The meaning of Oz
January 22, 2005/the AGE
Definitions of a nation entwine myth and reality. But what if there is more than one meaning to the words or phrases we use to define ourselves? Warwick McFadyen offers some alternative meanings for the experience of being Australian.
ABORIGINES: the first home owners. Their life expectancy is 20 years less than that of other Australians. Few non-Aborigines would see this at first-hand, however, because few have anything to do with them. Their life and culture is a mystery to most, which is why at first they were killed with bullets and strong beliefs and now are the subject of praise in art galleries and of pusillanimity in relating to them as equals.
ABC: the national broadcaster, continually boxed around the ears by the hand that feeds it.
ADELAIDE: as befits the city of churches, it is still aspiring.
ALLIES: a group, most commonly of countries and businessmen, in which the common denominator of all is the vested interest of each.
ANZAC: one leg of the tripod - the others being "mateship" and "fair go" - on which the national camera sits and takes snapshots of the country's soul. Is dragged out more and more frequently to be used for advertising shots.
APOLOGY: Once simple in meaning (to wit, "I'm sorry such and such occurred"), it now has taken on more shades of meaning than a rainbow caught in a shredding machine.
ARTS: a minor sport played by both elite and amateur athletes, most of whom are unknown to the public.
ASSIMILATION: a three-stage process: 1. absorption; 2. conversion; 3. resemblance. Most often referred to in an ethnic sense and generally thought to be a good thing except when race riots occur. Then it's a bad thing and, looking back, should never have been attempted.
AUSTRALIAN NATIVES: plants, animals and humans indigenous to this continent, the survival of many of them being threatened.
AUSTRALIAN RULES: a game played among various tribes, the aim being for one tribe to kick a ball through tall sticks more times than the other tribe.
BACK OF BEYOND: a mythical region out of reach of city dwellers. From this great nothingness long shadows are cast to the coastline.
BASTARD: a term of endearment, a term of rage, a term of disgust. To a lesser extent, a term of illegitimacy.
BATTLER: the perfect specimen of Australiana. Displays attributes admired but not envied, such as poverty, working-class background and the tendency to go up against circumstances beyond his or her control.
BEACH: the yellow ribbon that wraps the nation in an ill-founded sense of equality
BILL OF RIGHTS: unnecessary for the citizenry who, because they enjoy unrivalled sunshine, surf and sport, are deemed already to have the good life.
BONDI: Australia seen from space.
BRADMAN: Sir Donald. A Test batsman who fell 0.06 short of perfection.
BRISBANE: the country town that grew up to become Brisbane.
BRONZED AUSSIE: the ideal man or woman, until skin cancer kicks in.
CANBERRA: the national capital, home to politicians and media. Once was a sheep paddock. Still is.
CELEBRITY: the hollow vessel on the sea of mediocrity. Andy Warhol was wrong about how long each vessel would stay float: 15 minutes now seems like an eternity.
COMMONWEALTH: a $100 concept for a $10 reality, which owes its existence to the common link of fealty to a distant monarch. A rare example of a non-sequitur contained within one word.
CONSTITUTION: a document unknown to most Australians.
CONVICT: the first settler who, transported for stealing a sheep, helped to build a nation that lived off its back. The convict strain, once denied, is now celebrated.
CRICKET: a game between two tribes, in which one tries to hit three sticks with a ball while the other tribe tries to hit the ball away from said sticks with another stick.
CRINGE: the crumpled cardigan at the bottom of the cupboard.
CULTURE: the cupboard, the inside of which is perceived differently by whoever opens its doors. Australia has many cultures: there's the footy cupboard, the beach cupboard, the low cupboard and the high cupboard.
DARWIN: too far away to matter (see also Perth). A feeling reciprocated by its residents towards the rest of the country.
DESERT: three-quarters of the continent. Sometimes invoked as a metaphor for the state of public debate.
DIGGER: once a man, now a myth.
DINGO: a dog, nothing more nor less.
DROVER'S DOG: the real leader of a mob of sheep.
DOWN UNDER: a more accurate definition of the perception of Australia from abroad than most imagine.
