In the Sydney suburb of Manly, hundreds of youths draped in “Aussie pride” livery wore slogans declaring “f–k off we’re full” as they smashed car windows and ran up the famous Corso targeting non-white shop keepers.
A 18-year-old Asian female in one of the cars was showered with shattered glass, giving her numerous cuts to her arms. She was treated on the scene by ambulance officers.
A taxi driven by a Sikh Indian was also targeted while an Asian shopkeeper was reportedly assaulted.
Groups of men jumped up on cars chanting race hate to the terrified passengers within, and were heard singing “t*ts out for the boys” at passing girls and yelled “lets go f–k with these Lebs”.
Echoing some comments on the Mick Dodson thread, I’m also interested in knowing exactly when and why running around like a porkchop with a flag draped over you became a “tradition” for Australia Day. I suppose there’s some consolation in the fact that John Howard isn’t popping up saying “inexcusable, but just exuberance” or something anymore, but how neutral precisely is the national flag as a symbol on at least One Day Of The Year when it’s appropriated as permission for violent, xenophobic and misogynist behaviour?
Elsewhere: Skepticlawyer, The Radical Radish.
And I thought Australian fascism was temporarily asleep. Looks like John Howard’s Australia has woken from its slumbers after taking a nap for a year. I didn’t think it would take this long to be honest.
Well, the vast majority of Australians, who the flag represents, reject this thuggish activity. As does the Government, and the Opposition, and I’d wager every local, state, and federal politician. These twits might want their actions to be associated with the Australian flag, but they’re wrong.
In the end, thugs can appropriate just about anything they want as a symbol for their own actions. Doesn’t mean we have to agree with them, though.
TimT: I pose this question to you – why have these twits chosen as their symbol to appropriate the Aussie flag, then?
why have these twits chosen as their symbol to appropriate the Aussie flag, then?
Probably because it was Australia day.
What I don’t understand is why they are now appropriating English Soccer Hooligan songs and working them into their idiotic routines?
And do you remember when the organisers of The Big Day Out were forced to back down on a proposed ban on wearing the Australian Flag ?
Cronulla wasn’t helped by the likes of Alan Jones and his redneck talkback cohorts either, and the Daily Terrorgraph.
Can you imagine the outcry if Muslim males decided to wear their flag as a symbol of nationalism ? Can anyone say pots and kettles ?
Similarly with “Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi”. Where did that come from? When is it going to go away?
I believe that they do this quite often, in the countries which the flag represents of course.
Well, Frank, “Muslim males” don’t have a flag as such.
I did observe *unscientifically* yesterday that all the flag carriers/wearers around Brisbane town looked very Anglo.
It’s the FLAG. It is not a towel. It is not a cape. It is not to be stuck on the back of your car. It is not a political prop. It is not the Confederate battle flag. It is not a bumper sticker.
It is a symbol of national ideals, not a political baton, nor some secret sign allowing you to identify fellow-minded patriots. You do not ‘drape’ yourself in it. You respect it by keeping your effing hands and your effing ideals, whatever they may be left right or centre, the hell away from our flag.
BYO final clause, naturally. I choose to start mine with “full of…” and then go nuts from there.
For non-Sydneysiders: the Manly Corso is packed, end-to-end, with CCTV cameras.
“What I don’t understand is why they are now appropriating English Soccer Hooligan songs and working them into their idiotic routines?”
Look at the canton of the flag they’re running around with. I couldn’t care less about changing the flag, but it is a defaced British blue ensign.
d
Well that might be true Darryl, but said Hooligans usually carry the Cross of Saint George rather than the union Jack, being that they Identify as English rather than the more general “British”.
It may not be a majority of people acting in a belligerent fashion while draped in the flag but the majority of those in public places on the day continue to tolerate it or even implicitly endorse it by participating in chants, tolerating drunken and disorderly behaviour. If it’s misuse by thugs, as some have claimed, then more of these ordinary citizens need to make that clearer to the fringe elements. I, for one, am genuinely afraid of going to certain public places on the day now, and I refuse to wear a flag until this rubbish stops. I would hate for somebody to see it on me and think that I endorsed whatever idiotic notions they associate with the symbol.
As did I, on my trundle down eastern side of Port Philip Bay.
The Aussie flag may just be taking on some of those same unfortunate connotations that the English flag has developed. One might consider what about the Aussie flag’s history and design might play to those connotations…
The cricket, IIRC.
Exactly, Rob, I think one should!
I’m referring to wearing their country of origin flag in THIS country of course.
Well, for a lot of “Muslim males”, Frank, their country of origin is Australia.
Ironic that this happened in a suburb called ‘Manly’.
But it’s OK. Those thugs can have that flag. They’re welcome to it.
Now that those little-dick fascists have defiled it (and the smell of Pauline Hanson’s hairspray hasn’t washed out, either) I think we ought to get ourselves a nice fresh new one — don’t you?
I’m reliably told it was appropriated from British sports fandom. I forget the exact details of which group it was filched off, but I’ll never forget the the cruel and vicious glee with which I was informed by my English friends after they won the Ashes that our little chant was ‘Australian’ only in the sense that it was stolen, so typical of these colonials and their long-standing criminal ways.
Now I’m definitely wearing it as a cape next year. Maybe a patchwork cape made the Australian flag, the A&TI flag, the Eureka flag, and the New Zealand flag.
Yobbo: or the St Andrew’s cross north of the border, obviously. When you see hooligans carrying on draped the Union Jack, it’s probably because you’re in Northern Ireland.
Speaking of football and flags, the Melbourne Victory football club has tried to bring the other Australian flag back without success. Personally I’d much rather associate the Eureka ensign with polyethnic football fans than with one-percenters or white supremacists. Shame FFA!
“aussie aussie aussie” comes from another English Soccer chant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oggy_Oggy_Oggy
I did observe *unscientifically* yesterday that all the flag carriers/wearers around Brisbane town looked very Anglo.
Pretty meaningless anecdotal evidence. My (Taiwanese) girlfriend had a fake Australian flag tattoo on her face last Australian day, as did a great many non-anglo people around Perth. There are plenty of people who like to wear the flag on Australia day simply because it is colorful and festive.
Here’s an image I just randomly googled…
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v101/adrock2xander/fedsquare1.jpg
Chinese guy draped in Australian Flag, Indian Girl draped in Indian Flag.
Here’s another
http://arablondoner.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/aussie-flag.jpg
etc.
It’s mostly white lefties who find the Australian flag distasteful.
MH: #6 “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi” is a Cornish fishwife’s call to get her husband out of the pub & home for dinner. Upon returning from fishing, he would hand her the catch, then repair to the pub while she prepared & cooked it.
She would later stand in the street shout out the call, (insert husband’s name instead of “aussie”). This would let him know his dinner was ready & time to go home.
These days she’d more easily phone the pub, or sms to his mobile.
The chant was picked up by the Welsh, presumably when playing rugby against Cornwall, and brought to Australia sometime in the 1990′s by Welsh Rugby Union supporters. It caught on with the Wallaby supporters, and moved from there to all international sport, then into everyday use.
It is not just Cornwall, Wales and Australia which use this chant. Israeli athletic supporters (for example) have been heard to give a similar chant.
The Cornish.
These guys are dangerous morons, but a lot of young people, especially around this time of year, are going around dressed in the Australian Flag (specifically as a cape).
I really appreciate the kind of understated, quiet until appropriately stirred, cynical, laconic patrotism of my childhood, before some started to embrace a more overt, American style of patriotism, which is, for me, symbolised by teenagers wearing their Aussie-Flag-cape. I expect many here will argue this is JWH’s doing, but I suspect modern entertainment and informational trends have something to do with it as well.
Mark, I’m referring to second generation youths who might wear the flag of their parent’s birth, as do many 2nd or indeed 3rd generation Italo-Australian and Greek – Australian at at sporting events.
The recent violence at the Australian Open is a prime example of this, as I haven’t heard calls for the offenders to be deported back to Serbia or Croatia.
I’m with Mercurius on this one. It seems to be the best way to end the scariness that Australia Day has become is to change the date and change the flag.
I can’t consciously pick when it happened, however Australia Day has become the day that I look forward to the least all year- I am careful not to look sideways (or anyways really) at anyone on Australia Day with an Australian flag because you just don’t know what it might lead to. Surely we all agree (even the yobbos in a sober moment) that this is not how Australia Day should feel to someone born and bred here and who thinks that it is the best country on earth?
