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adelaidesean...whatever that means. (Here, here, here and here are four opinions on the matter.)
(1) I don't drink beer. Having discovered in recent times that it makes me unwell, even at small doses, I've had to give my beloved Coopers Pale Ale the flick. I miss it on hot days, but otherwise feel much better for the lack of it.
(2) I don't follow a football team of any code, despite the government's confident assertion that "Australians love their 'footy'". The same site describes attending a football match as "[a] serious ritual, [which] involves proudly wearing team colours, barracking for favourite players, and engaging in enthusiastic cheering". As someone who has friends who enjoy similar activities relating to science fiction television shows, but for which they are generally mocked, I can't help feeling resentful of the hypocrisy.
(3) I experienced only short-lived (and, imho, entirely appropriate) moments of sorrow, the same one feels for any family of a person who dies unexpectedly, over the deaths of Peter Brock and Steve Irwin.
(4) I was raised in Adelaide and the Northern Territory, and as a result I feel little kinship with any of the characters from or the landscape portrayed in "The Man from Snowy River" (a point raised by Adrian Mitchell in his fascinating collection of essays Drawing the Crow).
(5) I am troubled by this country's widely divergent attitudes towards Schapelle Corby and the Bali nine. Surely our national objection to the death penalty should not be contingent on whether the accused is a hottie or not.
(6) I have no interest in how Australia performs in the Olympics, the soccer, the cricket, and the Commonwealth Games. Nor does the Melbourne Cup hold any fascination for me, as a historical, cultural or social artefact.
(7) The conditions endured by a large percentage of Australia's indigenous population fill me with a deep sense of shame. Our sweeping of the invasion of their territory under the cultural rug, likewise.
(8) I prefer winter to summer, and would much rather settle in by the fire with a good book and a glass of wine than join the glistening throngs in their thongs at the beach. Sweat and sand are a terrible combination, imho, although I do like fish and chips at sunset, over the west-facing coast of home.
(9) I didn't vote for John Howard and I find the behaviour of this country under his leadership morally bankrupt, short-sighted and internationally embarrassing, not just on such issues as international justice for our fellow citizens and indigenous relations, but euthanasia, industrial reform, religion, welfare and the privatisation of public utilities. Bring back Paul Keating, I reckon.
(10) I am depressed by how, even in this list, sport demands far more attention than it deserves, over such issues as investment in science, the environment and international humanitarian crises.
There. That's it. Am I proud of this list? Feeling superior for it? Not at all. It's no fun feeling at odds with one's own culture, as presented in the media and perhaps genuinely felt by most people. To paraphrase that fun old saw: you don’t have to like Cold Chisel , live on the East Coast, or eat Vegemite to be an Australian, but it helps.
(Having said all this, I am reassured to learn that, according to What Do You Think? I live in a country in which the following statements received strong support: both genders share equal responsibility for the care of children; we should be alert for but not alarmed by the possibility of a terrorist attack in Australia; democracy is threatened by the Coalition Government's stranglehold on both lower and upper houses; tertiary education should be free, as it used to be; and the blue Wiggle is best.)
(1) I don't drink beer. Having discovered in recent times that it makes me unwell, even at small doses, I've had to give my beloved Coopers Pale Ale the flick. I miss it on hot days, but otherwise feel much better for the lack of it.
(2) I don't follow a football team of any code, despite the government's confident assertion that "Australians love their 'footy'". The same site describes attending a football match as "[a] serious ritual, [which] involves proudly wearing team colours, barracking for favourite players, and engaging in enthusiastic cheering". As someone who has friends who enjoy similar activities relating to science fiction television shows, but for which they are generally mocked, I can't help feeling resentful of the hypocrisy.
(3) I experienced only short-lived (and, imho, entirely appropriate) moments of sorrow, the same one feels for any family of a person who dies unexpectedly, over the deaths of Peter Brock and Steve Irwin.
(4) I was raised in Adelaide and the Northern Territory, and as a result I feel little kinship with any of the characters from or the landscape portrayed in "The Man from Snowy River" (a point raised by Adrian Mitchell in his fascinating collection of essays Drawing the Crow).
(5) I am troubled by this country's widely divergent attitudes towards Schapelle Corby and the Bali nine. Surely our national objection to the death penalty should not be contingent on whether the accused is a hottie or not.
(6) I have no interest in how Australia performs in the Olympics, the soccer, the cricket, and the Commonwealth Games. Nor does the Melbourne Cup hold any fascination for me, as a historical, cultural or social artefact.
(7) The conditions endured by a large percentage of Australia's indigenous population fill me with a deep sense of shame. Our sweeping of the invasion of their territory under the cultural rug, likewise.
(8) I prefer winter to summer, and would much rather settle in by the fire with a good book and a glass of wine than join the glistening throngs in their thongs at the beach. Sweat and sand are a terrible combination, imho, although I do like fish and chips at sunset, over the west-facing coast of home.
(9) I didn't vote for John Howard and I find the behaviour of this country under his leadership morally bankrupt, short-sighted and internationally embarrassing, not just on such issues as international justice for our fellow citizens and indigenous relations, but euthanasia, industrial reform, religion, welfare and the privatisation of public utilities. Bring back Paul Keating, I reckon.
