No doubt we won’t be hearing the end of this story about the banning of the Australian flag at the Sydney Big Day Out for a while:
Organisers of the Aussie rock festival at Homebush will confiscate any flag or bandana bearing the national symbol at the gate.
Labelling Sydney a hot bed of racism, producers of the Sydney Showground event said it will be the only city in the nationwide event to be subject to the draconian action.
Promoters have already moved the event from the traditional Australia Day gig to a day earlier to avoid nationalistic overtones.
Spooked by last year’s event, which came only weeks after the Cronulla riots, organisers will outlaw flags being brandished as a “gang colour”.
Elsewhere: More from Cam at Troppo.
Eep! That decision is going to backfire like, hell, I don’t know what. They could find themselves under attack on the left and right with this decision.
Ridiculous. I was at last year’s Sydney BDO and while there may have been more flags etc than usual, there were no problems. I have been going to BDO since 1999, and have seen more ugly, violent crowd behaviour in one hour of football than I have seen in eight BDOs. There are always yobbos around of course, and things can get unpleasant in the moshes for the hard-core bands, but that is easy to avoid. In fact, seeing young Australians enjoying themselves at BDO has given me a tremendous sense of optimism about the future of this country. They are overwhemingly pleasant, tolerant and well-behaved.
I can’t wait for the Daily Telecrap’s banner headlines on this.
But yes, it’s a really dumb move.
BDO organiser, Ken West, now says it was never their intention to “ban” the flag at BDO Sydney – merely, to encourage concert-goers to [voluntarily] leave their flags at home. Anyway “it’s not an Australia Day event.”
He goes on:
“Contrary to the reports in the media, it was never our intention to disrespect the symbolism of the Australian or any other flag.
“Unfortunately the media reports yesterday were not quoted accurately and we must thank the participating media for wasting everybody’s time, including Prime Minister John Howard, Premier Morris Iemma, NSW RSL President Don Rowe, Keysar Trad (a confidant of the Mufti Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly) and Burt Lane of the Australian National Flag Association.”
Ken needs a halfway decent media advisor, desperately……………
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21096934-1702,00.html
When rock concert organisers start behaving like the Bizarro World RSL of the 1960s you know that something has gone seriously screwy with Australian popular culture.
The sheer bone-headed political illiteracy of this ban is breathtaking. Has he forgotten or has he never learned that to attempt to ban something is the most effective means known to man of encouraging it?
No rock band with any integrity or understanding of the traditions of rock should want to play a gig that features exclusivist cultural nationalism. It’s the antithesis of rock. Rock happened when white kids embraced black music. In other words the children of the dominant culture embraced the culture of pariahs.
Sydney rock musicians would do well to embrace Middle Eastern music.
This is a sign that racism and xenophobia have become deeply embeded in the Australian psyche. We can look forward to many more Cronulla riots. We may as well rename Australia Day as Leb and Wog Bashing Day.
There were a few stories about unrestrained nationalism at the BDO last year. One report was a guy asking people to kiss the flag and then thumping anyone who refused. But that is anecdotal so the usual caveats apply.
But judging from the media reports it does seem a bit of a beat up. What I find a little disturbing is the jingoism inherent in the responses by our elected leaders. We can do better than a “my country right or wrong” type of patriotism.
And for Katz, who said,
Or we could get Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones out for a reunion tour.
Or we could get Sheikh Hilaly playing the ukelele.
Absolutely! Take the following comment from Andrew Robb:
Cited in The Oz.
Way to miss the point!
“No rock band with any integrity or understanding of the traditions of rock should want to play a gig that features exclusivist cultural nationalism. It’s the antithesis of rock.”
…As Chuck Berry once said to Malcolm Young.
I don’t think he really missed the point at all, Cap’n — this is just shameless opportunistic spin, taking a punt on how dumb we all are, as pollies (on both sides, alas) are all too wont to do. Not that there’s not plenty of evidence, unfortunately.
Aren’t you supposed to be outside?
Katz: “Rock happened when white kids embraced black music. In other words the children of the dominant culture embraced the culture of pariahs … Sydney rock musicians would do well to embrace Middle Eastern music.”
Oh, goodness gracious. If anyone would like to fry an egg on my head for free, do it right now, while the steam is still shooting out of my ears.
Rock ‘happened’ when white AMERICAN kids, with a long and specific cultural history, embraced black AMERICAN music, which had an equally long, specific, and *shared* cultural history. Which is to say, this whole thing went down not in an abstract ‘zone,’ but in a real place, with a specific socio-cultural history which was not like the histories of other peoples and other places. And the so-called ‘black’ music was not entirely ‘black’ as it happened, but had a massive infusion of Celtic modes, English ballad-structure, and native-white mountain music mixed in. Interesting to note that rock n roll did not arise in Africa (which has a large black population, so I’m told) nor in Brazil, with its large black slave population that was mysteriously lacking in Scots-Irish white trash. If I recall correctly, the banjo is an African instrument, but its main practitioners are those dreadful rednecks like Earl Scruggs. Tells you a bit of something about all that cultural back-and-forth.
