Belonging

A basic human is need is that we must feel like we belong. This could be to belong to a group, family, race or nation. The verb ‘belonging’ means to be accepted into a place or environment, simply put, to just fit in. The antonym of belonging is not belonging or alienation. The means to be isolated, out cast, marginalised or ostracised from society. Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech and Dorothea Mackellar’s poem Our Country both explore the concept of belonging and not belonging. They explore this concept through the use of inclusive and exclusive language, persuasive language, emotive language and visual imagery. And these language techniques are used shape our understanding of belonging and not belonging. Inclusive and exclusive language is used in both texts by the composers to explore the concept of belonging and not belonging. Nelson Mandela uses inclusive phrases such as ‘each one of us’, ‘spiritual and physical oneness and ‘rainbow nation’ to imply that everyone living in South Africa has ownership of the land and because they all share this connection they all belong to a single community. The term ‘rainbow nation’ is particularly significant because it expresses the physical nature of South Africa. The nation is split up into many racial sectors but through the use of Mandela’s inclusive phrases they all are united into a single people. Mackellar purposefully uses inclusive and exclusive language in her poem to distinguish those who love Australia and those who don’t. The pronouns ‘you’ and ‘us’ are used as tool to make this distinction. The inclusive nature of the word ‘us’ in the phrase ‘she pays us back three-fold’ creates an ‘in group’ of those who identify themselves as belonging or having a personal connection to Australia. The exclusive phrase ‘ All you who have not loved her/you will not understand’ is an inference that those who do not identify themselves as Australians will not understand her love for Australia. Persuasive language is used by composers as an attempt to influence how the audience thinks and feels about things. Mandela uses persuasive language in his speech as a way of attempting to unite his torn nation and persuade them that because they are a part of the land they are all intrinsically connected together. Mandela has thoughtfully and purposefully used persuasive language to explore the concept of belonging and convey his hope that the racial segregation will end and South Africa will unite as a single people on the world stage. Mackellar also uses persuasive language in her text in an attempt to justify her love for a country of harsh climatic weather. She uses the phrase ‘her beauty and her terror/the wide brown land for me’ as a way of identifying her passion for the extremes of her country. She constantly persuades that any negatives of Australia are offset by the beauty of her country, ‘For flood, fire and famine/ she pays us back three-fold.’ Visual imagery is the most powerful tool that Mandela and Mackellar use to explore the concept of belonging and not belonging. In Mandela’s quote ‘ To my compatriots, I have no hesitation in saying that each one of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pretoria and the mimosa trees of the Bushveld. ‘Mandela uses visual imagery of nature depicting the types of flora found from different tips of South Africa. He does this to include all people across all the segregated lands within South Africa so that he can convey his message of unity by depicting them as a single population of equals and strength. Mandela also uses the visual image of a ‘rainbow nation’ to explore belonging. Mandela uses this image to make the direct allusion to the separation of black and white communities in South Africa. The rainbow symbolises the combination of different people and their connection to each other as one nation. He uses the word ‘rainbow’ because a rainbow depicts a group of colours flowing from a starting point to a destination. These colours flow together and this is the message Mandela wishes to convey. He wishes that the different people of South Africa work together as one and all move in the same direction to create a brighter South African future. Mackellar also uses visual imagery in her descriptions of how she identifies with Australia. Her descriptive imagery mainly expresses the geographic and climatic features of Australia ‘rugged mountain ranges’, ‘sweeping plains’, ‘droughts and flooding plains’, ‘sun-burnt country’ and ‘hot gold rush of noon’. She uses this imagery to convey her personal identification with the land and these images are typically Australian and those who also identify with Australia understand this visualisation. Mandela and Mackellar insightfully use emotive language to also explore the concept of belonging and not belonging. Emotive language is the use of emotive words such as ‘love’ to evoke a desired emotion in the audience. In the quote ‘the time for healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us.’ Mandela uses the emotive words ‘Heal’, ‘Bridge the chasms’ and ‘time to build’ to evoke a sense of aspiration that the time has come for South Africa to take positive action towards uniting the nation as one. Mackellar is extremely insightful with her emotive word choice. Mackellar personifies Australia with a female gender to infer a close bond between those who identify with Australia. Also the repetition of the phrases ‘I love’ and ‘core of my heart, my country’ are used by Mackellar to evoke that not only do we belong to Australia, but that Australia is a part of our identity. In conclusion, Composers of texts can explore the concepts of belonging and not belonging through the use of various language techniques in the same was that Nelson Mandela and Dorothea Mackellar have already achieved in their corresponding texts.