Liam, I like the Eureka flag too. For libertarians the Eureka rebellion is the closest thing Australia ever had to a tax revolt.
Unfortunately it has already been appropriated by firstly the BLF in its most thuggish period and then white supremist groups as well. So adopting the Eureka flag would probably be counterproductive.
Observed the same at Central on my way home from work yesterday, toothless and tatted Anglos draped in the flag and very loud on platform 22/23 dominated with folks who were obviously migrants – it felt ugly.
You haven’t been listening to me then Frank. Hardly surprising, as you don’t know me, but there you go.
As a kid playing z-grade soccer in Perth, I was gobsmacked by all the viscious graffiti you’d see on the clubhouses of Croat or Serb grounds. I used to wonder what the hell these folks were living here for, if their ethnic rivalries were so important to them.
“Please check your baggage at the door” is as close as I’ll get to being anti-immigration.
I think it’s becoming clearer that for whatever reasons there is a nasty, hopefully small, but nevertheless significant ultra-nationalist movement in this country, that has had some success appealing to the average yob looking for an outlet for anger and a convenient target.
The whole narrative around the death of young Tyler whatsit who got shot for charging police with a knife I think brought some of this more fully into the public consciousness.
I’d suggest if people think that these yobs were wearing the flag just ’cause it was convenient to the day, and that their actions weren’t to a certain extent premeditated, they are wrong. Australia Day has become a magnet for this sort of expression, and targetting of visible cultural minorities in certain areas at least is a growing problem.
I work with migrant communities in Tasmania, and there are disturbing trends of overt racism we are dealing with here, albeit no doubt from a small minority, but they are very effective at making sure their voice is the loudest. Incidents include: verbal abuse in public, shoving, assault, spitting, derogatory implied comments, home invasion, egging (people and buildings), stalking, vandalisation of property, theft and group bashings.
We are building a picture with police, but it’s clear that there is a segment of the population, largely young males but also some young women (I’m talking 15-25 range) who actively target and seek out minority groups for attack. They often seem to have older ‘mentors’. Tthe flag and ‘aussie pride’ mixed with an anti-immigration stance is prominent in their ‘logic’. I don’t have any demographic information such as socio-economic group or such, but I suspect we need to think a lot more deeply than just ‘disaffected youf’.
I don’t know where it’s come from, whether it’s always existed and now we’re seeing some fluctation that’s made it more visible, but this blatant jingoism / racism is defintely an identifiable, cohesive force that the broader community needs to roundly and loudly repudiate. We need a much louder inclusive voice to drown out this detritus.
Even listening to Triple J’s hottest 100 on Monday, I was struck and greatly disquieted by how much the comperes paid lip service to the crowds covered in flags and talked about ‘aussie pride’. Scary.
To the CCTVs!
Australian hooligans have a lot of catching up to do with global standards. If you’re going smash things in a drunken riot, you don’t do it in front of the cameras.
Wasn’t it that fine role model, Pauline Hanson, in 1997 who began this flag wearing caper?
http://botlbrush.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/pauline-hanson-draped-in-flag.jpg
I don’t know where it’s come from, whether it’s always existed and now we’re seeing some fluctation that’s made it more visible, but this blatant jingoism / racism is defintely an identifiable, cohesive force that the broader community needs to roundly and loudly repudiate. We need a much louder inclusive voice to drown out this detritus.
Even listening to Triple J’s hottest 100 on Monday, I was struck and greatly disquieted by how much the comperes paid lip service to the crowds covered in flags and talked about ‘aussie pride’. Scary.
Trouble is this, Myriad: every Australia Day leftish bloggers gang together and grumble about yobbos and jingoism and what not. It hasn’t done a shred of good in actually stamping out jingoistic violence. I think this is partly because the leftish criticism of patriotism/jingoistic violence is almost never associated with any positive reflection on what it’s like to be an Australian. Aussies HAVE got a lot to be proud of – our stable and peaceful democracy, our wealth, our culture… and so on. By and large, the criticism just contributes to animosity between different classes of Australians.
Leftists would be much more likely to win over the sympathies of others by focusing on the positive things about Australia as well as the negatives – by making sure that we’re aware of what is good about our country/nation, and what we can contribute to it.
Wasn’t it that fine role model, Pauline Hanson, in 1997 who began this flag wearing caper?
it was Bono I think
http://www.boudist.com/gallery/d/47913-2/u2-001.JPG
Yes, moving the day where nationalism is celebrated and changing the design of the flag will end racism and xenophobia once and for all.
Sterling logic there.
The whole narrative around the death of young Tyler whatsit who got shot for charging police with a knife I think brought some of this more fully into the public consciousness.
Following the Tyler Cassidy incident, I had a look at some of the SCS MySpace comments (brain bleach indispensable) and there was a definite “call to arms” for Invasion Day as a rallying point for racist thuggery.
I wonder if the police follow those kind of online communities?
You mean like Quadrant’s “reflections” on Australia Day about teh evils of teh left?
In any case, I don’t think that’s the case, TimT. There are a lot of values and events celebrated by “the left” – including the winning of democracy, institutions to decommodify wages, struggles against war and by women for equality, etc. etc. The point’s been made before that the history wars were actually largely an attempt to efface a democratic narrative about Australian history and values – that’s originally what the so-called “orthodoxy” was about. Any sort of national debate is inevitably going to be politicised. It’s not as though there’s some sort of “positive Australia” which is politically neutral and from which the left dissents. Much of the selectivity about what’s “great” about the country is an explicitly right wing set of themes.
Myriad wasn’t grumbling, nor advocating solving social problems by blog thread. If you actually read her comment, it’s clear that she recognises the problems which give rise to nationalist violence are complex and she’s involved in helping to understand and solve them. Incidentally, I think that the appropriation of the flag is significant, because as Klaus K and a number of others have implied, there is an implicit condoning of the actions of a few because they use that symbol, and it acts in the particular context of these social practices (note the qualifier) as something that divides not unites.
So, no, contra Stephen, I don’t think changing the flag or the date of Australia Day would make nationalist violence go away *and that’s a straw argument anyway* – though I’m in favour of both. But I do believe we do need to think about how the particular use of the symbol of the flag has facilitated these sorts of destructive anti-social behaviours, and how rhetoric about “Aussie pride” etc. works at some level to legitimise or downplay them.
And no doubt had very hairy palms, Mark.
She would certainly know a lot of about divisive identity politics.
as politely as possible, TimT, I don’t really give a fuck about online cyberwars, what I care about is the lovely young Congolese woman who nearly miscarried 3 months ago when a ‘neighbour’ broke into her family house at 3 am, screaming ‘niggers go home’, throttled her husband but luckily didn’t kill him, kicked her 4 yo daughter and vandalised the house.
It’s got nothing to do with leftists ‘winning over sympathies’ – if you can’t read the above and understand that it’s that Congolese family that needs your sympathy and support, I can’t help you.
You gonna tell me that a lack of positive expression of all things Australian caused that? Or the targeted racist violence featuring in Kim’s post?
But the truth is there’s oodles, literally, of positive commentary out there and in the community on how wonderful Australia is. Councils hold celebratory breakfasts, hundreds of small and large community events are held, IOW there’s a plethora of positive expressions from all aspects of Australian society about how great it is to live in this country. Of course the sad irony is in my experience its the newest Australians who so joyfully celebrate what’s good, often because they know in all-too concrete ways what it’s like not to live in a peaceful democracy, and yet they are also the ones getting attacked.
And you know what? Even if there was an entire absence of a celebration of all things Australian and good, there is absolutely no excuse EVER for the racist violent assaults of the like in Kim’s post and that are happening to people regularly around the country.
And I’d point out in terms of ‘doing things’ – I work with the police & others in my current job to try and tackle some of this; and as I pointed out, the most important thing that will help minimise this as far as possible is a zero tolerance policy from broader society. Racism must become taboo and intolerable in this country.
“Mr Rees says internal vigilance is needed to stamp out racial intolerance.”
I thought that ‘internal vigilance’ was a method more suited to nipping bowel cancer (and the like) in the bud…..
Or does he mean “internal” to NSW?
Or is it “eternal vigilance” he aspires to?
But I’d guess, Myriad, that you DO give a fuck about Australian democracy and think it should be preserved? Well, one good reason for Australia Day is celebrating this and other good aspects about Australia: to give reason and motivation for the millions of good-willed Australians to participate in our country, and to strengthen what is good about the nation.
