9th of November: Must....Keep...Goingggggg

I really don't want to blog today.  At all.  Unfortunately, I was too tired to continue yesterday, so I'm behind on yesterday too.  Over all, I'm still ahead on my total word count I think, but I'll soon be behind.  I think after today, if I don't make the word count, I'll be behind.

I have my criminology exam today, at 6pm.  Because of this ridiculous time, I had to tell work I couldn't do tonight's night fill shift. So there's a good $70 or so gone from my potential bank account.  Oh well.  I'm still working about 24 hours this week, so I'll be well on my way to saving up for that car.  I'm obviously not looking for a new car, because my price range is around $2000.  Once I drive around an old shitbox for a while, and I get my license and everything, then my parents have promised to buy me a decent car. I don't know if they will, but I'll harrass them anyway.

BUT

There was an interesting discussion last night on Facebook last night, about a certain New Zealand expat/deserter who was bagging out the county she has lived in for about 6 years now.  And as a strong patriot of the country she lives in, I had to blog about it.

NOTE:  As with many things I say, it's not personal at all.  I object to what a person can SAY, not the person themselves.  It's all intended to be in good fun.  Some parts may seem racist, but no harm is intended.  I don't believe that some of Australia's actions against Aborigines were right, but we've been trying to fix it for god knows how long, and it just keeps going.


She started off by talking about how she couldn't enter a competition because she wasn't an Australian citizen.  I'd say that's fair enough.  If they wanted someone from another country to win, they would open the competition to that country, right?

Some comments are made along the lines of "ha ha, suck shit".  She continues on to say that she doesn't want to be an Australian, and she feels sorry for us all.  Now, what the hell.  She's the one who left her country to come to this place.  And I'd like to point out that you only ever hear about people from New Zealand coming to live in Australia, never the other way around.  And the majority of these New Zealanders are taking advantage of our lax immigration laws so they can escape debt. Australians go over there for holidays, then come back after about 2 weeks.  A month at the most. Hmm, I wonder why?

When people start telling her to leave, she backtracks and says its a nice place, with some nice people, but it has no culture.   Now, you can't throw around words like "culture" and expect that everyone agrees with you.

Since I'm lazy and went to wikipedia, here's a few definitions of culture.

The word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:

• Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture
• An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning
• The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group

I know that this particular person is referring to the first definition, and I suppose she has a point there.  But she needs to take into account that our country has only escaped British rule in the last 100 years.  We've had 100 years to form our "high culture" of fine arts, and Europe, which you keep comparing us to, has had got at least 900 years on us.  I don't think any comparison should be made.  Come back in 900 years, then we'll talk.  Considering the fact that we're so far behind on European culture, I'd say we're doing damn well with what we've been given.

Now.  Here's the tricky bit.  As Australians define our "culture", it would be most in tune with the third definition of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that define us.  In that sense, I don't think there's a single country on Earth that has MORE of a culture than us.  Australian patriotism is unbelieveable.  It's everywhere.  People bag out the guys with Southern Cross tattoos, but you can't deny that it stands for something.  Even if the constellation is visible to the entire southern hemisphere, it's still considered a symbol of Australian patriotism, and of Australia itself, due to all of our Aboriginal stories that incorporate it. 

I think that the backbone of Australian culture comes down to war.  Our country has one of the best armies on the planet.  We may not have the best numbers, but we have the attitudes and mindset for it.  Our soldiers are famous for their efforts at Gallipoli.  Yes, I know that ANZAC stand for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.  which is exactly why I'm surprised that a New Zealander has the balls to have a go at a country so historically linked to her own.

In case you don't know about the story of Gallipoli, here's a summarised version.  The British sent boatloads of Australian and New Zealander men to land on a certain beach at Gallipoli.  Of course, the British were being complete twats and dumped them on a beach with a massive cliff on it.  And the enemy was on top of the cliff.  With machine guns.  Good job, Brits.  Our soliders failed their mission over all, since they were pretty much slaughtered whilst climbing that cliff.  BUT.  Quite a few survived, and they stuck it out, despite the war conditions (duh), the rampant disease and malnutrition, and the unsurmountable odds.  They eventually got the order to retreat, and they came up with an ingenious plan that meant that their escape was completely unnoticed.  They rigged up some machine guns, and sent out a group to play cricket in an a spot where the enemy could see them.  While they were playing cricket, and the enemy was watching the game, the ANZACs took off.  They packed up their game, and went home.


Since then, the Aussies have always been proud of their war efforts, and the virtues displayed by our soliders is something that all Australians, even now, nearly 100 years later, try to reflect.  Even apart from our history of war, our families all come from labourers, famers, miners, and other kinds of working men.    On my mother's side of the family alone, we have found the stories of several men who embody the sought after characteristics of the Australian man. 

My mother is right into doing family history stuff with my great Aunt, and they've found some interesting stuff.  One guy, I don't remember his name, but he was a soldier.  He went to war, and eventually got kicked out of the army for too much drinking, fighting with other soldiers, and promiscuity (and for having gonorrhea).  Now, how Australian is that?  Another one of my relatives, Albert Vollenweider, discovered copper on Mt. Garnet, and was eventually ripped off by a business man who took all his ownership rights in the 1800s.  Vollenweider's diaries about what he found are still being held by this business man's relatives, who are desperately trying to fend off my great Aunt from getting them back. 

