So I just viewed the first episode of 'Bogan Hunters' after having waited weeks in anticipation, and though they asked the viewers at the end not to complain or blog about it, I begged to differ, so here I am complaining about why I loathe this very country: bogans.
Stereotypically, a bogan is an Australian lacking teeth, brains and substituting water for beer and shoes for thongs. They smoke more cigarettes than a person in a Lucky Strikes advertisement, and they have no respect for their country or its original inhabitants, the Aboriginals. They walk around throwing derogatory slang words at every immigrant and tell them to "go back to where [they] came from" even though the bogans never originated from Australia in the first place.
They do not like to own an atlas, let alone any other book, so they tend to tattoo their location on their bodies in case they are abducted by a wild crocodile, in which case recovering their body would prove easier because of the creativity of their tattoos seeing as most of them are done by drunk or stoned artists who could draw in kindergarten and used their Centrelink money to purchase a cheap tattoo kit on eBay from China. It is a race that disgusts me and if I had enough financial assistance then I would not remain in this godforsaken country. The most nutritious meal to a bogan is the cheapest thing on a McDonald's menu, and the best dinner is a 'snag' on the 'barbie'.
And in my daily life there is nearly never a time where I do not come across the words 'culture' and 'identity' and having to coincide the two of them with the word 'Australia' simply frightens me. Though I am glad that I live in a middle and upper-class country that does not know the true meaning of 'famine' because most of its inhabitants have not experienced it, and a country that is not attacked by 'terrorists' or North Korea (yet).
But the one thing that I am mostly ashamed of when I think of myself as an Australian resident is the fact that we celebrate 'Australia Day'. Yes, it is great and patriotic and whatnot to dedicate an entire day to the discovery of your country, but it loses its value when on that day, the 26th of January 1788, the First Fleet arrived and brought with it the terror towards the Aboriginals. They were exploited, kidnapped, raped, murdered, tortured, they had things done to them that no human of any race, colour or gender should deserve, and for that I will never celebrate 'Australia Day'.
In fact, they should rename it 'Exploitation of the Land Down Under and its Original Inhabitants, We are so Sorry to have Treated you so Badly' Day. Maybe then I will consider celebrating, and by celebrating I mean travelling to Alice Springs and hugging tightly every Indigenous person in sight. They need to be loved. They need to be commemorated far more than in a tiny university statement which is barely read in the duration of a student's life. They need to be cared for, not prejudiced against, and they need a far better apology speech than that of Kevin Rudd's, but I must admit, Kevin, that was a great start.
Paul Kelly's song Bicentennial paints a somewhat vivid picture of my attitudes to Australia Day. Why should I celebrate a day that depicted such inhumanity? Why should I celebrate a day equivalent to cutting down the last tree on earth and bringing down with it the last young bird species in their nests, crushing them with the loud thud of colonisation? And to think that most of our race, the bogans, loathe Aboriginal people for being 'filthy'. No, I will not celebrate a day like this and I will wave no flag. Aussie? Aussie? Aussie? Shame! Shame! Shame!
They do not like to own an atlas, let alone any other book, so they tend to tattoo their location on their bodies in case they are abducted by a wild crocodile, in which case recovering their body would prove easier because of the creativity of their tattoos seeing as most of them are done by drunk or stoned artists who could draw in kindergarten and used their Centrelink money to purchase a cheap tattoo kit on eBay from China. It is a race that disgusts me and if I had enough financial assistance then I would not remain in this godforsaken country. The most nutritious meal to a bogan is the cheapest thing on a McDonald's menu, and the best dinner is a 'snag' on the 'barbie'.
And in my daily life there is nearly never a time where I do not come across the words 'culture' and 'identity' and having to coincide the two of them with the word 'Australia' simply frightens me. Though I am glad that I live in a middle and upper-class country that does not know the true meaning of 'famine' because most of its inhabitants have not experienced it, and a country that is not attacked by 'terrorists' or North Korea (yet).
But the one thing that I am mostly ashamed of when I think of myself as an Australian resident is the fact that we celebrate 'Australia Day'. Yes, it is great and patriotic and whatnot to dedicate an entire day to the discovery of your country, but it loses its value when on that day, the 26th of January 1788, the First Fleet arrived and brought with it the terror towards the Aboriginals. They were exploited, kidnapped, raped, murdered, tortured, they had things done to them that no human of any race, colour or gender should deserve, and for that I will never celebrate 'Australia Day'.
In fact, they should rename it 'Exploitation of the Land Down Under and its Original Inhabitants, We are so Sorry to have Treated you so Badly' Day. Maybe then I will consider celebrating, and by celebrating I mean travelling to Alice Springs and hugging tightly every Indigenous person in sight. They need to be loved. They need to be commemorated far more than in a tiny university statement which is barely read in the duration of a student's life. They need to be cared for, not prejudiced against, and they need a far better apology speech than that of Kevin Rudd's, but I must admit, Kevin, that was a great start.
Paul Kelly's song Bicentennial paints a somewhat vivid picture of my attitudes to Australia Day. Why should I celebrate a day that depicted such inhumanity? Why should I celebrate a day equivalent to cutting down the last tree on earth and bringing down with it the last young bird species in their nests, crushing them with the loud thud of colonisation? And to think that most of our race, the bogans, loathe Aboriginal people for being 'filthy'. No, I will not celebrate a day like this and I will wave no flag. Aussie? Aussie? Aussie? Shame! Shame! Shame!
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