(10) I am depressed by how, even in this list, sport demands far more attention than it deserves, over such issues as investment in science, the environment and international humanitarian crises.
There. That's it. Am I proud of this list? Feeling superior for it? Not at all. It's no fun feeling at odds with one's own culture, as presented in the media and perhaps genuinely felt by most people. To paraphrase that fun old saw: you don’t have to like Cold Chisel , live on the East Coast, or eat Vegemite to be an Australian, but it helps.
(Having said all this, I am reassured to learn that, according to What Do You Think? I live in a country in which the following statements received strong support: both genders share equal responsibility for the care of children; we should be alert for but not alarmed by the possibility of a terrorist attack in Australia; democracy is threatened by the Coalition Government's stranglehold on both lower and upper houses; tertiary education should be free, as it used to be; and the blue Wiggle is best.)
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:11 am (UTC)Wait, I thought you lived in Australia, not America....?
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:20 am (UTC)All "imho", of course, although I hope the tide is turning.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:25 am (UTC)Ah, yes. That was pretty much my point. Succinctly put by my "Thanksgiving" post (http://deadcities-icon.livejournal.com/114147.html), I think.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:36 am (UTC)Nice post, btw. At least we don't celebrate our screw-ups down here (unless Australia Day counts).
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 02:15 am (UTC)(it'd make it easier to aim when I decide to go shooting then...! heh...)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:20 am (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:55 am (UTC)Or whether it is politically convenient to encourage it, cf the Bali bombers. cf also (9) above*. :(
*Fairness compels me to admit, however much I might hate doing so, that privatisation was a major part of the Hawke-Keating agenda so that can't be blamed entirely on the souless ones currently in power.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 06:41 am (UTC)That's not to say that I didn't give my preferences to Keating over Howard; I did, even though I didn't know quite how despicable Howard was going to become once he was Prime Miser, or how long he'd cling leechlike to power. But I really would have liked another choice.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 06:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-28 02:59 am (UTC)"but I'm already mourning the loss of Our Natasha..."
Its a pity we'll never get another choice; that was decided when Janine Haines made her attempt to get into the House of Reps as a Democrat. Natasha was relevant as a balance holder in the Senate, but the Democrats were never going to be more than that.
All these years later it still rankles when I remember watching the Liberal/Labor preference swap that was designed to avoid that at all costs. And it worked.
I believe the Greens experienced something similar in the recent Victorian election: Independents can be tolerated but better a Liberal than a Green in the lower house. (If its a Liberal party apparatchik speaking substitute "Labor" or "National" for "Liberal").
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 02:22 am (UTC)But I am certainly worried that the values of the country appear to be changing, and that we even seriously talk about unAustralianness is a worry.
On number 10, I cringe knowing that there are probably more people in Perth who could name every member of the Eagles than could name one of our two recent Nobel Prize winners. Well, any of our Nobel prize winners, probably.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 03:22 am (UTC)Indeed.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 04:35 am (UTC)"Un-Australian" smacks of "un-American", especially in the current political climate. Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 03:19 am (UTC)But I do enjoy the Olympics and Melbourne Cup, and barracking for Australia, or random horses - though perhaps on a slightly ironic level.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 03:47 am (UTC)Closest I've gotten to alcoholic drinks is LLBs, watching sport is even duller than playing it (and the only sports I play are usually non contact social ones). I can't stand vegemite either (but then it may be something you have to grow up with)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 04:10 am (UTC)There have always been Australian who hold many if not all of your positions. There have always been Australians troubled by this country's history. Just take a read of Capricornia. Or any of Henry Reynolds' books.
Those positions are held by many many many Australians. Including me (except about the cricket). So how the hell could they possibly be UnAustralian? We may be a minority, but we're a bloody big minority.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 04:31 am (UTC)This post or the discussion of whether the notion of being un-Australian has validity? I can't argue with the former, if that's your opinion, but I think the latter is worth discussing, especially when one of the references I cited refers to "Men who like cats, bosses who block internet access to footy tipping websites...anyone who refuses to eat lamb or support Lleyton Hewitt...Striking workers, utes that can't do burn-outs, broadcasting the Ashes on pay TV, paying for beach access or for someone to clean your house..." and so on. Light-heartedly or otherwise, that these are being connected with a sense of national disengagement, as though they're really important, bothers and unnerves me. Letting the matter be raised and not addressed, I reckon, is to let the John Howards have their way. I'd hate that.
