THE EROSION OF AN AUSSIE ICON

We Australians revel in our image as knock-about, easy-going, down-to-earth folks. Despite the continent’s harsh climate, its "droughts and flooding rains", its bushfires, its snakes, spiders, rogue man-eating sharks and a myriad other venomous bitin’ stingin’ things, we are nonetheless internationally renowned for our happy-go-lucky ability to wade through adversity largely unfazed.

“We are one, but we are many”, so the 1987 hit “We are Austra-lian” tells us. Bruce Woodley’s hymn for a nation entreats us to be tolerant of our differences and to embrace and indeed revel in our cultural and ethnic diversity and it must be said, we have been pretty successful in that endeavour.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of Australians, regardless of their origins, are city dwellers, the image of Australia is the image of the cattleman, the grazier and the bush. 

Ask anyone overseas what he or she thinks of when ‘Australia’ is mentioned and it’s images of the outback's far horizons, Ayers Rock and Hugh Jackman jumping off a horse that people conjure-up, not the Opera House, Kings Cross, Bondi or even (heaven forefend) its lapidary-jawed vet.

And when  we send a contingent of elite young sporting men and women to represent us overseas, do we dress them in drop-arse jeans barely held at pubic level by a silver-lame belt, accompanied by pointy court jester shoes and a horizontally striped metro-sexual v-neck t-shirt? No! 

When representatives of our superior physical prowess tread the world stage we want the medal bearers dressed proper, in a Drizabone, R.M Williams’ boots and an Akubra!

But despite the way we like to imagine ourselves and indeed want others to imagine us as a nation, an increasing number of metro-dwellers work doggedly to erode the way of life that is synonymous with the Aussie image. 

They do it with growing intolerance and a demonstrable contempt for cultural diversity they don’t even bother to hide. They are slowly, insidiously striving to erase the Aussie bushmans' way of life, to reduce it to nothing more than a romantic but extinct theme.

Everyday millions of ‘Australians’ busy themselves scuttling about in the completely artificial temperature controlled environments that are our major cities. Seldom looking up from their smart-phones other than to briefly get their bearings, they Facebook, Tweet, Instagram and text the same old people day in day out, rather than turning to greet the person sitting next to them on the train with a “hello” or “nice day isn’t it” thereby engaging with someone new of flesh and blood.

If you’ve been lost in the city lately perhaps you know the futility of trying to get directions from people who stuff their ears with speakers and focus their eyes on some electronic device at nipple-level in order to block out the reality of the press of nameless strangers they’re forced to wade through in their daily activities? 

If you want to know which pocket a city-dweller keeps his wallet in, just try smiling at him.  As if by instinct a hand will immediately secure the wallet’s secret location as its owner moves cautiously on, his face a study in fretting paranoia.

Influenced by fashion, popular opinion as dictated by Kochie & Samantha and whatever popped up on social media just then, these are people of the moment. Their opinions are absolutist, zealously promoted and always correct - obviously! They are ever conscious of the rights of the individual, they are politically correct to a fault and completely free from pretty prejudices. 

They are also supercilious, intolerant and in terms of their capacity to influence the world about them, largely impotent too. It is the frustration born of this impotence among millions of similarly impotent people that makes city folk inclined to lash out in bouts of indignant outrage in the hope of imposing their will upon others, thus alleviating their impotence, if only very briefly. (That may well be an oxymoron?) 

This is evident nowhere more than in the city’s attitude of contempt toward the bush.

The rural way of life is under constant attack from the new-age, metropolitan latte lapper, who loathes our traditions and considers us children desperately in need of enlightened counsel and a firm hand. The message is clear – if we in the city do not approve, you in the country must cease the activity immediately...we know best...that is an order! 

Rural folk are considered whingers by city folk tired of listening to them “carry-on” about droughts, floods, feral plagues, market prices, import competition, interest rates and so on. Our farmers are under constant attack for their intensive farming practices by the very people whose desire to live crammed together like sardines in a wasteland of concrete and steel, make those intensive practices necessary.

Each year thousands of tree-changers, jaded with city life, move to the country to escape overcrowding, pollution, violence and the faceless nameless insular way of life that makes even the neighbours of 10 years comparative strangers.  And right away everything must change! 

Lord knows how these simple country folk managed before their salvation arrived in the form of someone with a newly acquired Indian name and “a vision” for a fully biodegradable, ergonomically designed, wind-generated vegan future based on a sound community owned lentil economy.

In short order, because they know better than generations of locals, they run for Council and eventually take a turn at being Mayor, at which point they settle down to the job their unique talents and experience make them ideally suited to – turning a rural utopia into a carbon copy of the commercialised, impersonal and overpopulated social disaster they fled. 

And before you know it community life is changing to suit the visions of a handful of masseuses, tarot readers, sculptors and macrobiotic restaurateurs who are all united by their common love of esoteric Hindu names and the sense of creative freedom derived from destroying centuries of rural tradition in the name of ‘philosophical enlightenment’ and ‘progress’.

People in the bush are tired of being criticised and belittled by city-folk who have little or no genuine understanding of life in the bush, nor any concern for how much our traditions mean to us.  

