‘Australia Day: barbecues and beer goggles and Oi, Oi, Oi,’ New Matilda, 20 January 2016
Young writer surveys the big day, looking at jingoism, toxic masculinity, a horror movie from 1988, an Ocker video and a parody thereof, the Redfern speech trying to make up for decades of decimation, asylum seekers, environmental destruction, middle-aged white men in power, inequality, mental illness, misogyny, domestic violence – and some shafts of light at the end. Celebrate what’s great, mate!
Quote worth a close read:
We’ve all grown up constantly eating from the trash can of ideology. It mediates our entire relationship to the social world and in many ways we enjoy this worldview, which feels entirely natural to us. The force of ideology makes us blind to the garbage we are consuming. Only by putting on the sunglasses, or by critiquing ideology, can we see the “dictatorship in democracy”, the “invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom”.
And this one, also emerging out of the stream of consciousness:
So, back to January 26th. There’s the dominant ideological view of Australia Day which is a god awful hotpot of clichés, BBQs, boats and militant racism. Then there’s the critique which contains some hard truths about the Indigenous population, asylum seekers, environmental destruction, poverty, homelessness, alcoholism, mental illness and domestic abuse.