smithy, and the Flying Doctors; also of the Governors, bushrangers and explorers such as Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth, Hume and Hovell, Burke and Wills and Charles Sturt. I recited ‘My Country’ and was moved by its imagery and irreverent tone. Yep, a fully assimilated second generation Australian who loved to eat fish-n-chips, chiko rolls, greasy hamburgers, meat pies and sausage rolls with sauce, wagon wheels followed by a milkshake or two.

As time marched on, however, I noticed that what an Australian was, was changing. My thoughts on this matter were stimulated by watching the Qantas choir singing ‘I Still Call Australia Home’. The accents were clearly Australian but the faces were not exclusively Celtic and Anglo-Saxon. I began to question my premises. Who am I really? Was Australia exclusively Anglo Saxon? Aboriginal? Colonial? Irish? Whatever it was in the past it certainly wasn’t that now. How did it affect me? Where did I fit in?

After a period of gestation I came to the realisation that Australian identity is more than I thought it to be. It is inclusive, not exclusive. This occurred at about the time of the Australian Bi-Centennial. I watched the documentary ‘Strzelecki’s Return’ about the erection of the monument at Jindabyne, after which I decided to find out more about this explorer.

Strzelecki trudged more than 7000 miles, often in a zigzag pattern, over the Blue Mountains and the Western goldfields; to the Snowy Mountains and Gippsland; through the Hunter and northern New South Wales. He explored, observed, named, tested, collected samples mapped and in 1845 in England he published ‘The Physical Description of NSW and Van Diemen’s Land’, a tome which, according to Lech Paszkowski ‘after 135 years is still an asset in the scientific literature on Australian geology’. This is impressive considering the advances in the field during that period.

Strzelecki did not assume he had been born with some sort of innate superiority over Aboriginals; they just had different experiences, backgrounds and cultural ways. He had good relations with them and on his explorations he was assisted by Aboriginals such as Charley Tarra and Jackey, whose bush skills saved Strzelecki’s party in Gippsland. By interacting from an unbiased frame of reference he could see the disruptive impact of European culture on Aboriginal culture and wrote of their plight. He empathised with them on having to cope with the consequences.

Sir Paul Edmund’s contribution to Australia in these activities is sufficient to deserve recognition and remembrance. Less well known but just as compelling of commemoration is his humanitarian work in Ireland in the late 1840’s that nearly cost him his life and weakened his health for many years after. How can a man who played such a pivotal role in saving 200 000 Irish children from starving during the ‘Irish Potato Famine’ not be appreciated? His work in the most affected, the most isolated and difficult to help counties of Donegal, Sligo and Mayo proved so effective that he was put in charge of the Relief effort for all of Ireland in the following year.

Strzelecki also played an active role in encouraging young Irish folk who had few good prospects in their homeland to emigrate to Australia. Having explored extensive areas of NSW and Van Diemen’s Land on foot he had firsthand knowledge to convince people of the potential of this new land. We can only speculate as to what percentage of the non-convict arrivals to Australia at this time were those saved from starvation by Sir Paul’s Relief work and were later convinced by him that hard working people could make a good life for themselves in this new land of opportunity. If you are Australian with Irish heritage who knows, but you may be alive and here today thanks to Strzelecki. It is high time for this aspect of Strzelecki’s life to be UN-forgotten.

And what of Kosciuszko, who never set foot on Australian soil but whose name adorns Australia’s highest mountain? One of the most endearing features of being Australian is our celebration of our massive defeat on Anzac Day! At Gallipoli a major part of Australian character was identified by the Anzac spirit of courage, endurance, resourcefulness, mateship, giving everyone a fair go and a disdain of class. Kosciuszko was a kindred spirit. He fought in a foreign land for the liberty of others. He showed all the qualities of an Anzac.

Kosciuszko was a household name in Britain, Europe and America, a name that became synonymous with the human quest for liberty and justice. He was held in very high esteem by eminent people of his day and for decades after. Five American Presidents respected him greatly, three of whom were founding fathers.

He inspired the writing of celebrated authors and poets. Lord Byron for example wrote ‘The sound that crashes in a tyrants ear. . . Kosciuszko’ and Thomas Campbell:

Hope for a season bade the world farewell
And freedom shrieked as Kosciuszko fell

Kosciuszko related to people according to the content of their character and not the colour of their skin. His trust with African-Americans helped the Continentals defeat the British in the Southern States by gaining clandestine information from slaves in the British camp about their movements and plans.

Booker T. Washington, the great African-American political leader, educator, orator and author wrote:

‘Kosciuszko, I learned had made a will in which he bequeathed part of his property in this country [America] in trust to Thomas Jefferson to be used for the purpose of purchasing the freedom of [slaves] and giving them instruction in the trades and otherwise. Seven years after his death a school for [former slaves], known as the Kosciuszko School, was established in Newark, New Jersey. . . . When I visited the tomb of Kosciuszko I placed a rose on it in the name of my race.’

