I enjoyed reading Richard Glover’s witty article in this last weekend’s Spectrum (“Playing the patriot game? That’s so un-Australian”). The term “un-Australian” has sadly become a device used by many in political debates to insinuate that those holding an opposing viewpoint are somehow unpatriotic. Glover begins his article jocularly asking:
Can we ban the term “un-Australian”? At the very least, I’d like to see hefty legislative controls. For example: an “un-Australian” licence in which people would pre-commit to how many times they intend using the phrase “un-Australian” in any one political argument.”
In light-hearted mood Glover paints the following scenario:
You are fixing a fence damaged by floods when your wire-straining tool breaks. You are a half-day’s drive from home. A neighbour drives past, reveals he has a spare wire strainer in the back of his ute but says he doesn’t want to lend it to you “because I couldn’t be stuffed getting out of the car”.
Under Glover’s proposed legislative controls on the use of the term: “The law will allow the phrase “un-Australian” to be yelled towards the departing vehicle.”
In a similar vein he quips that the following person is being “un-Australian”:
….anybody who reveals to tourists that Australian wildlife isn’t actually that dangerous – despite what they’ve been told by the world’s media. It’s an Australian tradition to scare visitors senseless and we don’t want anyone ruining the fun (especially as it seems to give the tourists such a thrill).
But then Glover’s mood takes on a more sombre tone. He notes that clubs and pubs have set up a website called its-unAustralian.com.au “as part of a campaign to maintain a system whereby they make millions out of vulnerable problem gamblers. He comments:
They say it’s “un-Australian” to try to change the system. More likely it’s “un-Australian” to maintain a system in which the vulnerable are exploited to provide cheap food and beer for the rest of us.
He concludes:
Australians have always hated the cynical use of patriotism to serve a cause. Perhaps the thing that is most “un-Australian” is the use of the term “un-Australian” to instruct fellow Australians what it means to be Australian. We all love our country and we do so in different ways.
As Glover’s article illustrates people are skilled at using language that insinuates something with which they disagree is not virtuous while at the same time not basing this on any substantial rational grounds. So, for example, some will insinuate that Christian insistence on Jesus being the Only Way is worthy of contempt by using such terms as “dogmatic” and “narrow-minded.” In a similar fashion the term “un-Australian” is used to connote that which is unvirtuous and it is significant that the approach is negative rather than being based on attempt to show what is positively virtuous. The despicable (am I doing the same thing – I think not!) attempt by the gambling fraternity to use “un-Australian” to connote that which is unpatriotic and therefore lacking in virtue recalls the judgment summoned in Isaiah 5:20:
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Posted April 18, 2011
www.facetofaceintercultural.com.au
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