Patriotism?
In response to a comment (my first ever) in one of my Commonwealth Games rants, I would just like to defend my love of this country. While I don't support the Games for a million and one reasons, it doesn't mean I don't love the slab of rock I call home. I may not get excited when "our Cathy" breaks a world record on the track. I may not spend days in front of the TV watching "our boys in the baggy green" run, bowl and field rings around every other willow smacking country on earth. I may not bat an eyelid when told that Jana Pittman is un-Australian for her behaviour, as I have never heard of the woman, and have no idea what anyone has been talking about for the last month.
But that is why I love this country. Because I don't have to. I don't need to fit some stereotypical model of "what it means to be a good Australian". I am an Australian. My father's family came here and walked for two months to find a place to farm. They stopped by the roadside for a year along the way, and watched as Australians trooped past them to fill up the country with British idealism. My mother's family came in part on a ship, in chains, for crimes long forgotten. And in part as free people looking for a new place to call home, less shackled to the old world Britain so convincingly represents.
I can saddle and ride a horse, drive sheep for days without seeing a town, build a fence, train a dog, tune a motorcycle, drive a tractor, plough a field, clear a paddock, drink a slab on a Friday night, shoot a rabbit, skin and gut it, name a hundred species of native vegetation, and tell you what it can be used for. Is that Australian?
But I am no more or less Australian than someone who flew into Mascot yesterday, and has decided they want to be part of it all. This country is great because the people make it great. The freedom makes it great. The choice makes it great.
So, I don't follow the footy. So I missed every single event of the recent sports carnival. So I question the validity of the government's motivations in dazzling us with circuses. Do I love this country any less than one who zincs up their nose every summer and burns and boozes their way through the cricket season? Who scarves and screams their way through the winter's footy?
I do not, sir, and I resent the inference.
But that is why I love this country. Because I don't have to. I don't need to fit some stereotypical model of "what it means to be a good Australian". I am an Australian. My father's family came here and walked for two months to find a place to farm. They stopped by the roadside for a year along the way, and watched as Australians trooped past them to fill up the country with British idealism. My mother's family came in part on a ship, in chains, for crimes long forgotten. And in part as free people looking for a new place to call home, less shackled to the old world Britain so convincingly represents.
I can saddle and ride a horse, drive sheep for days without seeing a town, build a fence, train a dog, tune a motorcycle, drive a tractor, plough a field, clear a paddock, drink a slab on a Friday night, shoot a rabbit, skin and gut it, name a hundred species of native vegetation, and tell you what it can be used for. Is that Australian?
But I am no more or less Australian than someone who flew into Mascot yesterday, and has decided they want to be part of it all. This country is great because the people make it great. The freedom makes it great. The choice makes it great.
So, I don't follow the footy. So I missed every single event of the recent sports carnival. So I question the validity of the government's motivations in dazzling us with circuses. Do I love this country any less than one who zincs up their nose every summer and burns and boozes their way through the cricket season? Who scarves and screams their way through the winter's footy?
I do not, sir, and I resent the inference.
posted by The Last Scientician at 12:42 AM
4 Comments:
hhhhhmmmmmm. You are certainly very passionate to say the least. I hope I didn't hit a raw nerve. C’mon baby, lets not fight. Let’s ride this rocket to Uranus…
Your attitude of not embracing the games is certainly a concern. The Commonwealth games are a truly global event, attracting people from all corners of the planet. True, the majority of the world’s best athletes aren't here, however I think you are choosing to overlook just what makes the games great – Australian people and our display of hospitality shown to foreigners.
Any ole' town couldn't stage an event of this magnitude and by not appreciating this, it seems you are undermining our culture and very existence.
i'll put up my hand and agree with scientist here and say that you don't need to embrace the games to love this country. or football or anything else.
it's home, so what about all the other stuff? why challenge people if they have different views to you, rudders?
and your use of the word "foreigners" is a worry. think about it.
so tell me, what do you think of me for barracking for the african who overtook craig mottram? does that make me unaustralian? i bet it does.
i'm with melbournegirl and the last scientician. i hate footy, i hate beer, i hate vegemite. that does not make me unAustralian. they are just symbols, they do not really "make" our country. what makes our country is the diversity of people, the beauty of the land, and so many other things that are not packaged, not badges for us to wear proudly.
i think it's sad that our "display of hospitality" is demonstrated even to the extent of removing "those pesky homeless" from the streets so as not to inconvenience visitors; not to show how compassionate we are to those less fortunate and downtrodden, but to hide from the rest of the world that we do have homeless people on the streets. this point goes back to your humanism post, scientician.
but the short answer is that i can love my country and my city without loving the commonwealth games.
Crikey, someone's actually reading this stuff. A reference to a prior blog!
I am half convinced rudders is having a stir, but in response, no othe rtown even wanted to host this event, so it just goes to show what an important thing it is in the scheme of things.
If we had sent the money we spent on the games to Sierra Leone, perhaps the athletes from there would have not needed to run away?
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