Any sort of national debate is inevitably going to be politicised. It’s not as though there’s some sort of “positive Australia” which is politically neutral and from which the left dissents. Much of the selectivity about what’s “great” about the country is an explicitly right wing set of themes.
That seems fair enough Mark – and I happily agree with you that both the left and the right want the best for our country, and want to strengthen those good things that we share as Australians (ie, democracy, wealth, etc), even if they may disagree from time to time over HOW this should be achieved.
But for whatever reason whenever the specific topic of Australia Day, or Australian patriotism comes up, the focus on left-wing blogs seems to be exclusively on bad things about Australia. It is a pity that what was intended to be that the holiday, a symbol intended to commemorate what is good about our country, should be represented in this way.
The fear thing is what chills me, and then angers me. It’s difficult to come back with anything but the reactive when you are actually scared of what somebody is going to do to you. You shut up and leave quietly, or you fight.
I don’t think responsibility lies with those who are the targets and victims to deal with this phenomenon by constructing alternative narratives, showing their own different form of patriotism or whatever. I think it lies with those who do like to wave the flag and get drunk and mill about on the day, and yet purport to be against racism and violence. If those people – for whom, I’m constantly being assured, the flag is not a sign of impending violence or abuse – can help others feel comfortable in their own country again, then I’ll be happy come to the table with what I like about this country. If there is really a ‘silent’ majority sitting back, loving the country but abhorring racism and violence, they better stand up and say so.
The point that I thought this post was trying to make, and seems to be deliberately missed by some, is that there has been a rise in jingoistic behaviour on Australia Day that makes some people, not all of them migrants, concerned/frightened/saddened/wondering if it was always like this. The post is not that what Australia is/has become is something of which we should not be proud. There are many things to be proud of and to celebrate (but again that is not what this post is about) however surely one of these things is not jingoistic violent behaviour toward anyone- TimT, Stephen?
So just to reiterate: the behaviour of some, on Australia Day, of making it a misery for others they percieve to be “not like them” is, in my opinion, not what Australia Day is about (anyone disagree?). However it seems to be a recent phenomenon that appears to regularly recur and, of this phenomenon, some proud Australians wonder how did this come to be? If there is an ongoing conflation of the day with nationalist “you’re either with us or your against us” expression, then it seems to me we have a problem . If you accept this thesis the question then is what do we do about it? One solution to the problems associated with the day itself is to move it, so the tradition ceases to be able to perpetuate itself. This does not eliminate (as Mark rightly points out) nationalistic violence, however it removes some of the conditions that make it possible. Same with the flag. Of course changing the day and the flag cannot and should not take place without a national conversation (have I heard that somewhere recently) and would in all likelihood not even touch on the actions of idiot minorities on Australia Day. However if as a product/ upshot the Manly/Cronulla type shit we see ceased to happen on our national day of celebrating who and what we are, surely that is a good thing.
No straw man intended, I was quoting someone else above, (not you) who seemed to suggest they thought this was the solution.
Nationalism is not racism, they are different things, and I do not believe nationalism in and of itself is a bad thing. Racism however is abhorrent. It seems many here object to nationalism, not just racism, in the belief we are all brothers and sisters and borders are artificial.
I celebrate Australia Day, and I do it because I like being Australian. If you asked me to define why that is, I would have trouble doing so, and I guess I would have to agree that it is somewhat mindless, but I am not racist and do not care for immigration to be cut. I just like being Australian.
I do believe in the early days of the USA there was mass xenophobia about German immigration with people upset that the Germans were going to “change their culture”, an argument used by xenophobes everywhere, it is self evident that this did not happen and it is stupid to be worried about such a thing. The Amish still speak German, but no one suggests they are a threat to American culture.
As for the date of Australia Day being changed, I think that is rubbish. The origins of a day of celebration are meaningless. How many Christians celebrate xmas in the knowledge they are actually celebrating the winter solstice? Why don’t we move it to June because celebrating the winter solstice festival in December down here is just stupid? How many atheists celebrate xmas because they enjoy giving presents to friends and family, but have no interest in jesus’ birthday?
The origin of the date is irrelevant. The celebration itself is what you make of it.
“I think this is partly because the leftish criticism of patriotism/jingoistic violence is almost never associated with any positive reflection on what it’s like to be an Australian. Aussies HAVE got a lot to be proud of – our stable and peaceful democracy”
Why to we need to congratulate ourselves for that? I didn’t have anything to do with it. In fact I’d like to change a few things about it (e.g head of state or flag) but I’d probably be at risk of a bashing from those guys on the Corso is I was stupid enough to engage them in reasoned debate.
Your attempted criticsm of the “left” is assine. What else have you got?
Actually John, you more or less agreed with him.
Your response could have otherwise been worded as ‘yes I agree, except I don’t think our democracy is that great either.”
I didn’t have anything to do with it.
Ever voted?
Yobbo, we’re agreed then. You start reclaiming Eureka for non-nutjobs from the Right, and I’ll start from the Left. We can meet in the middle.
On the origins of the draping of flags around people’s shoulders, consider Jim Connell’s lyrics;
Though I’m happy to blame Bono if it’s required. F&*king Bono.
The Edge is alright though.
I only own one Australian flag. It’s a little enamel lapel pin no more than 15 mm across and it was given to me ten years ago when my wife and I gained our citizenship. I’m immensely proud of it, not so much because of what it is but because it represents, symbolically, what my citizenship certificate confirms officially. That a better country than that of my birth had weighed me in the balance and found me worthy of acceptance.
I used to wear it on the waistcoat that passes for formal wear chez Bogan. Still do, for that matter. but, somewhere along the line, and I’m not sure where exactly, I’ve become quite uncomfortable about displaying it. It still means the same to me, but the potential for misinterpretation by others worries me, and that makes me a sad panda.
huh and the author of that section of the website has a book that would be interesting:
ELIZABETH KWAN: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Dr Elizabeth Kwan has written and lectured widely on Australians’ transition in identity, from British to Australian, with particular attention to national flags: the Union Jack, and since 1954, the Australian national flag.
Her book, Flag and Nation: Australians and Their National Flags since 1901 (UNSW Press, 2006), explains Australians’ changing relationship to those flags and the politics of patriotism which shaped it.
At a BBQ on the weekend, a friend was describing his time living recently at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast, and the Cronulla-style behaviour he used to observe amongst the locals (primarily white surfer boys). I wasn’t too surprised to read this morning about their all too-predictable behaviour yesterday.
Whenever I hear about this sort of stuff I can’t help thinking about this Courier-Mail article from last year by Matthew Condon (for my mind an all too-rare example of the Curious Snail at its best) that explores the “Scamscape” that is the Gold Coast, where “fact and fiction are inseparable”. Violence and bizarre, Hollywood-style behaviour that suggests people playing out characters rather than real life. Sally Kneen has some intersting things to say about the spatial and social constructs that the Gold coast offers, and how it leaves many people adrift. Warning: Bernard Salt is also quoted.
I’m always cautious about painting broad strokes over this sort of stuff, and of course the Gold Coast always has been a microcosm of weird social tendencies (even by Queensland standards), but I do think there’s something larger going on here that taps into our ability to create a new narrative for ourselves – even a violent and repugnant one – when we sense things getting out of hand and don’t have the necessary skills at hand to deal with it.
And especially when tacit approval is given by populist pollies, radio shock-jocks, etc., who really should know better.
I do believe in the early days of the USA there was mass xenophobia about German immigration with people upset that the Germans were going to “change their culture”, an argument used by xenophobes everywhere, it is self evident that this did not happen and it is stupid to be worried about such a thing. The Amish still speak German, but no one suggests they are a threat to American culture.
The big difference between the US and other western democracies is that the US has never pretended to embrace multiculturalism. Immigrants are welcomed but expected to become Americans first and foremost. Imported cultures are tolerated but not actively encouraged.
In comparison the UK, Australia and Canada actively encourage immigrants to import their cultures as well.
But I’d guess, Myriad, that you DO give a fuck about Australian democracy and think it should be preserved? Well, one good reason for Australia Day is celebrating this and other good aspects about Australia: to give reason and motivation for the millions of good-willed Australians to participate in our country, and to strengthen what is good about the nation.
Is that what the yobs terrorising people in flags were doing Tim?
