Australia: Asia-Pacific Colonial Stand-out

A second visit to the Artist and Empire exhibition at the National Gallery of Singapore brings closer attention to the explanatory wall charts. One lists the 20th century history of the six main country groupings highlighted in the show, Australia being the only country that has a pre-dominance of Anglo-Celtic settlers and culture. Independence dates are listed for India, Burma, Malaya, Singapore and Brunei/North Borneo/Sarawak, the latter two now part of present day Malaysia. All of them are republics other than Malaysia and Brunei, both constitutional monarchies with their own hereditary kings. Our entry does not make for comfortable reading – settled by the British as a penal colony in 1788, gained federation 1 January 1901, now “Commonwealth of Australia with British monarch as head of state”, thus the only country on this list to have retained its links with the British crown. This could have something to do with the fact that Australia is also the only country here not to have relied on the British for protection during WWII and left with overwhelming feelings of betrayal when that did not materialise. (New Zealand would be similarly positioned.)