Australia Day

[saffronlie]

I do not feel much like celebrating today. I have gained a new perspective on my country since moving to Sydney just under twelve months ago

Comments

[pandorasblog]

I always wonder about this kind of regional/metropolitan snobbery, particularly in light of the fact that in most state or national capitals, a goodly proportion of the population is surely made up of people from less lauded parts of that state or country. Their social, economic and cultural contributions then get praised to the skies, but the person and their achievement will be treated as 'the coolest thing to come out of [capital] or [country] in ages, as if that capital had made them up out of whole cloth. This is reflected in all sorts of ways: Snow Patrol being seen as a Scottish band because they met at uni there, even though they're from fricking Bangor, County Down. Or the common lament among Scots, that when their national team loses it's a Scottish loss, but when it wins, it's a British win...

Aborigines - another LJ friend just made a near-identical point about how members of a local Native American tribe are viewed where he lives. It's too, too easy for societies to trumpet about their diversity and their overcoming of prejudice, when functionally not enough has changed.

[saffronlie]

It's all a bit ridic, especially given the size of Australia. OF COURSE there will be a lot of people not in capital cities, and many in really remote communities. Once we stopped celebrating the bush and the outback we decided to just ignore it, apparently. I blame Modernism and its city-love!