It’s precisely because I give a fuck about living in a peaceful multicultural society built on the backs of immigrants that I feel so strongly about loudly repudiating such disgusting behaviour. Going to join me in that, or keep banging on lamely about celebrating something that’s already loudly and widely celebrated, and ignore the topic at hand?
You’re being a tad combative Myriad, but sure, I repudiate the behaviour of the small minority of yobs who wear flags and terrorise people.
At a BBQ on the weekend, a friend was describing his time living recently at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast, and the Cronulla-style behaviour he used to observe amongst the locals (primarily white surfer boys).
This sort of behaviour is common to surfers around the world. It’s not racial, it’s territorial. The Bra Boys and similar gangs will try to beat up anyone who attempts to surf “Their Break” without their permission. They apparently believe they own it by virtue of being born near it.
I repudiate the behaviour of the small minority of yobs who wear flags and terrorise people.
thank you!
From reading TimT@34, I think it’s an interesting point that if the “left” and intellectuals focus so much on what is wrong with Australia Day and why we should change it, it leaves little leadership for those who seek to defend and celebrate something that they consider an important part of their identity.
Liam, draping the flag over the shoulders comes from the tradition of draping flags over coffins? I can’t decide if that’s morbid, or appropriate.
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/
listen to today’s Hack program from Triple J.
I agree with Tim T about the need to present affirmation rather than simple critique, but the abject stupiidity of hyper-masculine aggressive nationalism is getting beyond a joke. I feel somewhat hopeless when confronted with what seems to me to be the clear and present stupidity of believing in anything that transcends the given moment as the condition to practice physical and symbolic violence. All I see are stupid people living shit lives and holding onto some warped sense of national pride to make their lives have meaning.
I thought tying a flag around your neck came from doing the same thing with a beach towel and playing Superman.
We had, yesterday Aussie Day, fix or six weenies – draped in flags superman style – walking around the campground, up the shops – along the beach – back chanting outside the shops from. By 3pm they were chucking their undrunk tinnies onto the highway.
I am doubtful that this type of flag bearer warrants special analysis. Clinically speaking, they are dickheads.
Someone above pointed to “American” style overt patriotism as something to blame, let me set the record strait. In the U.S. it’s not the racists that use the national flag, they use the Confederate flag, the only time when the stars and stripes enters this arena is when immigrants march for their rights and they carry the flag to show they are part of the country as well.
Overt American patriotism and our ultra respect for our flag comes from the fact that we not one people, a la British, French, Chinese etc, it’s our symbols that unite us and it’s proved a useful bonding agent, see the flags at the Obama inauguration.
I can’t remember a time when it was used by racists or anti-immigrant groups, I think the vast majority would find that offensive. I’m sorry you have racist thugs, keep us and our style of patriotism out of it.
I’m with Einstein. American style, Oz style, any style:
“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
Down at normally sedate Coogee on Australia Day, thousands of flag-draped, mostly drunk and generally obnoxious ‘yoofs’ gathered to celebrate a peculiarly crude version of Ockerism. I had planned to take the kids down to an event which had been billed as a family-friendly day, but the atmosphere was so ugly, with an under-current of racusnm that I decided to keep everyone at home.
This combination of piggish hedonism and crude jingoism on Australia Day, particularly among young Anglo men, seems to have come from nowhere in the last few years, but particularly since the Cronulla Riots. Plenty of people will defend the flag-waving, but I find it sinister and exclusive. The amount of cops on patrol just seemed to confirm the potential for violence.
These kids grew up under the Howard regime and it shows. The worst part is to reflect on how much more fascistic these children of the Rodent years will become when the economy turns to custard and anybody who doesn’t have blond eye and blue eyes is perceived as taking “Aussies’” jobs.
I hadn’t realized people were wearing the flag generally. Saw a lot of it about yesterday of course. But I thought those doing it were attending the Australian Open. Nationalism is the first refuge of the pathetic individual. Always has been: I’m a fat, stupid slob but at least Oi’m ‘Strayan! What can you do.
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I wish we’d get rid of Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi. Every time there’s some local sporing even against an overseas side you get groups of dickheads screaming it all over the place until the wee hours.
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But like the flag wearing shennanigans it’s the dickheads not the trappings.
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I know. Make Oz Day: Open Season on Dickheads.
“Plenty of people will defend the flag-waving, but I find it sinister and exclusive.”
So do I! Yesterday, I saw car window flags in plague proportions. Usually protruding from noisy vehicles travelling well above the speed limit.
I know – it’s anecdotal.
Rather ironically, draping a national flag around your shoulders as if it were Mandrake The Magician’s cape is one thing that you should never do with the flag. It’s not all that far short, as an act of disrespect, to burning that flag.
Although personally, I prefer the flag-burners. At least in their act of protest they’re giving some thought to what the flag actually represents. And, of course, the only correct way to dispose of an old and decrepit flag is to burn it…
Thanks to the West Australian here in WA who had tokens in the paper so you could exchange it for a flag for $2 – heaps of the crap flags still on their cars today.
As that song on the SBS comedy show featuring Rebel Wilson goes “Bogannnnn Priiiiideeee”
I agree, terangeree. I’m an unrepentant leftie, who abhors patriotism and would love to see both a republic and a new flag. But I do believe in showing respect (at least in public) to symbols that are important to others. I’m also old enough to have been taught the protocols for raising and lowering of the flag, and proper, respectful methods for handling, folding and storing it.
So I find the behaviour reprehensible. It shows a complete lack of respect to an object that is important to many people. Vandalise an RSL monument, deface a Bible, mutilate the Koran, drape a flag over your shoulders…
Apparently some youfs tried to get into a fight with my bro at the Melbourne BDO, his current facebook status tells me a lot about the kind of people that were hassling him “Adam :Hates bogans, sticking feathers up ur butt does not make u a chicken, wearing a flag as a cape does not make you aussie”
I agree 71. I just don’t see how dragging the flag in the dirt is a sign of patriotism. Although I disagree about flag burning. Thankfully, in spite of right-wing urban myths, burning your own flag rarely happens – here or anywhere else. I’ve attended my share of protests and I’ve yet to witness one flag burning. Has anyone else seen one?
I’ve heard a few murmurings about this in the media, but if this had been….gee, I dunno, a group of thugs with Lebanese backgrounds, how much coverage would it have received? There’d be the usual pious right-wing punditry asking “what’s gone wrong in the Lebanese community?”
Let’s hear right-wingers say unequivocally that in our society violence and criminality will not be tolerated, full stop…..even at the cost – gasp! – of lost votes and ratings.
I hope this is the last gasp of Howard-Hansonism and mindless Oi-Oi-Oi jingoism.
Kochie mentioned this on Sunrise – good on him.
“The big difference between the US and other western democracies is that the US has never pretended to embrace multiculturalism. Immigrants are welcomed but expected to become Americans first and foremost. Imported cultures are tolerated but not actively encouraged.”
In the majority of my US experiences, I have spent countless hours walking through, or staying in areas that are entirely colonized by foreign cultures. I’m thinking Russian Town in Chicago, Koreatown in San Francisco. I’ve caught trains in Louisiana and South Side Chicago, and been unable to make out a word that’s being spoken.
And then there’s the bordertowns down South which are way more Hispanic than North American.
America carved out the template for multiculturalism, and Australia just does a variation on it. Much of the hands on service industry that enables the USA to be what it is operates outside of the dominant culture. I’d say other cultures are actively encouraged.
The trouble is, the “last gasp” is actually rising. Ther were plenty of the types being discussed here at an allegedly ‘family’ celebration on the Cap coast. ‘Family’ except that the pub had cordoned off its drive-through so as to fit more boozy youths in. Plenty of seemingly amiable young people with flags ‘tattooed’ or painted on, and plenty of not-so amiable types wuth the flags around their shoulders. It didn’t feel safe but I’m afraid none of this seems safe post-Cronulla. At 3pm the boze-based aggression was palpable – my wife agreed a fight was about an hour off, but the paper carried no reports today.
Anyway, this is just another anecdote (although I’ll note that we don’t have waves where we are, so these are not territorial surfers). I think we’re at some risk of taking this trend too seriously, but otoh I fear for what might ensue if ‘thought leaders’ (not sure if Kochie’s in this group, but formal political leaders surely aren’t) don’t get the message out that it’s actually desecration of the flag to wear it as is occurring (as pointed out above). Who do these ‘types’ listen to – is it only Alan Jones?
Heh.