Rural Australians' lifestyle and cultural activities are distinct from those of city dwellers and we are very proud of those distinctions. If our city cousins do not wish to share in our rich culture and practice our traditions alongside us, we respect their right to conscientiously and respectfully abstain. 

We do not expect to be targeted with culturally intolerant bigotry as is increasingly the case.

Our leaders and social commentators make much of the need and desirability of tolerance in Australia; indeed tolerance is increasingly celebrated as a most desirable higher intellectual attribute. But I often wonder how many people actually know what ‘tolerance’ means: 

Tolerance [tol-er-uh ns], noun - a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.  (The Oxford Dictionary)

The fact is, there is no ‘tolerance’ inherent in the acceptance of something one does not object to. Those who embrace contentious issues that do not challenge them e.g. abortion or same sex marriage, are not displaying tolerance at all.

For the virtue of tolerance to shine, one must, by definition, display it in relation to something one does not approve of or have some personal interest in, and in this regard agencies such as the Greens are abject failures!

When it comes to our most iconic and distinctly rural activities such as hunting, fishing, shooting, rodeos and equestrian events etc., the response of highly metro-centric agencies like the Greens, Animals Australia and Gun Control Australia is to declare them evil and demand they end immediately! 

They will then proceed to denigrate participants and practitioners with offensive epithets, which question their intellectual capacity, their evolutionary progress and even the size of their genitalia.

Once upon a more tolerant time, a person would demonstrate his opposition to an endeavour or practice by denying it his support and patronage. But not today. Today we must voice our opposition in the strongest possible terms! 

And of course one must launch petitions...thousands and thousands of meaningless petitions, each one testimony to the petitioners' intolerance and proof that bigotry is a flame that attracts many a kamikaze moth. 

Country folk are tired of the ignorant, holier than thou attitudes of self-absorbed people whose notion of community extends to pulling faces on social networking media and striving to make people ROTFLTAO.  Our message to our city cousins is simple....if you want to join us and participate in our way of life – the way of life Australia is renowned and admired for the world over – we would love to have you join us. 

If you don’t approve of the lifestyle, culture and traditions of those who put the food on your tables and produce the raw materials that sole your shoes and put the textiles on your backs, you are welcome to leave us in peace.

But be warned! We will no longer ignore the threat you pose to our cherished way of life. 

The manner in which rural folk across the wide brown land have risen in support of Narooma’s HuntFest is just one example of an increasingly effective and highly energised rural unity movement that is committed to the preservation of the Australian way of life.

And of course as the policies of the major parties grow less distinguishable from each other and even less inspiring with each passing day, we grow more inclined to vote on lifestyle issues dear to our hearts. 

A party that has worked tirelessly to deliver for bush and the party that has consistently demonstrated its willingness to work with other responsible parties in that same endeavour is the Shooters & Fishers Party

The Party's support is growing. New branches are popping-up in jurisdictions across Australian, due in no small part to dissatisfaction with the poor treatment rural constituencies have received in recent years. 

The next battle will be fought in NSW in March 2015 and of course the Party is already in campaign mode. 

If you are not a member of the Shooters & Fishers Party in your state or territory I encourage you to consider paying just $30 p.a. to become a member and support the party that fights to preserve your recreational activities, your lifestyle and your culture.

If you're interested in Campaign 2015 visit the website where you can also find out how to help by promoting the Party or handing out how to vote material for a couple of hours at your local polling station on election day.

Anyway, I'll get outaya way now....

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"EXTINCT" VAMPIRE DEER SURVIVES WAR AND AFGHAN POACHERS

The last time a scientist confirmed a sighting of the elusive Kashmir musk deer, World War II had drawn to a close just a few short years earlier. In the decades that followed, it began to seem likely that deforestation, unregulated hunting and warfare spanning generations in the animals’ native Afghanistan had driven it to extinction.

That is until a team of researchers spent considerable time interviewing locals in the Nuristan province of Afghanistan in 2008, then conducted a wildlife survey of the area, which confirmed the presence of at least one pair of the odd-looking animal that carries the trademark big eyes and overall gentle cuteness of most deer species, but with the addition of a large set of fangs protruding from the snout of the male of the species.

“Musk deer are one of Afghanistan’s living treasures,” said Peter Zahler, Deputy Director of Asia Programs for the Wildlife Conservation Society and co-author of the survey findings recently published in the journal Oryx. 

“This rare species, along with better known wildlife such as snow leopards, are the natural heritage of this struggling nation.”

The researchers also documented the carcass of a female musk deer that had been hunted in one of the villages in the region, pointing to one of the contributing factors keeping the animal out of the public eye.

“This was the first time the species was photographed in Afghanistan,” the report claims.

In addition to problems with security in Afghanistan, tracking down the musk deer is also difficult due to the inaccessible and often rocky terrain that is the animals’ preferred range.

The species is considered endangered and the WCS says its scent glands can fetch as much as $45,000 per kilogram on the black market, making it a target for poachers.

The report’s authors say musk deer need to be targeted for conservation and habitat preservation if the species is to survive, but perhaps the best indication of how likely this is to happen also comes from the WCS, which notes in its press release that conservation workers were forced to leave Nuristan in 2010 due to deteriorating security conditions.  

Anyway, I'll get outaya way now....

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