ELECTIONS: the process by which the great unwashed are promised a bar of soap every three years if they will vote for the giver of said soap. Characterised in Australia by battles between the party of purity and the party of cleanliness.
ELITE: this being an egalitarian society there are, of course, none known by this term, except for the sports elite, the cultural elite and the class elite. The members of these groups can be identified by their ability to cross-pollinate with each other.
EUREKA: the place where the Southern Cross fell to earth.
FAIR GO: a pillar of granite in the coruscating air of Australian speech. A fair go is the ultimate Australian ideal. At least that's the belief. In reality the fair go works on a sliding scale - the more you have, the fairer the go you will get.
FIRST FLEET: eleven ships, 780 thieves, a couple of hundred sailors and marines. Its arrival at Sydney Cove is sometimes described as the founding of a nation, but see also "Gallipoli".
FLAG: as symbols go, it's unsurpassable. Australians have fought for their flag, marched under it, competed for it, performed for it, even sacrificed themselves for it. And that's just the one with the gloved kangaroo on it.
FOREIGN AID: a reflex action when the hammer of a natural disaster in the Third World hits the reposing knee of the First World.
GALLIPOLI: once a region of geography, now a region of iconography. Referred to as the birthplace of the nation for the way in which our soldiers faced death.
GIRT: quite possibly the stupidest word to appear in any country's national anthem. It doesn't roll off the tongue and doesn't inspire emotion. It clunks. It also is possibly the only word in the world that, while sung countless times, is never spoken.
GOVERNOR-GENERAL: neither a governor nor a general, the G-G is the old school tie that binds the country to its colonial past. Worn around the neck of the body politic.
HERO: falls into several categories: Sports hero - who, by playing in a chosen field, wins!
National hero - who, by actions in any field, wins!
Tragic hero - who by actions in any field, loses in an approved way.
Child hero - who by actions in any field wins or loses, in an approved way.
HOBART: last Australian city before the South Pole.
HOME: every man and woman's castle, also known as the Great Australian Dream. It is not to be confused with the Great American Dream, which is to become rich and famous beyond one's wildest dreams. The dream home is both a real estate agent's cliche and a state of mind.
ICON: anything that has lasted longer than 30 days in the public eye. After such time it then qualifies for the status of legend. An icon may be flesh or stone, but the bloodless variety will never know how much we love it.
IDEAL: the space between two actions or two thoughts. It can be left open or filled. There are several categories.
Political ideal: The easiest one to throw away. A political ideal is best served to the public in small doses, the better to be absorbed into the system.
Social ideal: The heartbreaker. Based on the premise that all people care about their fellow human beings. Often sinks under the weight of its own expectations.
Ethical ideal: In its purest form, the holy grail of human behaviour. Rarely sighted. However, in condensed forms it may survive mixed with a twist of forlorn pragmatism.
Universal ideal: Extinct.
IDOL: if only everyone could be one.
INTEREST RATES: the most-watched thermometer in the nation. Once in the realm of science fiction as a form of crowd control, it has become, like numerous sci-fi visions, a reality. Higher rates are considered a threat to our entire way of life, and that being so, the thermometer is rightly regarded as the measure of all things.
JACKAROO: the shortened form of an exclamation from one farmhand to another as in "Strewth Jack, a roo just jumped into the sheep dip." The initial observation has transmogrified into a description of anyone who worked with animals west of the Great Divide.
KANGAROO: hopping epitome of the nation. With the emu, props up the national coat of arms. Boxer, friend, pest and dinner.
KELLY, NED: the giant of our sleep, the great symbol of us against them, the outsider who lives within us. The armoured man we hanged then worshipped.
LABOUR: the part of life's equation that, if you are on the lower rungs of the ladder, neither adds up to fairness nor equals just rewards.
LABOR PARTY: a garment in search of a brand.
LACONIC: the ability to give an air of deep thought by saying nothing.
LAND RIGHTS: principle of land ownership that changes meaning according to who is invoking it.
LEFT-WING: that side of the playing field on which the bones of utopians lie scattered. Rapidly becoming archaic in meaning, although it is still used as a term of disgust in certain quarters, without having to be qualified.
