Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 11:54:27 +1000 (EST)
From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au>
Subject: M-I: Oz Again


Culture, Character and Subalternism

The thread that is sputtering along between Rob, Hugh and myself on
Oztralia will probably be of zero interest to American subscribers on this
list.  "But bugger them", I say. "Why should they be happy?"  Let this be
my attempt to answer Chris' plea for a way to challenge US hegemony.

The recent total and absolute and crushing defeat of the English cricket
team by the Australians has been a source of some satisfaction in the homes
of Irish exiles.  But truth to tell cricket no longer occupies the space of
the "national game" that it once did here in Oz and so no one under 30
years old seems to care very much. In these days of postmodernist niche
marketing there is little interest in the National commodity. There was
though an interesting footnote to the victory celebrations.

Australia has a star slow bowler called Shane Warne.  I know this will be
beyond American readers if they are still with me. But they have to think
of the greatest pitcher that there has ever been or the greatest basketball
player that ever there was (Michael Jordan?). Warne was that good in 1993.
I have been following cricket for 40 years and I have never seen such a
destroyer of batsmen as Warne was 4 years ago.  He has lost that and is now
simply just very good.  Too good for our English friends.

Anyway to cut a long story short when the Australian team achieved victory,
 Warne in full view of the cameras got up on the roof of the dressing room
and did a victory dance.  This was the kind of effort that heterosexual
football players loved to put on when they are as pissed as parrots.  All
that was missing was the drag gear.  Warne ended his performance with an
up-yours gesture to the English.  But this was no mere digitus impudicus.
Here we had the full fist thrust - like something one would encounter
somewhere in the back alleys of Castro Street.

I was watching Warne’s performance with my sons and they laughed and said
"He's a real yobbo, isn't he?"  "Yobbo" is not really translatable outside
this culture.  But it is a vital component of the Australian male psyche.
It forms a compatible duality with that other great word "larrikin" and
between them they very much cover Australian popular male culture.  All
that was missing was the other component of the dialectic - the voice of
the respectable.

Predictably today one of the leading papers took Warne to task for taunting
those he had helped rout.  The contrast here was with the English captain,
Atherton, who was extremely dignified and graceful in defeat.  So there we
have it- the mixture that defines the Australian male psyche.  It is a
three sided dialectic.  There is a pair consisting of yobbo and larrikin.
Yobbos are those who take down their trousers and moon their opponents.
Larrikins are the nearest that Australians ever get to being rebels.  They
nick a bit of equipment from the workplace.  They throw beer cans at
football games.   They curse all politicians.  They say there is no
difference between them.  They refuse to salute their officers.  Their
uniforms are untidy etc. etc.

But opposite this duality is the respectability pole.  This ensures that
though they abuse politicians and swear off politics, they will always
vote.  Respectability sees to it that though they take down their pants and
brown eye their opponents they will hastily pull the trousers back up again
when they are caught in the act. It also guarantees that though their
uniforms are untidy and the salute is a shambles they will inevitably obey
the order to go into battle.

Together yobboism, larrikinism and respectability form a subaltern complex.
 But this is a duplicitous structure.  The tensions between them are all on
the surface.  Yobboism, larrikinism, and respectability may seem to be in
opposition but between them they create the situation which means that the
Australian working class tends to view their enemies as their betters.  It
is why in this country we have no revolutionary tradition with the
exception of one or two minor uprisings led by the Irish.  White male
Australia has inherited a colonial consciousness and by and large it is
very happy within that framework. 

An essential element in the white colonial complex is that the colonizers
regards England as the "mother country" and feel desperately inferior and
accordingly resentful towards the English. This also accounts for why
national myths are couched in terms of human maturation.  Thus the standard
mythology has it that Australia came of age and gew up when their soldiers
fought and were slaughtered at Gallipoli in WW1. That is also why they make
such a fuss about beating the English cricket team - a feat that almost
anyone could emulate.

That is also why is Australia's most brilliant and very best was up on the
dressing room roof making a fool of himself and that is why some time
within the next 48 hours there will be an apology for any offence he may
have caused the English - his superiors.

regards

Gary




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