Old Glory

I am ashamed. This is not the Australia I grew up in, not the open, tolerant, enthusiastic, outward-looking, well-liked Australia, Paul Keating's Australia. This is Pauline Hanson's Australia, John Howard's Australia, bigotted, jingoistic, mean-spirited and small-minded. Yes, John, I blame YOU. Personally.

Last Saturday, The SMH's Alan Ramsey wrote about the various ways we are all dealing with the changes that have been wrought over the past 10 years, in the name of fashioning "John Howard's Australia":

[Social Researcher Hugh] Mackay thinks he sees "three emerging responses" to ... John Howard's Australia.

"First, there is increasing talk about the need to 'restore balance', to 'get my life under control', to 'live the way I want to live'. This quiet revolution will be led by women, who are increasingly reaching levels of authority and influence in business and the professions and, looking around them, are concluding that 'this is no way to live'.

"The second trend is less attractive.

"It is heard in the growing voice of those who are not saying, 'I want to get my life under control', but 'I want to get your life under control'. This is the voice of regulation.

"These are the religious, social and cultural fundamentalists - the people who want to see tougher sentencing, more censorship, more laws to control everything that moves. That is their answer to the instability and uncertainty of contemporary life - 'if only we had more rules and regulations' to restore our sense of security.

"The third signpost comes from the rising generation of Australians, who are showing us how to make sense of life in an uncertain world. Having never known anything but an accelerating rate of change and an unpredictable future, they have developed three strategies for coping: keep your options open, as a way of incorporating 'realistic uncertainty'; a spiritual framework is leading them to explore post-material values; and they have become our most tribal generation, having realised the most precious resource for coping with an uncertain world is each other."

Mackay concluded: "It is hard to be confident, but the emerging culture may be the best news we've had for a long time. Good for individuals who need the security of the herd, good for nuclear families who will not be under the same pressure to satisfy the herd instinct, good for communities as people move out to find new and creative ways of connecting."

Mr Howard, recognise yourself in the second of these categories? You should. You have nutured them and given them succour—and now we as a nation are reaping as you have sowed.

Give me the honest and honourable Australia of Malcolm Fraser, of Bill Dean, of Gareth Evans any day. The Australia of sunburnt faces and eyes squinting into the sun, of "she'll be right, mate" and "go for your life", of dust and heat and salt on my skin, of the click-click-click of sprinklers, the bang of wire-doors and the 6 pips marking the hour followed by the ABC news theme , of vernadahs and lemon trees and bowls of roses; of dim-sims and souvlakis, of red curry duck and mozzarella di buffala and roast lamb with home-made mint sauce; of beer and wine and gins and tonic; and the smells of lanolin and eucalyptus and sausage fat and freshly cut grass; of people who are interested in difference, who want to see the world, be a part of the world, and accept the world as it is, as different and intriguing and instructive, not mould it into a palimpsest of a picket fence and separationist tea party, some veneer of civility covering a dark, prejudiced, jealous heart. Bah!