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I've gotta get out of this country. I'm sending out my words via the internet because I fear that soon escape may be impossible, all lines of communication cut off, Big Brother camera crews roving the streets for the entertainment of the world. An isolated community. A sociological experiment. A ratings boom.
It's getting stranger here. On tonights news there was little Johnny Howard, our Prime Minister In A Can, Our Ventriloquest Dummy Lookalike Head Of State, Mr. Sheen, turning up at the opening of somethingorother to the jeers of hundreds of "students" protesting about somethingorotherelse and he was grinning like a Chesire Cat. One big smile, it took up the entire portion of his face not already occupied with housing his eyebrows.
It was the most strained smile in the history of the world, ever. Honest.
I wondered, "why does he DO that?", because he does, do that, all the time. Well, every time he's booed at by screaming "students" he does anyway. The rest of the time he's a dour sod. Anyway... I was watching the news and it just got scarier and scarier. I could get straight to the point, but, being me, I shall first give you a potted history of Australian Overseas Policy.
OK, let's start a few years ago, everything before that was relatively normal. Relative to what was happening in the rest of the world anyway. *wishy washy special effect as used in crap 70's British Sit-coms like Father Dear Father, And Mother Makes Five, The Benny Hill Show and Morcombe and Wise (most of which I loved by the way) that signified a dream sequence or change to another dimension*.
For some reason, all of a sudden, illegal immigrants were the talk of the nation. The news was full of them turning up at random in the unlikeliest of vessels, hundreds piled up on top of each other on a tyre inner tube. Stuff like that. We'd look at them on the telly and remark "s'amazin innit!", full of admiration. We got bored with that stage pretty quickly. Things got more intersting. The Government decided that they were sick and tired of these bloody foreigners without the proper paperwork turning up at all times of the night, knocking on the doors of coastal communities and generally bothering them with minor problems like housing and, worst of all, the processing of reams and reams of paperwork that has to be created in order to process people who didn't, or couldn't, get the proper forms in the first place. "Where to put them" they cried quietly to nobody in particular that cared and came up with the best, they thought, possible answer. Out in the middle of fucking NOWHERE in a disused military base that they hadn't thought of a use for for probably fifty years. They could have tested nuclear bombs there in the 60's for all I know, it looks like that kind of place. Don't quote me. So, the Government decides to start intercepting these rafts made of matchsticks and turn them away back to where they came from. Stop 'em before they even reach Australian waters. Clever. That worked for a short time until the invaders began to get desperate and started throwing their children into the sea and igniting their own boats so the Coast Guard or Navy vessel had no choice but to save them.
Checkmate.
Ah but we had an ace up our sleeve. These refugees didn't have a hell of a lot of say about where they got put off. Home wouldn't have them, the location of this mystical place/concept "home" was often difficult to work out anyway. They lied to us. New Zealand! Yep, they'd have some. Cool. Um... Christmas Island? Is that Ours? Excellent. Nice name, handy too because they're nearby and willing to take these people off our hands in exchange for shitloads of cash. Fair enough. Astute and enterprising even, admirable.
Unfortunately this got our attention and suddenly we all started wondering things like, "well where ARE all these poor sods anyway?". We'd all seen September 11. We couldn't blame them for running away from somewhere and something like that. Where were they? Um, came the reply, y'know how there's this huge giant boring bit that takes up nearly all of our land, the worlds smallest continent and the worlds largest country, that hot nasty desserty bit that we never use? They're in the middle of that.
Oh, we said. Fair enough.
They didn't like it. They started doing things like jumping off roofs into razor wire. Excuse me? What was that? Razor wire? Protesters gathered. Tempers flared. The police told everyone to fuck off up the road a bit and they did. Our police are armed. We do what we're told. Someone overseas decides that this has become interesting enough to make it as a novelty article on CNN and suddenly we think the eyes of the world are upon us. Apparently we don't mind because the opinion poles announce that the majority support Little Johnny Howard (sorry but the "Little" IS obligatory) in his stand against these ruffians. Only these "students" seem to have a problem. Who cares if international aid organisations are now badmouthing us to everyone that will listen? Who needs them anyway? We can do what we like, let's not ratify treaties, apologise for anything, ever, and let's just generally be in charge of everthing in a really big and public and gesticulating and smiling way. What's the point of being the biggest nerd in the history of dorks in Australia if you can't act taller and stuff?
So that's where we are with them, it sets the scene for what has now become the prevalent attitude regarding anyone who's "not like the rest of us", whatever that means.
We don't trust them.
The main story here tonight, well, right after something about football anyway, the one that made me see how threatening this place is becoming, was one about a bunch of rapists. It's not new news, it's ongoing news, an update on a continuingly fascinating, and apparently country-spirit morale boosting, story about how enormous the sentences are that they are receiving. They were a gang, all apprehended and being tried at a rate sufficient to reward us with the glorious news of a 55 year sentence or just less every few days. It's a ratings winner. Tonight some footballers died in a car crash admittedly so it got shoved back a little further in the orderbut it was the first non sports news bit of news. The one that's mentally deficiant and will be housed in some ward for the wacky wing got 25 years. The one with the IQ of 67, placing him in the lowest 1%. He was a minor at the time, now 19. The one that, like the rest of his gang, is Islamic. Oooohhhhh, we don't trust them! They don't respect women, they shouldn't be here, they're all the same.
I imagined a country where all borders were closed. Nobody in, nobody out. A show like America's Most Amazing Police Car Chases. The more police cars that get equipped with cameras, the more material the TV producers will have to sift through and so the better the quality of what's shown to us, the viewing audience. The more people that have video camera's, the better the quality of Funniest Home Videos becomes. Imagine a country, like Australia, locked inside Australia. Add cameras everywhere, every single person in the land miked up and on air 24/7.Imagine how much excellent stuff there would be to show. If you ony had to make up one hour of viewing per week of the nations highlights, the most dramatic or hillarious moments of anyone in the entire country, it would be great television. Australia's Funniest that really IS Australia's funniest, Big Brother with millions of housemates.
And I thought. I'd be ON that show! Of all the people in the country, I bet my life would make a recurring appearance.
So I typed this. |
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