English kids in the 50s upped the ante when they started listening to what they thought was ‘black’ music postwar, coming as it did from the wealthy hegemonic titan across the Atlantic. What happened next was a form of beautiful cultural misunderstanding that had enormous payouts, something Harold Bloom would just friggin’ love. Even the phrase “Rock n roll” was a low-down southern black slang expression for, well, fuckin’. All this stuff is mixed up six ways to Sunday, and that’s just fine. But my point in it all is the long and organic historical-cultural nature of the mixture. I reckon you could drink a freshly-harvested Cognac wine before it was properly distilled and aged in oak, but from what I understand about the process, my guess is that you would puke if you did.
Which brings me to this jewel: “Sydney rock musicians would do well to embrace Middle Eastern music.”
Well, on strictly musical and aesthetic terms, whatever works well is groovy, and if they do, then good for them. But the argument seems to draw on a false parallel with the history of white/black musics in a distant foreign country with an elaborate, long, and precise history of same. Nothing could be less true of an Australian relationship with Middle Eastern music, the music of a very, very, very, very foreign culture, only recently arrived in Australia in any meaningful numbers, and with practically zero cultural, historical, linguistic, religious, and/or ethnological claims to anything recognizable in ‘Australian culture’ as commonly understood, or any worthy place in the building or creation of same.
Unless Katz would like to argue that all non-white cultures have stuff in common, simply by virtue of their shared quality of being, well, not white. That line of thought will certainly be entertaining.
I was trying to curb my cynicism, PC, but you’re right — it’s pointless to observe the principle of charity in this kind of game.
Outside? What — and get my hooves all dirty?!
JPZ:
Thanks for saving me the trouble. Well said. Bad analogy, Katz. “Black” music in the USA was (in terms of home grown vibrancy, prolific output, synthesis of many and varied traditions, etc etc) NOT part of a “culture of pariahs” anyway, at least by the 1920s. Sure, they were 2nd class citizens in law, but culturally their acceptance was well and truly on the table pre-rock n’ roll.
Zing! j_p_z is right on the money. I remember sitting in a bar in New Orleans a few years ago with a rocking band and the mixed, happy crowd going off. The sheer genuineness of this mighty cultural force in its birthplace just felt so right. Some North African rhythms purloined by some spotty Sydney youths might hit the right buttons for socially prescriptive types, but when I pay my money I want the real thing.
When I first heard this story on the radio this morning, I crapped in my aussie flag boxer shorts… oh the shame.
Ah, j_p_z, my skillet-headed interlocutor, I’ll see your “Oh, goodness gracious” and raise it a “dearie me”.
Thanks for the cultural intermix sermon. I chose the word “happened” deliberately and in the clear understanding that it doesn’t mean “exists”. I’ll let you nut out the difference. If you need help, just ask. (It so happens I agree with your explanation for rocks “existence”.)
Well, that’s mighty tolerant of you, j_p_z. But then this doozy!
It so happens I’m listening right now to Sir George Martin’s Beatles remix “Love”. And what do I hear? Enormous overtones, undertones and interlacings of Indian music. Now let’s apply your straitjacket to this music.
Now, in the cool light of reason, the above interpolation shows just how silly your argument is, doesn’t it?
So j_p_z, thank you for informing me that after listening to the Beatles (or for that matter the Moody Blues, or the Incredible String Band, or King Crimson or countless others for all these years, I haven’t actually been listening to rock and roll with any musical integrity.
And thanks for giving the following strawman my name:
But no thanks.
(BTW, I like my head-fried eggs over-easy.)
“This is
[looks at flag]
Australia!”
practically zero cultural…
Yes I’ve found zero most practical.
To enforce this new patriotic theme of the BDO, all bands will be required to perform at least one verse of Advance Australia Fair. The sixth so-called Christian verse (‘With Christ our head and cornerstone…’) will earn bonus points.
I always foudn it quite disturbing to see the flag draped aorund the shoulders of a sweaty teenager. A flag belonhg on a flagpole. The BDO isnt even a sporting event, its not liek people are cheering for the Australian, so why do you need to take the flag?
Have you got a link to all the verses, silkworm?