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via collins, in terms of official policy and ideology, Yobbo is right. The central idea of the United States is that over a multiplicity of identities, there is a unitary one of ideals; those made sacred by their founding documents. They’re a country of ideals and their most important slogan of multiculturalism is E Pluribus Unum. When an immigrant disembarks from the boat or the plane, and applies for citizenship, s/he ceases to be Russian or Mexican or Jewish or Chinese; s/he is part of a single American nation first. Differences in cookbooks and holy books are encouraged, differences in nationality are explicitly prohibited.*
That’s quite different to the model current in Europe, the UK and in Australia, which emphasises the individual’s freedom to maintain a multiplicity of equal national identities as part of a pluralist civic society. Personally I favour the latter, but then being a multiculturalist scoundrel I would, wouldn’t I.
*Historical forced immigration of slaves is of course glossed over. It’s different.
I think this is right. I certainly don’t remember this kind of stupidity attached to Australia Day when I was a kid. If there was going to be trouble (more often of the ‘drunken idiot’ variety) in times gone by, then it happened on Anzac Day. The One Day of the Year (a play I suspect most of us have read at some point) was partly on this theme. Not very much happened on Australia Day except cricket (Adelaide Test, IIRC) and a day off.
Now I haven’t been to a dawn service in years, and so I don’t really know what happens after Anzac Day parades these days, but it does seem that Anzac Day has gained in stature in recent years while Australia Day has lost ground — and this despite the best efforts of charitable groups, local councils and RSLs to do ‘something nice’ for Australia day (even if it’s just a free BBQ). There is something more going on here than just simple racism and loutishness. It may be convenient to blame John Howard, too, but I suspect that really is a gross oversimplification. This tendency has been around for a long time, and figuring out why it’s ‘changed days’ and morphed into something truly ugly would be an interesting exercise in itself.
The Americans have somehow managed to be flag-waving and patriotic, but you never see stuff like this attached to their flag; as the USAnian pointed out upthread, if it happens there it’s the Confederate Flag that gets ‘claimed’ by various drunken nongs. I can’t imagine any American using their national flag as a superman cape.
A mate of mine drove a couple hundred kilometres and back along a major Queensland highway yesterday, and reported afterwards that the sides of the road were liberally littered with those awful plastic “Aussie” flags – invariably made in China – that many peole insist on attaching to their cars. He reckoned that Australia Day should be immediately followed by Clean Up Australia Day.
Down here in Melbun it was interesting. We were out towards the beachy parts in Sunday afternoon and had our apparently obligatory experience with drunk yobbos wearing the flag and being obnoxious. Perhaps luckily they chose to “chat up” an unfortunate (european-looking) woman on the opposite platform at the train station, but she looked anything but happy to be the object of their attention. Loud, drunk and unpredictable, but their violence was directed at each other. The scary thing is simply that they were violent, drunk and unpredictable.
That is the culture that needs to change, as much as the racist undertones coming from a lot of them.
Melbun has had a few random bashings of bystanders lately, to the point where many people avoid the city centre on weekend evenings. I know I do.
All of this a-wear-a the flag business, I blame-a myself.
Back in-a the Sixties, I work as a tailor in-a the Carnaby Street. Very nice. Mr. a-Townshend, he come-a to my shop, he say Ay Beppo! I got-a this a-Union a-Jack-a. It’s, how you say, the flag. You make-a me the nice jacket out of it, yes? I tell him a-sure.
Next thing I know, the nice Mr. Townshend, he become-a the famous, I see him in all the magazines a-wearing the Union a-Jacket. Now you got all these a-hooligans, they wear-a the cape…
(shrugs, sips espresso)
I blame-a myself.
This comment seems pretty much on the money for me. “Official” denials and condemnations aren’t going to stop it any time soon – it’s becoming an Australia Day “tradition” -see if it spreads to other celebratory days.
Loud, drunk and unpredictable, but their violence was directed at each other. The scary thing is simply that they were violent, drunk and unpredictable.
That is the culture that needs to change, as much as the racist undertones coming from a lot of them.
Moz has it right IMO. The nationalistic violence is not really anything new – just a new outlet for the same old alcohol-fuel violence that has plagued Australia for decades.
The fact is that 18-25year old males enjoy violence, they enjoy it even more when drunk. Australia day just provides them all with a day off from work/school and an excuse to go out in large numbers and get drunk together.
It will always be a recipe for disaster. You see similar things happening on other designated Binge Drinking days like New Year’s Day at the Perth Cup and such.
Most of these kids will grow out of it by the time they are 25. However the trick is how to stop them from hurting anyone before then.
Lefties see it as a result of Howard’s Fascism, Conservatives see it as just another failure of Laura Norder to control violent, drunk young men.
Elsewhere: Skepticlawyer, The Radical Radish.
“…slogans declaring “f–k off we’re full”…”
Can’t help wondering what the locals were thinking as those eleven ships rounded Bennelong Point.
It’s not a point that could be easily settled with recourse to data (arrests? media reports?), though it’d be a good start. I think it needs substantial analysis of the underlying cultural and class based politics of the time. I don’t think glossing over it as just ‘oh this has been happening for decades’ really captures what’s been going on over the past few years (nor that this is a direct product of ‘Howard’s Fascism’). I’d say the truth is probably somewhere in between: working class kids whose parents probably work with recent immigrants feeling marginalised and the long shadow of a Howardian Values play working in concert. oh and good old fashioned bigotry and boozing
Yobbo,what gives you the idea they grow out of it at 25 trust me they dont,I remember when I was a kid there was never any of this flag waving BS,we knew who we were and we did not need some frigging fool waving a flag to tell us so.
This is the way Australia has become a 2nd hand US,Gang signs(99% have no idea what they mean)one size fits all and so it goes,Howard god may he rot in hell was part of the cause of this sucking up GW Bushs bum.
Aussie pride: A bunch of idiots waving someone else’s flag, ‘reclaiming’ a beach they just swam at.
Delusional nationalism, we haz it.
mars08 @ 86,
The response of the Aborigines both in Botany Bay and Port Jackson in 1788 when they first saw the First Fleet was “Warra, warra, warra!” Politely translated it means “Go away.” Impolitely translated, it means “Fuck off!”
“via collins, in terms of official policy and ideology, Yobbo is right”
Agreed Liam, as far as official policy & ideology go – which is, say, 90% of the nation. 10% is a small percentage figure, but when it’s 38,000,000 people operating outside the conventions and norms, anything goes.
My point being that while the countries that you rightly point out implicitly encourage retention of traditional cultures, a similar process occurs in the USA off the record.
Anyway, it’s 41 degrees tomorrow, and then a run of 40s , so a whole lot of cheap flags mounted on cars are going to melt into the duco and cause another level of anger.
Yobbo, have you been to the US? With your eyes and ears open, I mean?
Your statement might be true up to a point of America pre-WWII. But since then, most Americans have figured out that you can be an American, “first and foremost”, without entirely abandoning or repudiating your cultural heritage. Now it’s true, up until mid 20th century, most immigrants made a deliberate effort to minimise or eliminate any outward signs of “foreignness” — at least in public. They wanted “first and foremost” to be Americans, and to be accepted as such by other Americans.
Then, collectively, they remembered that America was founded on the principles of individual liberty, religious and political freedom: and that enforced assimilation is not compatible with those founding principles. There are millions, literally millions of loyal Americans here who also partake of customs, dress, language and culture that came from elsewhere. They are not ‘tolerated’ – they are celebrated, They are secure in their identity as Americans, and accepted as such, with the exception of a rump of deep-South white supremacists who are on the way out. Did you know that the residents of Nashville, Nashville, last week voted to *defeat* a proposition that would’ve taken away the right of non-English speakers to have multilingual translations available from the county council?
That’s why in the middle of white-bread suburban Gainesville, Florida, you can find a Baha’i temple. Or a mosque here on 96 street in Manhattan. And don’t get me started on the number of 20-something Americans who will tell you they’re “part Cherokee on my mother’s side”
That is liberty and freedom in action. And it’s entirely compatible with flag-waving, solidarity and national pride of the kind you saw at the Presidential inauguration last week. That’s how you do national celebrations.
By comparison, the general level of acceptance of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and national identity in Australia seems stuck somewhere around the time of Napoleonic Europe. I recall the story of Napoleon asking a delegation of Jewish leaders: “Are you Frenchmen, or are you Jews?” as though the two are mutually exclusive. Really, nationalistic thinking has moved on from the 18th-19th century. It would be nice if Australia managed to keep up.
