anzac day

The men who live opposite put not one but two Australian flags over their balcony yesterday. Bloody hell.

'The men opposite' intrigue me, in a distantly sociological kind of way. I'd guess that they rent the house, not own it. There seem to be three of them living there, though random other heterosexual men seem to wander through. They're not that young any more - late 20s at the least, mid-30s for one of them, though it could be the fact that he's balding makes him look older. He'd be the one on the lease. He drives an Audi, so I'd guess he's something like a marketing manager. The others have what I take to be expensive cars as well. Cars feature prominently in their daily routines and conversations. The Audi has a Ralph sticker on it - that's the type of men they are.

Every couple of months they have a loud party, at which they sing raucously and very drunkly till about 3am. Often these parties seem to be male-only affairs, (but don't worry, they're not poofters). Not long after we moved in, the Audi driver had a loud conversation with his ex-fiancee on his mobile phone about getting the bloody ring back, even though the cost of it didn't matter to him - it most definitely did not matter to him (repeated loudly several times) that the ring had cost $8000.

The Audi driver regularly gets paralytically drunk and abuses the other men at the top of his lungs. At these times he sounds like a fifteen year old boy screaming at his parents. None of them seems to give a shit about the fact that they let it all hang out. Perhaps we can be very easily dismissed as the middle aged women who live opposite (I'm not sure if they would have figured out we're a couple - I'm not sure if we would have entered their consciousness to that extent. They seem too busy being ostentatiously obnoxious to worry about anyone else.)

They do a lot of walking around while loudly talking on their mobiles - they walk in the yard and out into the street. Not many cars pass by in our street, so they can stand in the middle of it and talk on their phones. All of which gives me a valuable glimpse of how the dominant half lives.

But two flags? Double the patriotism?

At the sight of the flags, Olle said "Go Aussie". Today's children learn this kind of slogan early. It's in the air they breathe.

Poor boy, it must be confusing to him to have parents who were almost spitting at the tv during the 15 minutes - 15 MINUTES - of ABC news time given to breathless reporting of  Anzac Day ceremonies in Canberra, Sydney, Solomon Islands, Kokoda, Iraq and Gallipoli this evening. Actually, it's me, the fifth generation Australian, who was spitting. Co-parent, a mere migrant, was merely bemused.

Oh, on one hand I can laugh at it, but actually this kind of blanket reverentiality (is that a word?) frightens me. It's such nationalistic, militaristic crap. It presents such a uniform picture in which not a single word of dissent is heard. That our national identity is based on military battles is not to be questioned.

In a way I'd like to know what the two flags mean to the men opposite. Then again, I don't know that I could bear to hear what they'd say.

Comments

[David]

I never got around to commenting on the girly pink post but I guess we're guilty on all counts: my daughter loves pink; she even has Barbies (God forbid). Excuses? Almost all of the Barbies are second-hand, passed on to her by her cousins. She has two brothers and being a girl is a statement of identity for her. If she wants to annoy them, she runs after them and tries to stick something pink in their faces. She's pink, but not that girly. She has one or two frilly frocks which I hate because they do seem too conservatively feminine but that word has the same root as feminist. It's not two unrelated things. My boys seem to be getting more deliberately boyish all the time. But as they grow, what I want is that the boys don't grow into the type of men your neighbours seem to be and that my daughter, whatever kind attributes of femininity she chooses to adopt, can recognise a male prat as a male prat, whatever car he drives.

[Cristy]

I completely sympathise with you, particularly about disliking the nationalism and militarist overtones of Anzac Day. Expressing a dissenting view is also particularly difficult on Anzac Day as I discovered over at Larvatus Prodeo.

[Cristy]

that should be nationalist not nationalism...

[susoz]

Cristy, thanks for pointing me towards that LP discussion and sorry you had to be subject to such taunts.

[Cristy]

I'll lick my wounds for while and then move on. Thank you though.

[Link]

Your neighbours are just boorish yobs who put up two flags for no other reason other than they have two. That'd be my guess. I too have a real problem with men like that who imagine they're on the ascendency. God lets hope they're not.

I read a good post over at Polemica on Anzac Day which I found as I said there very clarifying.

I'm in two minds about Anzac Day but I understand completely what your're saying about the overt nationalist, militaristic pride. Funny that the old diggers of which there is only one left, now don't generally share these sentiments. Basically all old men who have seen battle, later become adamant pacifists.

I was listening to radio national on Anzac Day, a lecture given by some academic. They finished with "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" by Eric Bogle. I'd realised earlier that I haven't cried for months compared to a few months before when I hadn't stopped crying for months. Anyway this song did it for me, those poor old buggers had absolutely no idea. "lambs to the slaughter" it really is too sad.

'Blokes' (in general) love war and militaria. In a patriarchal society we will never be free of the effects of this fascination. I don't get the glee that JWH expresses at the thousands of 'young people' who attend Anzac Day services, like he, they too have no ide a and I wonder what the attraction is for them other than some mimicked patriotism via the good ole US?? Flag waving is fashionable perhaps?

It should be a solemn day. It should be a day to remember the horror of war not glorify it. It should be a day when politicians affirm their opposition to war and the need to avoid it at all costs.

And the 'hero' who shot himself cleaning his gun, well at least the media are being polite about it (for a change). The poor sod was clearly an A-grade twit.

[jellyfish]

the Audi driver had a loud conversation with his ex-fiancee on his mobile phone about getting the bloody ring back, even though the cost of it didn't matter to him - it most definitely did not matter to him (repeated loudly several times) that the ring had cost $8000.

Hahahahaha. I'm not sure why I found that so funny, but I did. Maybe because you could know just that one anecdote and get an idea of exactly what kind of guys these guys are.