Beating the tyrant distance
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 6: Our Global Face
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Peter Doherty
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Peter Doherty's biography and other articles by this writer
Although Australians may be increasingly conscious of our unique, ancient, indigenous culture, the national psyche is very much attuned to the reality that most were either born elsewhere or are descended from people who arrived from Europe, Asia or the Americas less than 220 years ago. We have traditionally thought of ourselves as being a long way from anywhere, the "anywhere" in question having a generally northern face.
Prior to the 1950s, relatively few Australians ever made the journey back across the equator. While my English grandparents always spoke of the green fields and villages of rural Essex as "home", they had neither the resources nor the inclination to return, either permanently or for a visit. Regular overseas trips were the province of the wealthy, or for those with business or political reasons. My wife's grandparents were born in Melbourne. Being in the wool trade, they travelled en famille to Britain and Japan during the first part of the 20th century. The sea voyage was long, and a defining social experience, especially for young people. However, the only "mass travel" prior to the 1950s was by military personnel, firstly to fight in the wars of the British Empire then, more regionally, to defend this country against attack. This experience, associated with death and loss, led to a rather constrained view of other cultures that still persists in elements of Australian conservatism.
AUSTRALIAN PROFESSIONALS IN THE CREATIVE ARTS, THEATRE AND ACADEMIA migrated routinely to the northern hemisphere, many never to return. Before 1949, of course, all Australians carried a travel document identified as a British Passport. At least in this sense, there was no separate Australian identity. Some 50,000 Australian passports were issued in 1949-1950, compared with 1.45 million in 1999-2000. Then, but not now, we thought of ourselves as snugly embedded in the British Imperial family. A few, who must not have stood in the immigration line at Heathrow Airport, still seem to retain this illusion.
Prior to 1950 and into the 1960s, many who were to become leaders in Australian science and medicine earned their postgraduate, professional qualifications from the various universities and specialist colleges in Britain and Ireland. A number, like the eminent virologist, then immunologist, Macfarlane Burnet, worked their northern passages as ships' doctors. Burnet spent several years at the now-defunct Lister Institute in London, before returning to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne for the remainder of the laboratory-based part of his career. His speculations on the nature of immune tolerance led to his sharing the 1960 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, the first such recognition for an Australian who made a career in this country.
Howard Florey completed his medical training in Adelaide but ended his days more than four decades later at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University. Along the way he shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for the discovery and use of penicillin. Though he did not re-establish residency here, he visited many times, firstly to assist with the establishment of the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) at the new Australian National University (ANU), then to serve as chancellor. The 1963 Nobel Prize went to the Melbourne-born neurophysiologist Jack Eccles, who trained early on in Britain but worked mostly in Sydney, Dunedin and Canberra. He left the JCSMR in 1965 to avoid compulsory retirement, then continued a productive research program in Buffalo, New York, well into his seventies.
John Cornforth graduated from the University of Sydney, but has spent the remainder of his career in various British research institutions. Due to his early deafness, he felt that a job as a university teacher was out of the question. Cornforth shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for chemistry for his work on "the stereochemistry on enzyme catalysed reactions". He was recognised as the 1975 Australian of the Year, following Burnet (the first such do you mean Australian of the year award), Eccles and Patrick White. White, who won the 1973 Nobel Prize for literature, was born in London to Australian parents from established pastoral families and, though he had part of his education in Britain, passed most of his life in or near Sydney and wrote with great insight about the Australian experience. Many of our leading authors have lived for a time in the northern hemisphere, though, like Peter Carey who lives in New York City, their work retains a substantially Australian character.
A few university and scientific luminaries, such as the Adelaide-born nuclear physicist Mark Oliphant, gave up very established, safe careers in the United Kingdom (and a possible shot at the Nobel Prize) to found the ANU research schools, the first Australian institutions designed specifically to award the PhD degree. Training to the PhD level, the entry ticket to a career in science or academia, is now available in all our universities. Many Australian professionals still spend a few years in the northern hemisphere. This is, however, no longer considered to be essential, though it is still necessary for scientists to develop an international reputation. The latter is now eminently achievable for those who see their research careers through in this country.
The problem is, though, that there are still too few high-quality jobs and many of the best professionals do not return after leaving for what was to be a two– to four-year postdoctoral fellowship. This is unlikely to change. At the highest level, the world of basic science and ideas is not constrained by politics or national boundaries. Talent flows to islands of opportunity and excellence, wherever they may be. It is also the case that the general community tends not to be disturbed when people who think for a living move on and out. Ideas are universal, published and available to all.
The loss is more at the level of training in our universities, where the young are no longer exposed to these bright minds, and in the clarifying input that very able people with diverse, sophisticated expertise can provide in a variety of areas. The more outspoken may, of course, achieve the local status of the "meddlesome priest". Some of those with power may be happy to see them leave, but we all lose when the pluralistic nature of our institutions is diminished. More disturbing to the politicians is the current emigration of large numbers of trained people who don't necessarily live by their wits, but have the high levels of technical competence required by the global labour market.
THE "POPULATE OR PERISH" MOVEMENT THAT GATHERED MOMENTUM after World War II led to a great increase in the number of passenger liners travelling to Australia, which in turn meant that there were relatively cheap fares on ships going north. It became part of the experience for well-educated young Australian women to spend a season, or a year or two, in Britain and Europe. This was much less common for their male counterparts, unless they were in academia or the professions. Working Australians of both sexes also travelled and took what were then plentiful, short-term jobs. Earls Court in London became known as an Australian ghetto.
I had a very junior position in the Queensland Department of Primary Industries when, in response to an advertisement in the leading scientific journal, Nature, I applied for a job as a research pathologist in Scotland. Then, as now, the market for scientific talent was global. The offer came after an exchange of letters. Nobody even thought of telephoning: it was much too expensive. My wife, Penny, and I left from Sydney in 1967 on board The Australis, a Greek ship that was originally commissioned in 1940 as the North Atlantic liner, the SS America. It served as a troop ship (the USS West Point) through World War II, and was then being run around the world by its owners until it broke, burned or sank. Out of respect for its American heritage, The Australis seemed to be carrying the entire US surplus of Thanksgiving turkeys and cranberry sauce.
We lived in central Edinburgh for five years and were always aware when the Women's Weekly Tour was in town. This was the start of the "overseas trip" as a rite of passage for many older Australians. Suddenly, Princes Street would be full of colourfully dressed, tanned people who were obviously enjoying themselves. The age of mass air travel was also just beginning, as the immigrant ships gradually disappeared and went completely with the advent of the Boeing 747s. A vivid memory is of a thin, elderly man wearing shorts and long socks, sitting on a chair in the hall of mirrors at the Versailles Palace with a Qantas bag on his knee. Was this real or imagined? When we returned to Australia in 1971, we flew back. After Scotland, Brisbane in December seemed an incredibly lush, colourful and exotic place. The stilt houses perched on the hillsides looked impermanent, and the voices raised at the end of the sentence conveyed a general sense of unease.
The essential experience of those who have been away for a substantial time is to see once-familiar things through a very different prism. It is best, though, to keep such thoughts private, at least for a time. People who have been there all along may not understand what you are talking about, and can take your comments as criticism rather than affectionate observation. Keeping your mouth shut is Lesson Number One for the returning expatriate. Be aware that you are likely to have forgotten some of the local rules of discourse, or that those rules may have changed during your absence. If you follow Teddy Roosevelt's advice to "walk softly and carry a big stick", use it to check for crocodiles and to measure the depth of the water before jumping in.