LIBERAL: with a small "l" is a pejorative term to describe those who are ignorant of the world of commerce and place too much hope in the ideas of dead philosophers.
LIBERAL PARTY: a grouping of men and women who believe in sitting at the right hand of God and mammon.
LITERATURE: a minority sport. A few world-class players occasionally elevate the game in the public's eyes before it recedes again to club fixtures.
LOSING: we don't like it, but when it happens it happens heroically, especially in international arenas.
LUCKY COUNTRY: the coin that broke the bank. Lands differently for each person who tosses it.
MATE: the redemption principle at work: that is, if only we were all mates the sins of the world could be forgiven.
MATESHIP: the second leg of the tripod (see Anzac); the relationship between two or more people in which the good of one is the good of all.
MELBOURNE: the world's most liveable city, inhabited by the world's most enthusiastic and magnanimous sports fans, and by the world's greatest lovers of culture. Lives by a bay.
MELBOURNE CUP: the horse race that stops a nation, seriously.
MULTICULTURALISM: the theory that one street may contain 20 different nationalities, all calling each other mate.
NATIONAL ANTHEM: its paucity in embracing the spirit of the people is matched by its melodic shortcomings. A cow has more song in its moo.
OPERA: another minority sport. Dresses beyond its means.
OUTBACK: the eternal horizon, the unknown arc of the mind, the shimmering heat haze, the necklace of stars. All the city is not.
PARLIAMENT: the beer hall of democracy, in which the biggest drinkers are those most intoxicated by power.
PERTH: Inhabitants see the rest of Australia as a distant blur called the Eastern States.
PHAR LAP: an adopted son who became the country's greatest hero. Struck down in his prime.
POETRY: yet another minority sport, never to be shown on television and never to be known by anything but "I love a sunburnt country" and something about a man from Snowy River.
POVERTY: there are three types: intellectual, moral and bread and butter. In each case marked by going to the cupboard and finding it bare.
PROMISE: once a measure of integrity, a promise is now divided politically into core and non-core, presumably to mask the contempt for the people expressed in bare-faced lies.
QUARTER-ACRE: once the geographical marker to the Great Australian Dream. Now subdivided into smaller allotments without gardens.
RECONCILIATION: the shining star in the night sky that everyone can see but few realise has already died, even though its light still travels to us.
REFUGEE: member of a criminal class, always guilty until proven innocent. Not one of us.
RELIGION: otherwise known as sport and gambling. Australia is the only country to have taken secularity to a higher plane.
REPUBLIC: the pair of shoes many admire but none can be bothered wearing.
RIGHT-WING: the unerring belief that all things were sculpted from the same rock, and hence should have the same face - the eyes of my God, the complexion from my sun, the tongue from my culture.
SPORT: life and death, love and hate, the major league of human endeavour and reward.
STOLEN GENERATION: stern morality's theft of childhood.
SUBURBIA: a forest of brick and tile, under which spreading canopy the creatures of the forest hunt and play.
SYDNEY: the opposite of Melbourne. Lives by the sea.
SWAGMAN: decamped a long time ago, which is probably just as well for jolly he would not be now.
TERRA AUSTRALIS: the very old Australia and the very new Australia.
TERRA NULLIUS: the doctrine of an occupying force for whom the occupied equalled zero. And, as every school child knows, nothing times anything still equals nothing.
TREATIES: we don't like them unless they deliver trade benefits or a big brother's protection.
TWO-UP: alleged national past-time actually practised once a year, for old times' sake.
UNDERDOG: everyone's favourite, minted from the same material as battler.
ULURU: a very large attempt at reconciliation.
VANQUISHED: (see Aborigines)
WALTZING MATILDA: the national anthem you have when you're not having a national anthem. Loved as the Australian symbol of all that is scallywaggish in the national spirit.
WHITE AUSTRALIA: the policy of racist exclusion we had when we were young. We're older now.
WORLD STAGE: the podium on which we might perform one day, when we're a little bigger.
XENOPHOBIA: we don't have any phobias.
YARRALUMLA: a rest home for tired beliefs and principles.
ZAC: the little coin that didn't stand a chance.
:wink:
at the end of my post then, dadpad?
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