Yobbo @ 59:
Sure, I agree – every urbanised coastline in Australia has tucked away this sort of beach. And you can certainly attribute tribalism to a large part of it. (Although it always reads to me as a kind of wet, salty, Ocker version of The League of Gentlemen.)
What I didn’t say (and concede I should have emphasised in the context of this thread) was my friend’s other observation of the prominent and less-than-subtle use of handmade signs he saw regularly that read “Burleigh Not Brazil” – and they weren’t referring to a type of hair removal. Again, I have no evidence that this was a motivation of the ‘rampage’ that was recorded this weekend. But even ‘casual’ racism it seems to me cannot be divorced from the creed that informs the larger culture at play here. Nothing overtly new, perhaps…but the focus of it on Australia Day is something that I’ve got to admit seems recent in its emphasis.
I’m not sure whether to be relieved or alarmed at the superficiality of the focus on the flag.
Is it an apathetic jingoism that can really only get its pecker up on this particular day?
I personally find flaunting of the Australian flag distasteful because it’s a bloody awful design.
Admittedly it is not as bad as some but certainly nowhere in the top 25 percentile.
Canada and Israel have good flag design pretty much patented, have to say. Can’t imagine Canadians or Israelis wearing their flags like a superman cape either.
What about wrapped up?
http://www.magshimey-herut.org/images/girl_wrapped_flag.jpg
We certainly have a pretty ordinary one. Maybe we could ask the Canadians or the Israelis for some design tips for a new one.
You’re right skeptic, but some of we Seppo’s have been known to use the Canadian flag on our luggage so we can pass through the world in stealth form.
Never as a cape though.
Ordinary? Ours is a straight-up embarrassment. The sole virtue of the bastard Jack is that it keeps a lid on the quantity of “flag-waving” style jingoism. Most Australians seem to intuit that it wasn’t meant for public shows.
Virtually none of out wars were fought under it anyway, so lets not get too sentimental about dumping it. I wouldn’t give ya tuppence for it. Its just a lowly ensign in any case.
This, by contrast, is a flag.
Do you know what? The problem isn’t the flag. Nobody gives a rat’s if bogans and boganettes wear flags as capes, board shorts, bikinis, thongs and every other single piece of clothing. I don’t. The problem isn’t jingoistic nationalism, either: the Fanatics are wankers, and so is Lleyton Hewitt, but it’s a free country. The flag is a side issue.
The problem is little shits feeling like they’re entitled to march drunk up and down the street smashing shit up, without the Public Order And Riot Squad breaking out the flexible batons and the left-over-from-APEC water cannon. If it’s good enough for middle-aged demonstrators at World Youth Day or batches of bourgeois uni students outside the Centrelink they don’t need, it’s good enough for fifteen-year old toughs. Memo to the Police Minister: I want to smell that whiff of grapeshot, please.
/cranky veteran of too many student demos
In Warrnambool (country Vic) it was much the same as mentioned elsewhere. Lots of flags, many wearing the flag as a cape and plenty of drunken gatherings. Didn’t notice any attempts at race-baiting, even though there are some opportunities with sprinklings of Asian and Sudanese migrants here.
I suspect that a lot of this flag nonsense is a commercial activity. My wife obtained 3 flags free from a store. Very likely the commercial radio stations have been promoting this type of flag-waving and wearing, probably offering prizes for the most outlandish.
It’s pretty sickening overall, but with a bit of luck people will eventually get bored with it.
I love the Eureka Flag, too, Lefty E — for the same reasons as Yobbo. It was in large part a tax revolt (dear to us libertarians). Now we just have to reclaim the thing from the BLF on the left and the Southern Cross Soldiers on the right.
Used to love taking it to the cricket as a kid until dickheads started mucking with it.
Its a great flag, Skeptic – just mean design-wise, it rocks.
And I agree, and have said so here before – that’s the great thing about it: it plays equally to left (multicultural solidarity/ anti-imperial); right (tax revolt, anti-regulation) and civic centrist (birth of democracy) national myths.
I think thats a real strength in a national flag. I like that libertarians have a take on it – and i think that take is quite justified, for that matter. There’s no point imposing something Australians cant broadly embrace- it just wont work.
I’m with you Liam, with one fairly significant quibble. Part of the problem is the number of people who should know better, who simply refuse to admit that racism is an essential ingredient for these ‘activities’. Even though there’s now ample first hand witness reports captured in news items such as Kim’s above, you still find people saying “oh no it wasn’t racism, it was just drunken youfs out of control” etc.
But it’s not just that, or they wouldn’t have been specifically harassing, assaulting and vandalising the property of non-causasian Australians.
So sure, roll out the police with the water cannon and the riot gear, I’m all for it, but until they along with every other institution grasp that what is happening has to be treated as more than just a bunch of drunken yobs gone wild, this ugliness won’t get stamped out. There is fundamentally something in our national psyche at work, usually as uttered by white Australian males in positions of power, that refuses to damn this for what it is and seek to ruthlessly remove any shred of acceptibility for it. While it’s still seen as lads on the booze going too far, there’s still an aura of acceptibility. Attacking minority groups should be met with unequivocal revulsion, not equivocation.
argh I think a comment I made way back got lost
I was trying to point out that Australia Day only became a nation-wide public holiday in 1994 – so it makes sense that when many of you were kids it wasn’t celebrated like this at all.
Sorry, rinojg, for my admittedly glib and cursory analysis, but the only place I’ve really seen flag-wearing as a common practice is the USA. I was more making a point about the understated Australian patriotism that used to exist, and probably still does somewhere.
Come to think of it, I’ve never really done anything for Australia Day. It doesn’t get me engaged like Anzac Day does.
myriad @ 104,
Spot on.
Yes myriad, well said.
add me to the chorus of hear, hear! for myriad @ 104
The problem is little shits feeling like they’re entitled to march drunk up and down the street smashing shit up, without the Public Order And Riot Squad breaking out the flexible batons and the left-over-from-APEC water cannon.
I agree. I mean, where are the police in all this?
Why are people like Koby Abberton not in jail despite admitting to assaulting thousands of people at the beach over the decade?
This is where the blame lies for this sort of activity, before we start blaming John Howard yet again.
This story was front-page of The Courier-Mail today, about a fellow who was shot and killed at Burleigh on Monday.
How long (shudder) before we start reading about mobs of irate rampaging “Aussies” terrorising Australians “of Middle-Eastern appearance” in revenge?
This one the judge tried to blame on John Howard as well:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24975047-421,00.html
A sports loving, average, knockabout bloke shot dead beside his flag-adorned ute… on Australia day.
Sadly, this stuff is NOT made up.
When I were in the navy (1980), the air force chaps used to chant “Oggie Oggie Oggie, Oi, Oi, Oi”. At rugby matches. We thought they were a pack of ponces; well most of ‘em are anyway. Not a real fighting service, the air force. Best reserve that one for another day though.
Howard C, we are certainly flag wavers, no doubt about, I just don’t associate it with racism in the U.S., we still have racism and anti-immigrant feeling but it’s not wrapped in the flag. As far as other flag waving socities, I give you Thailand and China, two places I have lived, I think it’s actually more common than not, with the exception of Western Europe and you guys/NZ/Canada.
I give you … Brazil. Watching the Obama inauguration, I spotted two of the distinctive Brazilian flags being waved about in the crowd for the benefit of CNN. I said at the time, I thought it was not appropriate, seeing as it was America’s historic moment, not Brazil’s.
Oi Oi Oi startrd out as a skin-head chant, didn’t it?
It’s interesting how Australia Day has become a big deal. Aside from the bicentenary in ’88, I can’t honestly remember anyone celebrating it as a kid. Can anyone else?
“I said at the time, I thought it was not appropriate, seeing as it was America’s historic moment, not Brazil’s.”
The Brazilian has been seen to cross all borders and I for one, looking at it, would have to say I’m not so sure it’s a bad thing.
Mercurious – I recall the story of Napoleon asking a delegation of Jewish leaders: “Are you Frenchmen, or are you Jews?” as though the two are mutually exclusive.
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You may care to read The Origins of Totalitarianism viz Napoleon’s unintended contribution to what we understand as anti-Semitism.
