Dear Byrd How interesting that you find your post to have been a success.
You do not describe the picture of Australia that I get from the BBC; and I listen to the BBC (radio) a great deal, often tutting about intentional or unintentional biases. I am not aware of any racial discrimination against Australians. My main point was to suggest that Australia may not be the lone beacon you made it out to be. "Poms" is an Australian term of racial abuse, not British There is some concern here in some quarters about outward migration; but generally the response is to criticise the lack of attractiveness of UK as a place to live. Or so it seems to me. I don't pay much attention. I do not think it exercises the BBC management much. The BBC are cowardly sometimes, yes; but it is more subtle than that. The world service is funded by our Foreign Office, I believe, and they tend to be more critical of UK than the "independent" BBC itself. Yet the idea that the BBC is painting a false picture of Australia to discourage British migrants is quite literally fantastic. I find the idea parochial. I cannot judge whether or not the BBC presents a grossly inaccurate picture of Australia as I have not been to Australia; but I am not aware of being given any particularly adverse portrait of the country. I haven't seen Neighbours for some years - is it still running? - but it is I believe an Australian production. In so far as it presents any credible view, I'd say that urban Australia is much the same and - in general - as mentally vapid as urban UK. I think that - in general - poms realise that back packer murders in Australia are rare; and, if we thought about it, sociologically rather similar to murders here. The only people I have ever heard mention convict ancestors - apart from appearances in some novels - is from Australians visiting UK. That seems to have decreased greatly over recent decades; as does the rather confusing description of UK as "home" by people born in Perth or Adelaide or Hobart or Melbourne or Sydney or Brisbane or even Darwin. (I have named state capitals round your sunburnt coasts in order to demonstrate that I have a basic grasp of Australian geography.) As to "uncultured and illiterate", I do not hear that much. It is there, yes; but in small measure and partly encouraged and mostly manifested by Barry Humphries' Les Patterson. Not a British creation. Yes, he does appear on our TV; but then so does a lot of shit. Regarding being uncultured and illiterate, have you met many Brits? The nearest I have come to hearing that of Australians has come from Australian poets and artists who have left Australia. We do occasionally hear about shark attacks, yes. But we have shark sightings here. The latest has been in our newspaper silly season. Most of our sharks eat little things; attacks are rarer than they are in your waters. We know that, compared to us, you have dodgy sharks and poisonous spiders. This sense was recently expanded by an Australian who was bitten to death by, I believe, a crocodile; I do not believe the BBC made that up, but the general feeling was that he died because he was an arrogant showman. Such animals make you a little bit exotic to us perhaps; but the pictures I have seen make Australia look rather like urban USA to me; not a dangerous wilderness. (I have, I believe, been in greater danger from animals in northern Scandinavia than I might be in Australia.) Of the many people I know who live in or visit Australia, I know of none who are greatly exercised about sharks etc; nor do they extrapolate about your politics and certainly not in a racist way from the fact that you have sharks which occasionally bite people. The sharks would, wouldn't they.. Misapprehension does not equate with racism. It may be a symptom; it may not be It is not true that shark attacks and the other things you list is the only news of Australia that is ever reported. Methinks the person doth protest too much. We hear many things which I believe are very good about Australia. We also hear about your prime minister brown-nosing Washington and acting as unenlightened. The only conclusion I draw from that is that most electorates are, in majority, air heads, unfortunate as that may be for one who believes ideologically in extending the franchise. We hear that the whites have been beastly to the aboriginal Australians; but then into the 70s the Swedes were being beastly to the Same; and the UK continues to be neglectful at least and often beastly to the Roma, or whatever the correct name is this year. I mention 2 countries I know quite well. I conclude it is probably the same the whole world over > where are you getting your info on the Aus govt? from a variety of news reports from Australians here, many personal friends from Australians there, many personal friends > this european racist bias is one of the subtexts of the bellebyrd blog What European racist bias? Individuals maybe. Special pleas won't stop it. There is more than a special plea in what you have written and you make a lot of unevidenced assumptions; but perhaps you will dismiss me as prejudiced for saying that. I'd counsel caution. You sound one stage off crying "the greatest country in the world"; and look what happened the last time they started that > re our anti discrimination record, the blog features a recent report > that cites Australia as a world leader in gender equality Well, against such a clinching argument, I had best be silent; the proofs overwhelm me; but I wasn't actually disputing it; I expressed surprise. I also suggested that to claim anti-discrimination law is sadly lacking elsewhere is untrue. It may be less good elsewhere; but that is something else. Perhaps I shouldn't have said two separate things in one email The surprise arose from the oddity of such a reactionary government pursuing gender equality. Inconsistency to my mind; unless it is equality of gender to facilitate commercial exploitation of the relatively weak. Equality is a good start but it is hardly liberation. While having both genders free to behave and acquire the same would be a start, and would be pleasant for the individuals, it is only a start and leaves and even creates other inequalities I certainly wouldn't want to dispute Australia's world leadership in anything. When I hear the words "world" and "leadership" in combination, I reach for my ear plugs I shall go silent again now all best L ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Find out how you can get spam free email. http://www.bluebottle.com/tag/3 _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
