Cirrus@Austlit

'It was always going to be 'Australian-style. When Boris Johnson unveiled his government's new points-based immigration system in early February 2020, designed to 'deliver Brexit' by shifting Britain's migrant intake 'away from a reliance on cheap labour from Europe', the spin cycle was at full tilt. This was no raising of the drawbridge, but a signal that 'the UK is open and welcoming to the top talent front across the world' — inspired by the shining example of Australia. Throughout the 2019 election campaign, Johnson had relentlessly touted an 'Australian-style points-based system' as a way of 'taking back control' of Britain's borders. Though criticised by his own independent advisory committee for signalling 'different things to different people, the 'Australian-style' tag stuck.' (Introduction) 
 

'Ireland is a bookshelf in my mother's (place) house. A book of Australian folk songs, from the eighteenth century to the First World War. Frank the Poet's 'Moreton Bay'. Ned Kelly knew this ballad and quotes, from it. consequently or otherwise, in the Jerilderie Letter: 'Port McQuarie, Toweringabbie and Norfolk Island and Emu Plain'.' A book of Australian folklore, of the same period. Convict Paddy tries to walk to China from old Sydney town; men win 'lazy contests' when they fail to see the point of taking part; Larry Foley makes his stand on George's River ground, the verse narrative written to scan to the tune of 'The Wearing of the Green. (Arthur Schlesinger assured  us President Kennedy could roar this song.). 
 

'Yanis watches me intently as I talk - I am grateful. An attentive audience can never be anticipated in Athens, where interjections, animated debate, sarcasm and Socratic monologues are more typical. ' (Introduction)
 

'For all her long life, Baba Schwartz baked two yeast cakes every Friday one laced with chocolate and nuts, the other with poppy seeds and apricot jam. She was a stellar baker. Home - in Hungary, rural Victoria or Melbourne - was the smell of her Sabbath cakes baking.' (Introduction) 
 

'I first came to Hungary thirty years ago as a young Australian diplomat. witnessing its democratic transition and conversion to a market economy after long decades in the Soviet bloc. Back in 1990 there was a tiny Australian Embassy — since closed as a cost-cutting measure — with a handful of local staff in a grand but dilapidated old house facing Heroes' Square in Budapest. Post-1989 was a time of great optimism in the West, with hopes high that the former Soviet satellites would come 'home' to Europe, adopt its highly developed social values and join its unified trading bloc, the precursor of the European Union. I doubted this would be a smooth transition. Yet Hungary's skilled and entrepreneurial population attracted foreign investment, with Hungarians seemingly more interested in making money than in settling ancient scores. Breathtakingly beautiful Budapest attracted tourists whose cash funded an explosion of new eateries and bars. A raft of new political parties, emerged, including a bunch of bright youngsters led by the charismatic Viktor Orban.' (Introduction) 
 

'I was less than five when I left Hungary for Australia, yet many of my formative experiences had already taken place — mostly unremembered and deep in the subconscious. Hungary was in my blood. In my Hungarian Jewish blood, I have to add. It is now seventy years since I left, and I can see that my engagement with Hungary has gone through several phases. The first I call amnesia; the second indifference, followed by re-engagement — discovering the place of Hungary in my life. Then the final phase: withdrawal. Each personal phase has coincided with a distinct phase in Hungary's postwar evolution.' (Introduction)
 

'We're all part of a family, and often more than one. Even without Lids. I turn up on several family trees, albeit as a cryptic and peripheral mention. But what bare bones family trees show: only dry lineage, not the hot pressure of relations. Those thin black lines connecting partners and progeny give nothing away. Better to map circles of influence, radiating colours and casting shadows, with bold connections that pulsate with anger and laughter, and spidery traces that hint at longing and regret carried across generations.' 
 

Walking along Berlin's River Spree one hot summer's day in 2019, I happened upon a little garden. It was fenced, but a welcome sign sat at the open gate, along with an A4 flier advertising an upcoming workshop on Thymian & Fenchel -Eintritt frei. A large sculpture against the fence piqued my curiosity and I ventured in. The work was impressive: two large, semi-translucent curved walls cupping Into each other, surrounded by a (murky) pool. More exciting was what lay beyond: overflowing banks of sunflowers and tomato plants, table tennis, sunchairs, a sandpit, a little wooden caravan, painted bench seats and even an ecotoiletten. I approached a young man busy at the potting shed and asked for the story. This land, he told me, was owned by Berlin's major power provider, Vattenfall. The company's central heating plant was just beyond the fence, and an incarnation of one of Berlin's more famous nightclubs, Kraftwerk, occupied Vattenfall's redundant 1960s power station just next door.' (Introduction) 
 

'As library-based complexes have evolved in recent decades to foster important community making, interculturalism and egalitarian learning. Australia and Finland have led the way with twenty-first-century design. Despite their geographical separation, the two countries share similarities that have motivated their strategic use of libraries to promote social engagement and gathering. Australia and Finland are both relatively young countries and strong democracies with advanced education systems. Given their small and dispersed populations, there is a particular value to civic centres and libraries, which play a key role in structuring and representing communities. With the long, cold Finnish winters and long, hot Australian summers, libraries represent the type of facilities where recreational time can be spent in a public and climatically controlled environment with free Wi-Fi. Australian and Finnish societies are becoming increasingly multiethnic and mobile, and libraries offer activities and services that are pluralistic and multicultural. This has generated a significant shift in the design of the established typology of the library - a place that has served for centuries as the sanctuary of knowledge and repository of books.' (Introduction) 
 

'When I took my first job in advertising in 1994 - in my home town, Melbourne - the last thing I was looking for was a career.'

'And we found ourselves in the old Anjou capital, Angers, in the Pays de la Loire, adrift in the wake of the Brexit referendum, midway through a French presidential election, turning left and right, hoping we wouldn't be flattened crossing the road, sceptical of whoever was behind the wheel, try as we might to bid Great Britain adieu. My wife, two children and I.' (Introduction)

'As part of its politics of memory, the European Union has expended considerable effort creating a transnational and unifying narrative of the past. By promoting a shared memory, it hopes to generate a sense of connectedness to ensure a peaceful future. Yet, in spite of numerous resolutions adopted by the European Parliament to unite Europe in its collective remembrance, conflicts, particularly over the memory of the Second World War, continue, and have even intensified. The September 2019 resolution on 'The importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe' was enthusiastically greeted by some in Europe as a tribute to all victims of all totalitarian regimes — but fiercely criticised by others as gross ideological propaganda and historical revisionism. While Europe's multiple pasts and identities cannot be shaped by resolutions or regulations, the development of more pluralistic narratives of the past might be possible and worthwhile.' (Introduction) 
 

'Journalist, author and political commentator George Megalogenis has made a unique contribution to Australian conversations  about migration, politics and our shared potential.  He first met Nuasha Cica — the guest co-editor of The European Exchange in 2003. She heard George speaking on ABC radio in Melbourne about his newly published first book Fault Lines: Race. Work, and the Politics of Changing Australia (Scribe), and interviewed him for a story about Australia's race politics for the South China Morning Post. Since then, the two have kept talking on this topic. They caught up for another instalment over lunch at this year's Adelaide Writers' Week in March. This edited transcript of their discussion explores Megalogenis' latest thinking about blow contemporary Australia has been shaped by the experiences of European migration.' (Introduction)