This is the official truncated version:
http://www.imagesaustralia.com/australiannationalanthem.htm
Just in case John Howard wants to cancel the BDO and have a singalong at Kirribilli for the youngsters instead…
From the always reliable Wikipaedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Australia_Fair
No doubt the sight in heaven that we are facing is not Christ returning in the clouds, but the Southern Cross, which God placed in the southern hemispheric sky as a symbol of Australia’s Christian destiny.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Australia_Fair#.27Missing.27_verse.3F
But the always reliable Wikipedia also suggests that the sixth verse probably wasn’t part of the original composition.
Interesting to note though it was sung for Ratty in St. Andrew’s Cathedral.
Thats a bit desperate of you Tiny Tyrant! (1.10pm).
Gee, makes you wonder why Martin Luther King went to all that trouble in the 1960s.
Yes, white elites had embraced certain aspects of black culture by the 1920s. But that was a very small table. Geraldine Baker, for example, could make a much better living in France than she could in the US.
Pioneers of 1950s white rock, like Buddy Holly in Lubbock, Texas (an awful long way from the Cotton Club) were reviled for exposing their teenage neighbours to “nigger music”.
Sorry folks, I’m with the organisers. Sure, it’s Australia Day ‘n all, but you’d think people are going to the BDO for the music, not to “celebrate” the founding of the nation.
So does Clem Bastow. [link]
This is a funny development when on another thread the issue of illiberal leftists or libertarians are being mulled over.
All BDO goers should be able to wear what they want and remove it when they want.
Re the Clem Barstow link -The purists complaining that singlet adorned ,thong wearers and yobs are attending should stay at home and keep their headsets firmly on . Probably with the shades drawn.
“No rock band with any integrity or understanding of the traditions of rock should want to play a gig that features exclusivist cultural nationalism “.
How many “rock” musicians have you actually met ? Integrity , sense of history ??- Nah ,its about the drugs and the sex.
No, wait. It was always about getting a root.
Howard’s, Robb’s, Rudd’s and Iemma’s comments are only going to encourage more thuggish behaviour from these flag-carrying yobbos.
Silkworm: If people are behaving like thugs, somehow I doubt taking their flags off them is going to help much. They should be hiring more security instead of embarassing themselves across Australia with this nonsense.
Quite clearly every Australian flag should come with a health warning…….
“Do not stand between this flag and a politician, under any circumstances , as you may be crushed in the rush.”
polluted skies
This entire thread has been a delicious expose of the rank hypocrisy of the left illiberals. I am just wetting myself in anticipation of La Winter’s ruling on the issue.
The only flag that ought to be allowed at BDO is Black Flag.
Shame TISM ain’t doing the BDO. They’d have had a lotta fun with this latest symbolic moral panic.
Katz — yeah, okay. Some of what you’re saying (Beatles, India, huh?) sails straight past my very limited and extremely unoriginal point and lands over in the neighbors’ yard, but that doesn’t matter, since the rest of what you say is good sense. But then I don’t think my argument was “silly” so much as it was “cranky.” (I’ll let you nut out the difference. If you need help, ask!)
anthony — “I’ve found zero most practical.” Well done! Funny, as I was writing that, I thought ‘somebody could very handily pick this phrase up and thwack me over the head with it. Let’s see if anybody does….’ Not only did you pull it off, but in the fewest possible number of words. Pretty neat trick.
I think the three of us should drive around in a van, solving mysteries. Think of the arguments! Think of the lousy ratings!
OK, you were being cranky, and I was a tad immoderate. Truce?
Mmm. Van, eh?
Are we talking VW Kombi (Microbus), airbrushed a la Janis Joplin’s Porsche?
I’ve posted on this issue on the Thinking Culture blog at USyd. Check it out and comment on it if you’d like to…
“airbrushed a la Janis Joplin’s Porsche?”
Well there’s certainly no point to solving mysteries in a van, if the van isn’t airbrushed. The uglier the better. And somebody has to play one of those dinky electric keyboards from the early 70s…
Well, if I ever get to perform at the BDO with my trusty Fender acoustic twanger, I will arrange for Graham Bird to be issued with a free ticket and a front row spot so I can regale him with Alexandrov’s Soviet/Russian national anthem with the complete original lyrics as approved by Stalin, Zhdanov and Beria.
They’ll need a touring drummer. I suggest Gina Schock from the Go-Go’s.
And this gem from Kevin Rudd : “It’s political correctness….” (1,2,3 everybody…..)
“GONE MAD!!!”.
He actually said that.
I can understand why the ALP voted him leader. That’s so pithy, I reckon it could become a catchy phrase.
“It’s political correctness, gone mad.”
Department of Redundancy Department.
It seems News Ltd have been “inspired” aka copying the age in an article which tries to Smear Ken West.
http://mith.com.au/wordpress/?page_id=26
Still waiting for when the “liberal” bit unites with the “Left” bit!