jad n rich

Why every time there is a disaster or tragedy does some aussie have to pop up spouting how ' Unique and Australian ' , the reactions of compassion, empathy, kindness, assistance, aid are??

Last night a young soldier is killed, watching it, very sad, but why does some idiot always have to pop up saying how ' Australian ' it is that people have reacted with compassion to this event.

Why wouldnt they, why is it Australian or Unique to Austalia? its the way any race nationality reacts to a tragedy.

It really annoys me that they have to pull this 'superior' only we feel compassion and mateship thing rant every time. Find it quite insulting really, do they really think other races dont act the same way, is it really that insular here

Deancm_MKII

Yes. Nothing more than propaganda. In reality an Aussie is more likely to stab you in the back. This Aussie mateship thing is a fallacy. Everybody is out for what they can get for themselves.

mohogony

YES it a load of garbage, l think l read Aussies give less to charity then just about any other country so Aussies are probably less likely to help their mates then most other countries

spartacus

Pretty much spot on.

On a slightly different tack, I saw the new Tourism Australia ad over the weekend . . . There's nothing like Australia ("where everyone down the pub is your best mate") . . . and they are absolutely spot on . . . its absolutely nothing like Australia.

ABCDiamond

Some recent giving statistics:

BadgeIsBack

See where you are coming from but to be honest when it comes to practises and cultures I let nations observe their own practises the way they see fit. If they choose to celebrate and focus on particular things that's their right. They choose to focus on an Australian positive - it doesn't mean that noone else has this. Most soldiers know this : I see some practises in the Australian army and popular culture that I see in other commonwealth armies and nations.

It's interesting that out of the many nations in the UN only a handful of nations actually did anything in Afghanistan - Australia one of them.

As for some of the other acnecdotes - funny.

jimbo_d

You miserable bastards it's just a bit of comradship, like the way the British banded together with their 'Blitz spirit' and were very proud of it.

They're talking about fallen soldiers f.f.s. people who died to defend their country and their countries' ways.

Pollyana

AS a non-Aussie it really hurts sometimes because you hear these commentators saying that "Australians mourn their mates" etc as if they are the only ones with the rights to do it. Its not just about the mourning of the soldiers though, its in every tragedy and other event where people need their true friends to stand by them.
I rmember after Trop Cyclone Larry when our then Emergency Services Minister said that "Australian people of the Far North thanked their fellow Australians for all their help" - I know I wasn't the only pom who felt slighted by that as we had worked our butts off, yet suddenly felt excluded.
"Australians stand by therir mates whatever happens." - makes it sound like Australians have some kind of copyright on true friendship, and if your friends aren't Australian you may as well not have them.

(sorry, sore point with me, rant over!)

salopian

Gets me too! Same as the un-Australian thing. Seems the Aussies want to claim basic human actions and emotions such as compassion, kindness, helpfulness etc all to themselves. Well, at least the brainwashed ones do. Makes my wife cringe every time she hears it and she's born and bred aussie.

BadgeIsBack

I can imagine that. To be honest, Polly you have to understand the culture behind it. I don't think anyone if asked would really want to exclude anyone.

It's just a form of pride and rhetoric. You have to remember the Australian rural, frontier and military tradition features high in some communities and institutions, it even has a palce in modern volunteer country firefighter units.

People say Australia has no history but some of it's history is the stuff of battling and blue collar ingenuity, and yes, convict past which had to be exclusive - at least 200 years ago. It's a pride you see in places like the East end of London and in elite UK military units and communities.

Some of the most ordinary Australians I have met have impressed me with their tolerance and acceptance. I've met modern teenage and young Australian soldiers and I'm not sure if I'm just older but they seem more mature in some ways than their British counterparts - a curious thing. Not quite so exclusive, strangely enough.

Now Woolies talking about fresh-food loving Australians is something else. That's the only thing that has annoyed me here! There's no real tradition behind that!

Sherlock Holmes

They do overdo the "Aussie" thing, especially on the news but then you see things like, "There was a train crash in Switzerland today, no Britishers were involved" and hence ends the story in the British Press.

Please also see this: http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=676277

Buzzy--Bee

Reminds me of the Spitting Image sketch where Alistair Burnett announces a news flash - "there has been a terrible disaster, details to follow". After the following sketch, he returns to announce "no need to worry, the terrible disaster happened overseas".

Hmm I'll see if I can dig it up on Youtube.

BB

Bernieboy

They are defending someone else's country and that country's ways.

BadgeIsBack

Dunkirque?
The Desert Rats?
2 PARA in the Falklands

Just about every British schoolboy learns that even though Tommy had itchy baggy uniforms and every Yank was trapping every girl in sight with nylon stockings that the bowler helmeted squaddie was the best in the world...

Every British schoolboy learns that his country had one of the largest Empires ever seen and is (at least at the time for some) very proud of it. And they've every reason to be proud.

Many a British schoolboy finds a tribal identity in his soccer team - and then as an adult, goes on to spend the entire game abusing players on the field in a way absolutely exclusive and beyond the bounds of good taste.

But Australians who try to enunciate, to wax lyrical about some tiny meaning in some aspect of their history or culture are not allowed to self-indulge.

You know what - it's just a bit of poetry and feeling at times, perhaps from a group of old teary-eyed boys... That's all, really! You think the supermarket monthly basket of goods are expensive, well how would it feel to carry the thing across East Falkland?

I really don't think that some of these people would think that compassion doesn't exist elsewhere. There was a programme about Australian soldiers in the Stan last week and I saw some soldiers who are nothing but a credit to their unit, mixing in with other cultures. And that's increasingly the way Australian and UK soldiers have operated - if I may be so bold - it's a thing that commanders consider that commonwealth soldiers do well. It started out - was well documented in Borneo, was practised in N Ireland and continued in Iraq and the Stan.

May UK and Australian troops carry out and further a long tradition - even if the relationship bourne of the First World War could have destroyed it- but that's another story eulogised and debated in itself.

Let them have their moment I say! Whether it's Cyclone Tracey, or the rural tradition or a bunch of blokes in a men's shed.

fish.01

I've seen the same rhetoric the world over....including a massive amount in britain when I lived there...british ingenuity, humour, bulldog spirit, empire, intellect, etc etc etc ....You hear it on this forum all the time as well...

Was one of the things I learnt through travel....we are all the same and criticize each other for the same faults we possess but overlook...might be slightly more here but the nature of a large tough country would explain the need for that...