Wrapped in the Flag
The holiday season is so much fun. Fresh from battling chicko-shops over nativity scenes, the reactionary forces of right-wing political correctness are raising a hue and cry over Sydney’s New Year’s Eve celebrations. Plans for the annual sound-and-light display now include a giant disco ball hanging from the Harbour Bridge and a disco remix of the national anthem. Sounds like a party.

It’s amazing to me to have been here for two years now and to have heard consistently throughout that period Australian consternation over American patriotic displays only to now encounter the same behavior. “You Americans,” I’ve been told, “always hanging out your flag”; “the national anthem is played at every sporting event? How strange” “Children recite the Pledge of Allegiance?” Yeah, it’s true, although they don’t have to say “under God” if they don’t want to. Yes, there’s Flag Day. Yes, we sing the anthem, if we know the words, before each baseball-football-basketball-etc. game, off-key, too. Now somebody wants to put a beat on Advance Australia Fair (is there a comma in there somewhere?) and look what happens.

I like Australia’s low-key patriotism. We go a bit over the top in the States sometimes (especially when the Bushes and Reagans start up about Constitutional Amendments to protect the flag). I like Australia’s sense of humor, too; a dry, satirical wit, often enough, when it isn’t boldly scatological. So what’s happened? Where’s all this coming from? Perhaps it’s all just a beat-up from the talk-radio morons. But what a noise.

Most likely, this is all Clover Moore’s fault. Yes, the new Lord Mayor of Sydney – suddenly everyone’s discovered that their distrust of government put in office someone who isn’t going to just give them business-as-usual. She looks different, acts different, so everything she does is wrong. These are the people who put John Howard back into office for his “historic” fourth term, and with Bob Carr under siege, Labor’s days now appear numbered in NSW and the city. Especially if the crowd down at the Opera House don’t Hustle on 31 December.