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Jewish people tended to be a bande apart possessing their own special relationship to the authorities and maintaining their own cultural norms within the bounds of a given kingdom. Napoleon established nationalism, strictly the notion that ‘we’ are all citizens of [insert whatever country you choose]. Anti-Semitism in its morn form in Germany stems from Napoleon’s emancipation of the Jewish people there.
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The idea that Judaism was ‘just a religion’ was a very modern one. Modern Jews who asserted this rejected the way their ancestors and contemporaries lived. Unfortunately the notion of blood as underpinning nation led to the rejection of them by German nationalists and the rise of both anti-Semites and Zionism.
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Napoleon’s question made perfect sense when he made it.
Myriad@104
Of course racism is a part of it all. But is any purpose served by public admission of that. These buffoons want Australia to know that they are fighting a ‘holy war’ against the ‘infidels’. The last thing they want is to be regarded as louts and common criminals. So that’s exactly how they should be treated.
I also can’t think of any short-term treatment for racist attitudes whereas the obvious response to criminal actions is via the police and the courts. And in the long term racism has no future anyway.
Yes Adrien, it did – two centuries ago. But you only have to read the rantings on Bolta’s column to realise that some people haven’t upgraded their operating system since then.
well I guess first and foremost, it makes a really big difference to the victims, Jenny. I work with a lot of new immigrants to Australia, and the thing that hurts the most is that people won’t call it what it is when they are spat on, verbally abused, assaulted, harassed etc. They need and deserve to have what is happening to them named and owned by society.
Secondly, a ‘small target’ strategy of not acknowledging the racism is clearly failing. Ask a Muslim woman or an African, or an Aborigine, or an Indian/Asian etc. It also means we’re failing in our duty of care to refugees we bring here to settle, and to those we rely on as economic migrants to build our economy. The paramount issue for former refugees for eg is to be able to settle successfully is feeling safe. Yet, for just one eg, the Victorian Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission just released a report showing that young Sudanese in the Dandenong area are so afraid and so systematically harassed and discriminated against they don’t want to venture from their homes.
Thirdly, if you want to get all pragmatic economically, it’s costing us money. If refugees can’t settle safely and find work, they stay on welfare, and continue to rely on counselling services etc. It also means they don’t integrate as well, leading to higher crime rates for some – particularly their young men. It also means the economy misses out on them as a willing domestic workforce. Not to mention the social costs in our society of allowing such behaviour.
Also, critically, I think your approach ignores a key ingredient that I was getting at. The failure to acknowledge that a large part of the motivation for such behaviour is racism equals a silent form of acceptance for that behaviour & motivation. If we ignore the motivation and pretend it’s just the usual shallow causes of drunkenness and excess, we are in effect saying that racism is not so serious we need to talk about it. This dilutes the taboo against racist behaviour in this country, and is one of the very reasons we’re finding it so hard to counter it.
Finally, what we condone in our older youth sets an example for the next generation, and does nothing to isolate older adults with the same views. Many states still don’t teach inclusiveness and acceptance of diversity as part of the curriculum, and that leaves that ideological space open for the 18-25 yo set to show what’s acceptable. Which means we’ll be reactively spending millions on anti-racism campaigns for years to come if we don’t proactively tackle the issue, and that includes naming and shaming that behaviour in public. It’s not enough to denounce these ‘youfs’ in terms of being drunken yobs – Nathan Rees actually had the best comment & right approach to the incident when he called it what it was, and added an additional level of condemnation by doing so.
“It is a symbol of national ideals”
Actually, no, it’s a piece of cloth. I’m fed up with flag worship. Burn it, shred it, tear it to pieces, leave it in a crumpled heap on the ground or just ignore it. I don’t give a bugger, because I don’t worship symbols.
Rinojg – I wasn’t associating with racism, just a more overt, conspicuous form of patriotism. Kevin Rudd doesn’t finish every speech he gives with “God Bless Australia” either.
Mercurius – the Bolt stuff can get a bit well worn, but when you see people who ethnically identify themselves as Serbian hurl chairs at people who ethnically identify themselves as Croatian at the Australian Open, it’s hard to resist the “don’t bring your troubles here” mentality. But we’re all from somewhere else.
The notion that this group behaviour is simply violent loutishness or territoriality (Yobbo!) without overtones of racism is just wrong.
“Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge. This Sunday every Aussie in the Shire get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day …” (Link). Or just check out the MySpace pages that come up if you google “Southern Cross Soldiers”, if you can stand it.
On Australia Day I was in a Canberra car park when a pack of half a dozen drunken flag-bedecked bogans approached me demanding to know if I was an Aussie. When I said yes, they clapped, cheered, and chanted their idiotic “oi oi oi”, then staggered off to find somebody else to question.
I’m not actually from Australia, but I am white. I imagined how uncomfortable it would be to encounter such a group if I wasn’t white.
The thing is, if people of any other skin-color had been carrying on like these fuck-witted bogans, the police would be onto them in no time. But they don’t seem to mind if its drunken white-trash.
Yeti, has anyone told you that you are adorable?
Mercurius – But you only have to read the rantings on Bolta’s column to realise that some people haven’t upgraded their operating system since then.
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I don’t even have to do that.
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Howard – when you see people who ethnically identify themselves as Serbian hurl chairs at people who ethnically identify themselves as Croatian at the Australian Open, it’s hard to resist the “don’t bring your troubles here” mentality. But we’re all from somewhere else.
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All of us? Aboriginies? Well yes from southern India (so I’ve heard) 40 000 years ago.
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Thing is that I don’t think it’s acceptable however it’s done. There’s this distinction that keeps cropping up. Some people are ‘soft’ on ‘ethnics’ behaving this way. Some are apologists for the bogan twerps that Yeti talks about.
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I think they all suck. Moreover I don’t think it has anything to do with patriotism and everything to do with being having a tiny brain that’s topo lazy to the thinking. They let their genitals do that.
.
Yeti – I wonder if those idiots realize that Aussies come in an assortment of colours. And always have.
everyone belongs
Yeti, sorry to hear it. There’s an email going around on a similar theme – a friend of mine got it today. Its stunningly idiotic – I posted it over at mine, with some commentary.
myriad, I was going to post yesterday, that I thought we needed to spend millions like now, and wheel out some very targeted anti-racist media campaigns over the coming year leading up to next Oz Day – going by the amount of anecdotes just on this thread combined with all the news stories means there already is a nation-wide problem which is seemingly getting uglier each passing year.
And worse, Govts and the Police in all states seems to be putting their heads in the sand about what is occurring on Australia Day.
And cause the perps are mostly v. young and v. dumb any media campaign can’t be too base. We need to wheel out every sports champ, pop star, popular culture icon to slam these dribbly dicked caped knuckleheads and their female accomplices and throw in a bit of history between.
Would like to see the dudes and dudettes from the new season of the Gruen Transfer putting together a whole programme of anti-racist adverts around Oz Day – ones not sanctioned by the state depts to poss. go like viral etc.
It might also help to if the promos for the tennis and other sports did not actually encourage this flag dressing oi!,oi!,oi! garbage as well.
It ain’t going to be easy joe2 – some solid vested interests in pretending it has nothing to do with them. esp. MSM and sports administrators etc.
But watching how quickly the AFL cleaned up its act re: racist on-field and spectator taunts, literally within a couple of years gives some hope, otoh, one also hopes that someone doesn’t have to die before they get the message upstairs.
And there is no doubt that advertisers and broadcasters have milked this vein for decades, which is why they need to help clean up the mess – Come on Aussie, Come on, Come on, Come on Aussie, Come On.
And that’s not to say that there isn’t/hasn’t been been racial violence leading to deaths of late – ie. there are gang related murders and assaults which are partially related to race, but I don’t recall any Oz Day caped ones specifically…though I could have my head in the sand too.
Lefty E @ 130…
The truly astounding thing about that email is that the local, true-blue tools have lifted it almost verbatim from some American redneck rubbish that was bouncing around YEARS ago. Our mob are too lazy and/or too stupid to create their own rants. Bloody hopeless twits!
http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.200509/msg00876.html
Just a quick browse of the diatribe should be enough to spot the usual rabid US wingnut talking points.
It’s not the first time out yobs have “borrowed” from the yanks. A little while ago there was a stirring story about a Muslim woman harassing a cashier for wearing flag lapel pin. Same bullshit.
Our dim-witted bigots would just be pitiful if it wasn’t for the fact that their numbers are increasing every year.
Well, that explains its idiosyncrasies then.