At this point in the thread on Facebook, its a bunch of people having a go at her about how her opinions are based on blogs and the history channel.  Which is entirely true. I'm pretty certain that she too will admit that.

Someone else brings up our history and racism.  What they're referring to is our on-going issues with the Australian Aborigines.  Back when we were still British,  they dumped their convicts here, on a massive desolate rock (which happened to be a great place for farm land, mining and city expansion, with the best beaches in the world, the British clearly didn't think it out too well).  There just so happened to be some native people already here.  What was the response of the British?  Kill the fuckers.

When you're opponents know the land like the back of their hand, it's not always a good idea to kill them all.  Anyway, many spears were thrown, guns were shot, and a lot of people died on both sides.  This continues on, and many different policies were used to try and settle it all down.  It didn't work.  Even today, people still have issues with it all.  Yeah, all right.  The Brits stole your kids and tried to make them live in the British way.  That's kind of because you had 40,000 years (yes, forty thousand years)  in Australia, and you couldn't get your shit together and progress past the tribal stage. 

Now, as for present day racism.  Yes, we do have some issues there.  As do every country in the world.  In Townsville, we have the particular issue of racism against Aborigines.  Now, it's important to note that no one has an issue against the ones with an education, jobs, and a respectable way of presenting themselves.  It's the ones that are drunk, on drugs, with six kids, no job, and they hang around the mall screaming and urinating on bench seats.  It's not because they're black.  It's because they're drunk, on drugs, with six kids, no job, and they hang around the mall screaming and urinating on bench seats.  Regardless of the colour of their skin, anyone who does that is trash.  There was a story in the news paper the other day about an Aboriginal woman who was drunk outside a fancy cafe.  She picked fights with everyone who walked past, until she found another drunk Aboriginal lady.  They proceeded to fight, fall over, strip their clothes off and scream on the ground until they were arrested.  Black or white, that's no way to behave.

Now the Aborigines may be all hung up about the Brits invading their country years ago, but that's no excuse to do what they do.    Are they singling out every single white person and giving them individual pay back for someone else's actions, hundreds of years ago?  Did my mother get attacked by a young Aboriginal kid because she was white?  Did I get sexually assaulted by an Aboriginal man in broad daylight simply because I am on his ancestor's native territory (which is now a busy main road)?  Does that give them the right to do whatever they like, to who ever they like for no apparent reason?

Australians don't hate Aborigines because they're black.  We hate the jobless, drunk, uncivilised, rapists, regardless of race.  The majority of them just happen to be Indigenous.  We hate the white ones just as much.

Another racism issue that happened a few years ago is somewhat similar in result.  The Cronulla race riots.  Even though it may have looked like a Australia vs. Lebanon free-for-all battle royale, originally it was something very different.  It started off when large groups of young men (who just so happened to be Lebanese) began raping and brutally bashing our women, terrorizing our neighbourhoods, and destroying our cities.  Even if they were white, people would go out and stop these monsters, because these sorts of things just aren't cool.  Since the actual perpetrators were Lebanese, the police didn't want to get involved because of racism issues.   So the Aussie guys from that area wanted to stop them instead.

It was originally to go after that particular gang that did all these horrible things.  Then, when the Lebanese community banded together and started burning our flag, in our own country, all hell breaks loose.  After that, any person, Australian or Lebanese, innocent or not, was in danger of being killed.  It's not like it was just Aussies going out and beating up poor little defenceless Lebanese people.  They disrespected our country, our land, our property and our women.  Of course Australians will retaliate.

As for our racism compared to the rest of the world, particularly Europe?  Do I really need to say anything about the Holocaust?  The Crusades?  I'd say those things are far worse than anything Australia can mange.

And of course, there's racist people in every country.  It's not neccessarily racism, but the French are world famous for being intolerant assholes to anyone who doesn't speak French fluently. And Aussies are world famous for how laid-back and nice they are to people of all cultures (unless they're alcoholics, rapists, or flag burners, I'd like to see a country that DOESN'T hate that).

Now, enough about racism.  The image that we're undereducated.  Seriously? 

Watch this, and tell me Australians are the uneducated ones.

Nothing against Americans, of course.  But I'd say that the education problems over there are far worse than anything we have over here. They still manage to be the greatest political power in the world, even with all their issues.

Also, the guy who invented Gardasil, the vaccine that prevents Cervical Cancer, he was an Aussie, you know.  Just throwing that out there.  We can't be too uneducated if we have people who have developed things that prevent cancer!

I'm getting sick of talking about Australia.  I haven't even gone on to the country itself.  Eventually, I'll muster up some more passion and keep on going about this.  For now, I've done today's word count, and I really need to study.

Once again, don't take it personally.  This isn't a serious post.  It's all absolutely true, but I don't intend for it to be taken as something mean, or hurtful.  I'm just defending the country that I love.  But we Australian don't take kindly to foreigners bagging out our country, especially if you've been living in it for years.  It's a given that we're going to dish out a smart-ass, tongue-in-cheek response about our patriotism.

Word count for this post = 2348

Word count total for November = 17, 612