Note, just for the record, that my post was about "reasons to call" myself un-Australian. I know that the only way to truly become un-Australian would be to revoke my citizenship, and I have no desire to do that. Vive la difference--as long as la difference is not just allowed, but acknowledged as a fundamental part of a healthy society.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 04:42 am (UTC)The idea that holding any of the opinions you outline makes you un-Australian is what is rubbish. Your opinions have a long long history in this country. They don't come out of nowhere. Racism has long history in this country, but so does the fight against it. Both things are very Australian.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 05:09 am (UTC)Really, what I'm talking about is my feeling of being at odds with the vast majority of things I see in the paper and on TV, and hear on the radio and even on the lips of people on the bus. No doubt everyone could produce a list of things they dislike about their country, but I'm hard-pressed to find one uniquely and widely accepted as Australian thing that I can embrace. I like the books of Gail Jones; I like your books too, Justine; I do actually like Vegemite, but it's not so different from Marmite and Promite (which I also like) so I'm not sure it even qualifies; I think our landscape is to die for, but most people think of SA as a wasteland fit to dump nuclear waste in or strip-mine for uranium; I think Powderfinger are over-rated; our reality TV shows are rip-offs of overseas versions, like most of our dramas and talk-shows (the ones that work, anyway); we occasionally make the odd good movie and, yes, we have some great scientific minds struggling on, against the odds; but you must see that I feel as though I'm already scraping the bottom of the barrel, and that quickly becomes a bit depressing.
At least you like cricket. If I just had that, maybe I wouldn't feel quite so shut out of my own country.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:55 am (UTC)And, no, Sean, John Howard didn't event the term---it comes from the idea of un-Americanism and is every bit as bogus. One of the things that makes me proud to be Australian is that in the 1950s at the height of the anti-Communist insanity Australians voted solidly against criminalising the Communist Party.
I'm sick of folks like us allowing the right to monopolise love of country. Patriotism shouldn't mean uncritical love. I don't love anything uncritically---not my husband, not my friends (hence us having this excellent argument), not even Elvis, and certainly not my country.
You, my friend, are quintessentially Australian. The self doubt, feeling of alienation, and not belonging has been a big fat ole theme in Australian lit since before My Brilliant Career. (Ever read it? Tis chock full of ambivalence about being Australian.) The misfits, the sentimental blokes, the rabble rousers, the wowsers are as quinteessentially Australian as any blue-eyed, blond-haired surfer boy.
I'm sick to death of this tediously narrow definition of Australian being taken even slightly seriously. You know what? I know plenty of non-Australians who like all the so-called Australian things like beer and football and meat pies with sauce and cricket and Kylie Minogue. So what? If you were born here or have spent most of your life here then you were shaped by this culture (diverse as it is) and you're Australian.
You are; I am; even bloody John Howard (rot his eyes) is.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 05:14 am (UTC)I'd also say that both things are very human, rather than uniquely Australian.
However some of the items on my list might blur into a discussion of what's moral or not, as opposed to what's "Australian" and what's not, so I'm prepared to take a bollicking on my original point there. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-28 04:45 am (UTC)Sorry that my first response was so grumpy. It was early in the morning (in Bangkok) and I hadn't eaten yet . . .
You're still wrong, but. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-28 09:05 am (UTC)You're still wrong, but.
Force of habit. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 04:45 am (UTC)Within limits differences are essential to a vibrant healthy society. Mongrel vigour is a term I've heard in this context.
The limit, and its extremely hard to define, is when a group identifies its differences as being more important than its membership in the society as a whole.
My concern here is with extremists of all stripes. I guess this makes me a fanatical moderate which is amusing in ironic kind of way. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 04:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 06:25 am (UTC)Honestly, though, I don't mind if people enjoy sport. I just wish they'd keep it to themselves--out of the paper, off the TV and the streets--and pay for it themselves. I bet the publishing (or music) industry doesn't get half the tax breaks and funding as sport. We don't have a National Writing Institute, despite the amount of export dollars writing brings in. Etc.
I could rant on all day, but I won't in case Justine comes and hits me over the head with a cricket bat. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 12:21 pm (UTC)But it makes me wonder, just what *is* Australian anyway? This country is such a melange of different cultures and viewpoints and seems to be changing from day to day.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 12:56 pm (UTC)Try these other "Australian" values for starters:
1. Mateship - you'd give a mate the shirt off your back;
2. the "fair go" principle
3. larrikinism
4. good old Aussie innovation (sure Aussies might be rabid about footy, but they're also proud that it was an Aussie that invented the black box etc...)
I think you hold on to a bunch of aussie values, and like many are just feeling disenfranchised by the way the present regime have attempted to hijack "Australianness" for their own ends.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:25 pm (UTC)But the fact remains, unfortunately, that like a lot of people I do feel alienated from mainstream media and the public consensus on most issues, and suspect that I would be called "un-Australian" by those who seem to be actively attempting to spread that particular meme. By their standards, I would have to call myself un-Australian. That's what I'm referring to, really--even though, for several years now, I have avoided using the word "Australian" in my bios because of my dismay that the current government's activities.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:45 pm (UTC)I also don't entirely trust the idea that the 'mainstream media nad the public consensus on most issues' is necessarily representative of much. It's largely a furphy, a construct.
Question by your forum
Date: 2007-01-25 12:04 pm (UTC)P.S. Are you see storm in Europe? It's a horror...
Hi all
Date: 2007-12-08 11:44 am (UTC)The best foru!
great article
Date: 2009-09-16 01:14 pm (UTC)Ray
Australian Souvenirs (www.australiasouvenir.com)
Australian gifts
Date: 2010-02-24 08:48 am (UTC)