Please Don't Tease the Kangaroos
By PETER MICHAELS
THERE used to be a great and lively sport open to any reasonably distinguished or notorious overseas visitor to Australia, but played with Most zest by British gentlemen with impeccably 401-potato diction and a massive disdain for the V°x populi. The game was played this way: shortly after arrival, if possible very shortly thereafter the visitor would cause an incident- sAy, by describing Sydney as an unpardonable leseeration of a spectacular natural site, or by being overheard remarking that Australian Women were fine so long as, they didn't open their mouths to talk. This would excite the in- tense interest of the press, and the unsuspecting newcomer would be goaded into expanding on his little criticisms, preferably by being trapped Into some resounding generalisation about local 'mediocrity—the mark of convict origins, or the Iribulations of aggressive egalitarianism. This would do the trick. Banner headlines ('Australia a Nation of Savages, says X. Calls Melbourne "a cemetery"'), parades by indignant undergraduates, letters to the editor ('Dear Sir: If he doesn't like it here, why doesn't he go back where he came from? Yours, etc., Dinkurn 'Aussie), stink bombs at concerts, refusal of service at hotels, rude noises at parties, and so en. The uproar would go on for some time, each City bracing itself for the assault as the visitor Progressed through the country. Then, after he had left and published a few unkind words in some haughty London journal about his reception dOwn under, there'd be another outcry about the e0wardice of people who tattled behind their hosts' backs, and heated editorials would point out that Mr. X, whatever his merits, need hardly (bother to return to Australia, which was doing ( rY well without him, thank you, and was, in act, still indisputably the finest place in the world; where else, for example, could one get taway unassassinated after such insults? 1 he beauty of these periodic rumpuses of a now passing era of bumptiousness and innocence was that they generally avoided, with almost diaboli- cal cunning, any discussion whatsoever of *e substance of the uncalled-for frankness. If the point was made, for example, that Australian trade unions are incredibly narrow-minded and unenlightened, the rejoinder might well be a rhapsody on the theme of beaches, glorious sun- shine and wide, open spaces. When the national corns were trodden on, some smooth and un- calloused part of the anatomy would be exposed. Confronted with irrefutable evidence of short- comings, people tended to clam up or to look at the ceiling: if one were to admit that one thing was wrong, one might have to think about other things that were wrong, too; so one's peace of mind would be disturbed, and that wouldn't ever do, would it, eh, cobber? Thus Australia acquired a few impassioned lovers, a number of irritated foes but few discerning and patient friends.
Many sophisticated explanations for this state of affairs have been bandied about; including, of course, the hoary chestnut about the national inferiority complex, the urge to return to the womb of good old Mum Britannia, and all that patronising business concerning the rough pioneers and their matey hearts of gold. I'll add another : it seems to me that Australia, like any number of other new countries elsewhere, was —until quite recently—unfamiliar with the style of true controversy and suffered from an inability to parry even arrantly unfair criticism for sheer lack of comparative data. The milieu from which a visitor might spring, and the standpoint from which he expressed his opinions were, for most Australians, a profound mystery; and they easily mistook a well-meant admonition for an attempt to pick a fight. In Europe, one grows up with certain notions about foreign countries. They may be appallingly distorted, but they provide a ready basis for a comeback in an argument. The new countries have trouble in getting any proper perspective on themselves, partly because they are not used to being on a level with the older ones and are too easily sidetracked by tricks of manner and polished routines, and partly because they rightly feel that the traditional standards don't necessarily apply to them, but have not yet found any fresh yardsticks. In the case of Australia, distance, isolation and a sparse population concentrated in a few cities with surprisingly meagre contacts with each other added further to the dilemma.
All this is now changing, under the triple im- pact of fast communications, large-scale immigra- tion from non-British countries and the Wander- lust of the Australians themselves. The televised debates of the presidential candidates in America recently were rebroadcast in their entirety over the Australian networks. Jet flights link the country closely with the rest of the world, and a fortnight's visit to the Antipodes from Europe is no longer an eccentricity. The presence 3f Italians, Greeks, Dutch, Germans, Balls or Hungarians has acquainted Australians with the possibility of living by lights other than those which had been almost universally accepted hitherto, not in some remote and legendary pla,_e like Naples or Amsterdam, but right here at home.
Australians travelling overseas are not ;n themselves a novelty, but the proportions and the forms which these pilgrimages have taken since the war are remarkable. Apart from colonising a well-known section of London, storming the citadels of art and learning, lining continental roads with hitch-hikers, popping up in Capri or Katmandu, in San Francisco cabarets and Ceylonese villages, the post-war wave of foot- loose Aussies is also characterised by a consider- able curiosity, much ingenuity and a willingness to put up with all sorts of rough conditions. Of course, there are still the Establishment tourists who stagger out of posh suburban villas, loaded with junk, for a trip 'home' (that's England) with the Dorchester as their base, or for a spin through the States on the Hilton circuit, and who then stagger back again with even more junk; but there are also many young people from quite ordinary origins who save up for a year, take the boat and then bum their way up from Messina to Narvik; and crowds of scholars, professional people and so on who intend to learn, to work a little, perhaps, and then to return.
This last is important, for the export of brains from Australia used to be disquieting. Today, the bright lads tend to take a pretty hard, shrewd look at the folks abroad, and to judge them by what they reveal, not what they choose to exhibit. When they get back, they may have their say in one of the two critical fortnightlies .now being published—the Australian Observer and Nation—or in a satirical revue which dares to poke fun at sport, weddings, picture hats and other tribal totems, or simply in conversation to a widening circle of sophisticates. In this, they differ from their forerunners, the naïve radicals and the licensed mavericks, who abused the bourgeoisie because it was the approved thing to do and hawked ideas that were as charmingly anachronistic as they were maddeningly cuckoo. The new generation tends to attack what is dull, moribund, imitative and second-rate because it recognises these dispiriting qualities for what they are, and only incidentally because they are also often noisily defended by the Establishment.
The effect of such leavening is already quite perceptible, although it is still kept subdued by the prevailing spread of the Wowser Ethos, that same debased, puritanical and contorted tedium which has kept such large areas of the Anglo-Saxon cultures waterlogged and floundering for so long. Some claim that the Australians are on the way to becoming a new-style Mediterranean nation, and nothing would be more cheering than if this turned out to be true. But in the meantime, there's a lot of undermining ahead yet.
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