And just goes to show that this sort of loud, badgering patriotism is not native to these shores. An undesirable alien.
Don’t think it’s an either/or question… Sadly “patriotism” as a cover for bigotry is native to a lot of shores. For a long time.
What SHOULD make us feels superior is the official response to it. So far it’s been fairly muted.
But watching how quickly the AFL cleaned up its act re: racist on-field and spectator taunts, literally within a couple of years gives some hope, otoh, one also hopes that someone doesn’t have to die before they get the message upstairs.
The obvious point here is that the AFL had the ability to say “shape up or ship out”. If you were a racist AFL player, you got kicked out of the league. If you were a racist supporter, you got kicked out of the ground.
It’s much harder to kick people out of public areas like streets and beaches.
“An undesirable alien.”
Jo @ 131, I was thinking much the same tonight. I’d very much support the idea of free, outdoor anti-racism festivals organised for Australia Day next year. I think they’d be something well worth millions of dollars being spent on.
I don’t disagree Jo – in fact the review of the old Howard Gov’ts ‘living in harmony’ program has just been released, rebadging it ‘A Diverse Australia’ program, with a much sharper focus on racism, which is good.
I guess what I meant (but didn’t express very well) is we’ll spend an order of magnitude more if we don’t do the kind of campaign you outlined above now.
I was going to trot out the old story about how I got the crap beaten out of me at Cronulla by a dozen gutless wonders but that was 20 years ago. Time to forgive and let go.
A thought did strike me however. After hearing some of the locals in various papers claiming the flag decked yobs were from out west (an old line that has ben used for decades) I did wonder. Since about the sixties Cronulla station has been a natural flashpoint as various surfies would wait for the trains to come in from out west, deal out some preemptive violence on westies and send them back home on the first train back.
However I’m thinking this time around it might just be outsiders. White westies who’ve felt barred from the beach have suddenly got an in. Wear the Aussie flag, turn up in a group acting ‘more Aussie than thou’ and you’ve gone from outsider to ‘one of us’ with little or no effort.
Anyway, didn’t take Nostrodamus to figure out what the mood was going to be, I stayed inside on Australia day.
…the Bolt stuff can get a bit well worn, but when you see people who ethnically identify themselves as Serbian hurl chairs at people who ethnically identify themselves as Croatian at the Australian Open, it’s hard to resist the “don’t bring your troubles here” mentality…”
I’ve been thinking about this and how it applies to the anglo tosser.
If you are going to play the “ethnic” hooligan card (ignoring Leeds, Chelsea and Millwall fans for a moment), you also should note the history these thugs can tap into for their contrived belligerence. They’ve got centuries of conflict to draw on as an EXCUSE for their bad behaviour. Sure, they should be generation and thousands of miles separated from it, but it’s a scab they can pick at if they want to get fired up.
Our boozy little darlings are basing their outrage and victimhood on… what??? The vast majority of migrants come here, work, raise families, get educated and obey the laws. Their crime stats are no worse than other groups in the community. We do not have a past littered with ethnic strife.
So what makes our flag-waving lads so angry??? Are they just offened by the colour of a person’s skin or the shape of their eyes? Or is it the funny food they don’t like?
So what makes our flag-waving lads so angry???
Testosterone
No they don’t. There might have been centuries of conflict, but it’s no excuse for violence in our society.
At a guess, a feeling of alienation and marginalisation within their own country.
Which describes the majority of white settlers. Or for that matter other European colonies. (Or Israelis, but that’s another kettle of fish). But I guess Anglos aren’t allowed to be angry about their perceived losses.
No. No they don’t. Did I not make that clear enough?
No more than non-Anglo Australians are allowed to be angry about ACTUAL past losses.
Acutually, you can be EXACTLY as angry as you want!!! Just don’t go around abusing people who have done you no harm.
I’d like to point out that in most of the footage I’ve seen nobody seems particularly aggrieved or to be acting out some usually-supressed rage at their social alienation.
Most of the rioters, abusers, drunken chanters and flag-desecrators seem to be going about it all rather gleefully.
*ahem*
alienation or marginalisation? wtf? Could there possibly be a LESS marginalised group in society than these blond bogans? these people have no actual grievances whatsoever, they’re just shit-for-brains human-garbage (with worthless parents) who happened to grow up during a time (the Howard Years) when bigoted stupidity and binge-drinking was increasingly considered socially acceptable and “Aussie”.
And let’s point out the main fact of the matter – most of the people in question have been BLIND PISSED. So it’s related to this problem we’ve been hearing so much about lately of “yoof” binge-drinking. We all know alcohol can make you do stupid things, and there are some people who become real c*nts under the influence of alcohol. If they were under the influence of any other substance the media would be up in arms about tougher drug laws – “Jail the Alcohol Users and Dealers”. My friend’s an ambo and he says that almost all of the cases they get called out to on Friday and Saturday nights are alcohol related.
I can’t express how furiously angry it makes me that a marijuana is criminalised when this IMMEASURABLY worse, more dangerous drug, and the fucking stupid behaviour it engenders (violence, sexual assault, road carnage), is regarded as a normal part of Aussie life. If society can put up with this then why the hell can’t we legalise pot? (I’m talking to you, Anna Bligh)
Maybe “normal wasn’t the work I would have picked.
Maybe defining or essential? Increasingly intrinsic?
you’re quite right mars, ‘normal’ just doesn’t cover it.
(are you the same mars that used to post on the smirkingchimp?)
alienation or marginalisation? wtf? Could there possibly be a LESS marginalised group in society than these blond bogans? these people have no actual grievances whatsoever, they’re just shit-for-brains human-garbage
Luckily they are white, so you can get away with talking about them like that…
I’d love to see alcohol banned. Except for:
- the one or two red wines I’d have when out to dinner
- those few quiet drinks I’d have at a barbeque or party
- the occasional glass of bubbly around Christmas time.
So I don’t think I can go along with a ban on alcohol. But how about making anti-social behaviour a criminal offence. Then we can lock up or fine all of the Cronulla idiots. And we can take action against the party-goers that puke and piss on your nature strip. And against the clowns making racist and misogynist comments at the cricket. And the glass droppers. Etc, etc. Because really I don’t care if their behaviour is due to alcohol, dope or just some ingredient that God left out at birth. I want effective sanctions against it anyway.
Anti-social behaviour is a criminal offense, but you get a free pass if you’re a blond bogan wearing a flag-cape. I very much doubt the police would tolerate a group of drunk Maoris (for example) carrying on like these idiots.
I don’t actually think that alcohol should be banned, but it should only be allowed if other drugs that are much LESS harmful (such as cannabis, shrooms, LSD, ecstacy etc) are also allowed. It is unbearable hypocrisy that people get locked up for dealing and using these substances when they cause nowhere near the amount of harm that alcohol causes. Yet when it comes to alcohol we get stupid advertising campaigns advising us to drink responsibly. Idiot government doesn’t think we can be responsible with other drugs that are actually safer?
Alcohol is one of the nastiest drugs, up there with tobacco and heroin. I remember reading about the police in the valley a few months ago saying how glad they were when more people were taking ecstacy use going on, because it vastly reduced the amount of violence they had to deal with.
Good grief, yeti… you’re talking about the OLDEN DAYS now. Or better described as the dark ages. Ha!
My fame exceeds me!!!!
I’m utterly gobsmacked to run into another Chimpster after all this time.
Don’t take it personally, but I don’t remember ANY of the people from those days. Memory not what it once was… or maybe it is… I don’t recall. Bloody alcohol probably.
There a two sure ways to tell if your brain has been damaged by the booze. First, your short-term memory goes. Then… um… er… has anyone seen my keys???
Good times.
yes, Chimp 1.0 (before the upgrade)… those were the days! Too bad all the old message boards seem to have been lost in the www memory hole – they had enough material to keep future Bush II historians occupied for years. I didn’t post all that much but it was the first site I visited each day.
Dark ages indeed – Bush at record popularity ratings, hard to imagine isn’t it. And now he’s gone and his successor is a black liberal whose dad was a muslim and whose middle name is Hussein. If you’d had told me that back in ’03 I would have thought you were on more than just alcohol.
If it wasn’t for the good people at SC, there’s a good chance I would have totally given up on the yanks. They were a reminder that the knuckle-draggers and bed-wetters weren’t all there was to America. Sadly the board wasn’t the same after the upgrade.
I think I’ve still got some of the old discussions saved as text files somewhere…