tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6794141474524732897.post1093753354902428982..comments2023-01-23T16:11:08.847+08:00Comments on colin penter: "always keep a diamond in your mind": Michal Breen: Impressions from the 2011 Sydney Writers FestivalColin Penterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01157449907235227574noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6794141474524732897.post-3655712824958726322011-06-20T09:07:31.249+08:002011-06-20T09:07:31.249+08:00so much of our discussion of what it is to be an A...so much of our discussion of what it is to be an Australian is a cringe, Cairan. Try this<br />AUSTRALIA<br /><br />A D Hope<br /><br />A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate gray<br />In the field uniform of modern wars,<br />Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws<br />Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.<br /><br />They call her a young country, but they lie:<br />She is the last of lands, the emptiest,<br />A woman beyond her change of life, a breast<br />Still tender but within the womb is dry.<br /><br />Without songs, architecture, history:<br />The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,<br />Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,<br />The river of her immense stupidity<br /><br />Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.<br />In them at last the ultimate men arrive<br />Whose boast is not: “we live” but “we survive”,<br />A type who will inhabit the dying earth.<br /><br />And her five cities, like five teeming sores,<br />Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state<br />Where second hand Europeans pullulate<br />Timidly on the edge of alien shores.<br /><br />Yet there are some like me turn gladly home<br />From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find<br />The Arabian desert of the human mind,<br />Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,<br /><br />Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare<br />Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes<br />The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes<br />Which is called civilization over there.Michael D. Breenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02993260064428749961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6794141474524732897.post-63548943772860912412011-06-17T19:48:47.853+08:002011-06-17T19:48:47.853+08:00There are plenty of great things about Australia, ...There are plenty of great things about Australia, I know. Things you quote there for a start. It's not so much a question of what is great about living in Australia but the idea of nationhood itself. Persoanlly, I think fairdinkum is kind of ridiculous. It's idiosyncratic, sure, but it's a bit plastic paddy too. Caricature and outback, not really true. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know but I also don't know many people who use the word.<br /><br />I agree that chosing something negative or sorrowfuL - as you put it, Judeao-Christian-Celtic (which really rings true)- like WW1/Gallipoli shouldn't be the automatic choice or thing but senses of place and belonging and attachment are powerful emotions and being democratic, middle class, self deprecating and mildly idiosyncrtatic aren't perceived as 'great' human or national qualities.<br /><br />I don't have an answer to this, by the way. The question of nationhood and what it is that constitutes 'being Australian' but I can see why something like sacrifice (and being hoodwinked into that sacrifice perhaps strengthens the feeling behind it) can give rise to profound notions of attachment.<br /><br />I think that's what I mean by 'something to hang its hat on.'ciaranlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06668781624804602369noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6794141474524732897.post-70530373356268792422011-06-17T09:44:21.513+08:002011-06-17T09:44:21.513+08:00By the way, where is the basis for the notion that...By the way, where is the basis for the notion that great suffering amounts to greatness? Sounds too Judeo-Christian-Celtic for me. Surely it is the response to suffering in a humane way rather than being a victim or seeking revenge or treating others as the sufferers themselves have been treated, as in Israel, or incorporating suffering into a philosophy of life like the four noble truths of Buddhism that greatness or great ordinariness flows.Michael D. Breenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02993260064428749961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6794141474524732897.post-8615886201027496292011-06-17T09:36:50.175+08:002011-06-17T09:36:50.175+08:00What else can Australia hang its at on, indeed Cia...What else can Australia hang its at on, indeed Ciaran? How about a federation of states without bloodshed? How about a fair mix of people without too many ghettoes? How about a fairly long history of democratic government? How about "fair dinkum" our most untranslatable word and therefore most idiosyncratic? How about the ability to laugh at ourselves? Or perhaps best of all A.D.Hope's poem "Australia"? But I think it is how we chose to use our neutrality into the future that could be our special quality. By the way why do we need to hang our hat on anything?Michael D. Breenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02993260064428749961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6794141474524732897.post-57600386405513553412011-06-16T23:47:08.862+08:002011-06-16T23:47:08.862+08:00So the argument against WW1 and Gallipoli specific...So the argument against WW1 and Gallipoli specifically as 'the birth of a nation' still simmers?<br />I thought it had been generally accepted now, that WW1 served as a kind of spiritual awakening, a reason to acknowledge country as place rather than allegiance to the crown?<br /><br />I can understand republican sentiment but history takes time to assert itself, and the country is still so new that early encounter with sacrifice is still the only great loss it has suffered. Myth may have taken over noe=w and because of that it may be too late. But what else can Australia hang its hat on?ciaranlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06668781624804602369noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6794141474524732897.post-36539070685701378892011-06-15T10:53:49.881+08:002011-06-15T10:53:49.881+08:00Good point Ciaran, however I think there are two r...Good point Ciaran, however I think there are two reasons to give it an outing. 1. Some hopeful erosion of the nonsense of Gallipoli as the mythical basis for Oz becoming a nation and all the militarist stupidity contained therein. How embarrassing and debasing to belong to a nation which claims Anzac Day and Australia Day as celebrations! 2. The notion that by crawling to a foreign nation we are safer and more "world-players" instead of puerile and dependent instead of an independent body notable for the ability to help others like Norway or even New Zealand. Every time we go maintain "alliances" with empires we come off worse than imagined. Absit.Michael D. Breenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02993260064428749961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6794141474524732897.post-54153876511210745112011-06-14T04:31:03.458+08:002011-06-14T04:31:03.458+08:00I'm not sure what it changes.. Surely it has t...I'm not sure what it changes.. Surely it has to be expected, if prior to federation Australia contributed forces to at least four Imperial wars, that the biggest and the most in need was to ask for, trick into or use more.<br /><br />I know it begs questions about honesty and for no other reason it should be exposed, but does it really chanmge anything and shouldn't it just be another - albeit early - example of worker exploitation?ciaranlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06668781624804602369noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6794141474524732897.post-26751440411929939402011-06-08T10:33:41.665+08:002011-06-08T10:33:41.665+08:00This is all very fine...but there is a committee w...This is all very fine...but there is a committee working on the celebration of the centenary of the Gallipoli landing. We ought to be getting this kind of material to them.Michael D. Breenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02993260064428749961noreply@blogger.com