In 1814, when an aged Kosciuszko noticed a Polish regiment taking part in a Russian army advance on France, engaged in plundering and burning houses in a village near Fontainbleau, where he was living at the time, the following exchange with the officers is said to have taken place.

‘When I commanded brave soldiers, they never pillaged; I should have punished them severely, and still more severely would I have punished officers who allowed such disorders as you are all now engaged in.’

With a sneer and derisive laugh, they cried out: ‘And who are you, my pretty old man, that you dare to speak to us in that tone, and with so much boldness?’

‘I am Kosciuszko.’

The officers, mortified with guilt, stopped the looting, grovelled for forgiveness and pleaded for a pardon from the legendary hero facing them.

The French aristocrat and military officer General Lafayette said of Kosciuszko:

"His name belongs to the entire civilized world and his virtues belong to all mankind. America ranks him among her most illustrious defenders. Poland mourns him as the best of patriots whose entire life was sacrificed for her liberty and sovereignty. France and Switzerland stand in awe over his ashes, honouring them as the relic of a superior man, a Christian, and a friend of mankind. Russia respects in him the undaunted champion even misfortune could not vanquish".

And, we might add, Australia gives him recognition by naming its highest mountain after him. The life of Kosciuszko is in harmony with Australian identity.

Of course, regard for the character of people from other nations is not unique to Australia. To the credit of Turkey they respect the Anzac spirit by keeping sacrosanct the Australian cemeteries, such as the one at Lone Pine and they have accepted the name of Anzak Koyu (Anzac Cove). In 1985 they unveiled The Anzac Memorial at the Cove which displays these words of Kemal Ataturk, spoken in 1934:

"Those heroes that shed their blood
And lost their lives.
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies
And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
Here in this country of ours.
You, the mothers,
Who sent their sons from far away countries
Wipe away your tears,
Your sons are now lying in our bosom
And are in peace
After having lost their lives on this land they have
Become our sons as well".
(Kemal Ataturk 1934)

The Turks did not have to build the memorial. They could have concentrated on their own triumph and used a local name for the cove. They could have bulldozed the cemeteries like the Soviet Socialists did at the Orleta Cemetery at Lwow in 1940, just because it contained the graves of people who fought against them twenty years earlier in the Polish-Soviet War, including the destruction of a monument to three American fliers who were killed as pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron established by the renowned American, Merian C. Cooper.

In US history ‘Katyn’ has no direct relevance so it is worth considering why so many Katyn monuments have been erected there. They inspire onlookers to appreciate how the Human Spirit is able to resist tyranny wherever it occurs on Earth. The most spectacular of these is Andrzej Pitynski’s Katyn Memorial in Jersey City, New Jersey.

In Gunnersbury Cemetery, London, there is also a Katyn Memorial, the very first ever built. And at Kensington near the Victoria and Albert Museum is the Yalta Memorial which is dedicated to the memory of people forcibly repatriated to Soviet Socialist controlled Europe and to the Soviet Union itself. Many of these men, women and children were executed on crossing the border immediately after being passed from British and American custody to Soviet Socialist custody.

Not everyone is an avid reader or student of history. This is why monuments and memorials are important. They can focus attention of busy passers-by, who if inspired, can look to find out more from widely available resources, and many do. It can be life changing. Pitynski was spot on when he noted that:

“A monument is an expressive symbol. A good one looked at for even a few minutes will remain in memory for years or even for one’s entire lifetime. Monuments are the milestones in a nation’s history - - they will not allow other systems and governments to destroy the core values of a national culture.”

The USA is meticulous in building and preserving its heritage for future generations through their monuments, battlefields and museums such as the Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, and the Iwo Jima Monument that attract visitors from around the world. Incidentally, George Washington outnumbers all others in monuments built to commemorate greatness, but it may surprise you to know that Tadeusz Kosciuszko is the second most commemorated individual in America; his first monument was built at West Point Military Academy in 1828.

I think we in Australia could do more in promoting our rich heritage to locals and to visitors from overseas. Hopefully then they can understand the spirit of the land, what it stands for and not just its physical manifestations.

Every year I visit Jindabyne to enjoy the K'Ozzie Festivals of late summer or early autumn. For me the Strzelecki Monument located at Banjo Patterson Park reminds me how it helped me clarify who I am. I am a proud Australian of Polish heritage, one small part of the rich tapestry of a free society where I can express my individuality in a social context with a wonderful opportunity to fulfill whatever potential I have been born with. We are a community united by the Anzac spirit, a welcoming land of charitable and friendly people, willing to give everyone a fair go. I think this is why anytime we hear the Qantas choir sing ‘I Still Call Australia Home’ we feel the tune resound in our hearts.

Felix Molski

Photos by Felix Molski and from the Internet