…I started to write this on National Sorry Day.
When I tell people in Europe that I am Australian, and not American, and not English, and not German (it’s the thighs) they invariably ask one question first, do you eat Kangaroo?
I have eaten Kangaroo on several occasions, rarely because I actually chose it on a menu and even more rarely because it, like duck in France, is considered a local speciality. If I have eaten Kangaroo, it was out of necessity. As in… I was in a restaurant where they only served lamb or veal and I don’t eat babies.
When I tell people in Europe that I am Australian they often ask me why I would leave the sunshine and move to a continent prevalent with snow and ice. I tell them it is because I an arachnophobic and there are no huntsman spiders in France.
When I tell people in Europe that I am Australian they never ask me why I sought refuge from the immigration riddled population of Australia, the indigenously overrun social state that is Australia or the boat people infested shores that are so eponymously associated with Australia. They don’t ask me because it is a question based on an idea that is largely unknown beyond the shores of the Great Southern Land or the pages of her populist media.
And trust me, if you want to live in a social state, France has you covered. In France, you can claim unemployment benefits of about 70% of your salary for up to two years. You can claim this from the government even if you resign from your job…willingly. You can also be given a couple of grand to start your own business, while you are unemployed. You can also go to the dentist without paying and get a new pair of eyeglasses every year. In fact, the fancy, lacy stay-ups that I am wearing to keep my tortoise blood running up and down my legs were largely paid for by someone other than me. Well not exactly, because I pay about 50% income tax, so I figure, I have earned some sexy, lacy stay-ups, even if it does feel a bit outré that the decidedly unsexy François Hollande gave them to me.
In Australia, there are essentially two media companies, Rupert Murdoch owns one, and the only information that is disseminated is information that will guarantee ratings, shock, horror and a knowing grimace from betwixt the brows of Tracy Grimshaw. There are only 22.3 million Australians, so alternative news agencies don’t flourish in quite the same way that they do in the UK or even the US. Unless you watch the Chaser, it is hard to access any kind of journalism that isn’t trying at the same time to encourage you to tune into the latest episode of The Voice.
So, in the interest of the public good, all the way from Paris, let me shell out some home truths. *
Unlike Turkey, Australia does not share a border with Syria. Australia shares no borders with anyone. People do try to ‘invade’ on boats, but they are not invading with rocket launchers, bayonets or mustard gas. They are ‘invading’ on dilapidated and unarmed fishing boats. They are ‘invading’ and duly met by the full force of the Royal Australian Navy with her warships, her uniforms and her orders to get thee to Christmas Island. As yet, I’m unaware of any boat people taking down the population of Northern Queensland with a suicide bomb. So let’s not call in the Starship Enterprise just yet.
Unlike Europe, Australia is not beholden to a common economy that hinges upon the financial well being of Portugal. In fact, thanks to the terrestrial resources of so much uninhabited space, Australia has remained relatively untouched by the economic woes of the older, Northern economies. Australia has not known such wealth in my lifetime; Australia can bake its gluten-free cake and eat it too. So why not share?
Unlike Korea, where native Koreans actually shoot each other across their own Korean border, the indigenous people of Australia have not yet taken up arms in defence of their native land. Unlike much of the old world, where praying to God, or Allah, or Buddha, or a statue of Liberace, warrants arrest, or ostracism, or torture, or death; originating from somewhere else dictates only what your last name is, rather than your right to be considered an Australian.
What Australia is, is a melting pot, a paella of myriad nations heralding from myriad places that has afforded her people, myself included, the opportunity to go and live elsewhere and discover what it is like beyond the sandy shores of the world’s largest island nation. Australia is indeed the Lucky Country. Australians are by nature of their remoteness upon this orbiting mass of silicon and iron, lucky not to be shot at on a daily basis. They are not beholden to a dictator or a religious zealot or a military regime or even Simon Cowell.
In a few weeks my third cousin, a cousin born in Australia, will marry his sweetheart in Malta, a country that not he, nor his father, but his grandfather was born in. My other cousins refer to their grandmother as Babcia, because they, like she, are part Polish. I live in another country thanks to the nationality that my now-dead father bequeathed me by chromosome; no guns, no war. That we are allowed to honour, respect and acknowledge our heritage and our ancestry is a right that we take for granted. And it is still far more honest than the thousands of Europeans who marry in Cyprus to better show off their tans in their Facebook photos.
But Australians in general are pretty shit at recognising this.
What Australia is, is the only nation in the commonwealth, now, or before, to have achieved Federation without civil war. What Australia is, is a nation made up of many, from far and wide. What Australia is, is unfortunately, a nation that initially flourished on the bleeding backs of its indigenous people and went on to ignore their very existence.
So it made me sad that this week that the totality of the “Lucky Country’s” media was wallpapered with a story that made my heart bleed redder than the shirt of the indigenous man concerned.
I am from New South Wales. I don’t really understand the game they play in Victoria that involves jumping on top of each other without the refereed order of a scrum. I am an Aussie who has never watched a complete game of Aussie Rules. But I know who the Sydney Swans are, I know that they won the Premiership and I know who Adam Goodes is.
Adam Goodes is an Aussie Rules player, he plays for the Sydney Swans and he is an Indigenous Australian. And this week he has become the poster boy for Australia’s new breed of bloke-y, mate-y, joke-y racism that makes me more afraid than huntsman spiders.
If you want to know what happened, Google his name.
After half a lifetime of explaining Priscilla Queen of the Desert, I am proud of my heritage. After seven years of defending the cultural significance of Crocodile Dundee, I am proud of my country. After years of being corrected for not using the word ‘shall’, I am proud of my dialect. After every Ashes loss, after Port Arthur, after the non-Kyoto treaty, after Baz Luhrmann making Great Gatsby in Sydney and not New York, after it all, I’ve held my head high. But this week I felt a bit shit…and not because of the 13 year old girl.
I felt a bit shit because everyone focussed on the girl…and everyone forgot that what she did was symptomatic of a much bigger Australian drought than a lack of water to feed the sheep.
So far away from the daily hell of so many impoverished others, so rich with reasons to be happy and so blessed with sun-drenched BBQs by the beach, Australia is starved of perspective.
Australians should be glad that they, and Adam Goodes, live in a country where he can become a national hero. Australia should be grateful that when people go to a football match, they aren’t X-rayed on entry, that women are allowed to watch… or even play. Australia should stare up at the steeples and the minarets and the Westfield branded towers and thank their lucky Southern Cross stars that until now, insults are devoid of fatality.
And like the little girl, Australians should focus on experiencing something that educates them, rather than reading their newspapers.
*I’m well aware that I will be criticised for having an opinion considering I don’t live in Australia, but in the same way that absence makes the heart grow fonder, seeing how the other half live makes you realise that maybe the grass isn’t greener…and a hundred other clichés to validate my argument.
God save the queen and don't forget mururoa nuclear test... It may/ shall have an impact ;)
Posted by: Louis XIV | 05/31/2013 at 10:51 PM