03.11.2004 || 23h49

The Ceeb, Oz, and a misplaced national identity.

So, while I was sitting here and studying for my learning coach course to-morrow, I had the Ceeb on. It was an interview with this australian author named David malouf about the common ground between Canada and Australia, and why Australians in Canada always say how similar the place is to Oz, whereas Canadians who've been to Australia always say that it's Canada with a weird accent. They also talked about way in which the two countries are startlingly different, and how Australia was peopled by convicts (simplification, there), whereas Canada was settled by people trying to escape starvation.

I'd known that it was Canada, helped by South Africa, that demanded the enactment of the Statute of Westminster, but I'd had no idea that Australia and NZ just weren't interested and didn't bite for another 10 or so years. I guess that the constant ringing of the republican bell in Australia sorta obscures the fact that Canada's been straining against the Crown for way longer. Malouf said that it's because the basic facts of geography kept the UK from interfering as much with Australia and NZ, whereas we've been brushing away the Royal hand for ever.

Of course, having a North American postal code means that we're constantly having to negatively identify ourselves -- we're *not* British, we're *not* the USA, whereas Australia and NZ have just never had that kind of backbreaking external pressure. Their pressures were, and are, completely different.

Also different are our respective instances of being betrayed by the motherland: the fall of Singapore, Britain's entry into the Common Market, and her retiring west of Suez all serving to increasingly isolate Australia and NZ; the UK's deporting of the Acadians, and handing away most of this land mass to the infant USA among other things over here.

So why do we all have such good-natured feelings towards the UK? Hell, ask someone on the street in London what they know about Canada, and the answer prolly won't come up to much. From #2 in the Empire to a forgotten footnote; not fucking bad.

Meanwhile, We never hear about Australians struggling to define themselves against an overbearing neighbour to the south or some aged sense of loyalty to a parent who's forgotten they exist.

But no one will ever forget they exist.

There's such cool shite going on in Canada, *especially* now. Our literature finally doesn't suck, our movies are so much better than they used to be, we've invented half the crap that everyone on this planet uses -- and we excel, above all, in being ignored.

Ugh, what a tired and pointless line of discourse.

Ignore me.



||Gods save the Queen,
||cf

back || forth

older shite

One last little note... - 09.21.2006

de-stressing, biking and terrorism - 06.06.2006

Mildly stressed... - 05.29.2006

More crime stupidity - 05.28.2006

Scary stuff - 05.25.2006

diaryland.com
Oh yeah, the page and everything
on it is �2000 - 2005 to me, alright ?
don't copy without asking.