Melbourne Tour October 2007 - Part 3
An Aside About The Word "Hate"
While I was in Melbourne I was wandering up Swanston Street when my eye was taken by the Green Left mob, selling their paper and trying to get at least some dialogue happening with us passers by.
When I was much younger I used to like badges, particularly ones that were vaguely political but ambiguous and (I think like many of my generation) wore them like my mum wore brooches. I remember a particular favourite was "Social deviants against the bomb". There was a young woman next to a board of badges proclaiming "Howard Hater". Given that we're now at last into the real campaign, I thought it might be time to make a little quiet protest of my own again.
I asked if there was anything else less blatant to which this young woman turned on me and said, "but don't you hate him?"
I replied that I certainly hated what John Howard had done to the country, despise what he represents or how he has no idea what life's like for anyone on a low income - anyone like me. However, I felt that he was probably very sincere in doing what he felt was the right thing for the country. In short, I don't hate the person - I hate the politics.
Somehow, I had committed the great sin.... is the concept of "sin" applicaple to the Demorcratic Socialist Party? A question for another time I think...... in this instance, I dared to not hate the perptrator of so many of the social woes of the past decade.
I suggested that the button "Stop HoWARd" was more my statement, with the letters "stop" and "war" in blood red. I further suggested that the notion of applying a personal hatred at the feet of any individual was perpetuating the very principals that Howard and his government stand for. The very same principals of patriarchal control that have been shoved down our throats for more years than can be counted.
There's more than one song in that.
Somedays I despair of what we - Australians as a nation - have become.
While I was in Melbourne I was wandering up Swanston Street when my eye was taken by the Green Left mob, selling their paper and trying to get at least some dialogue happening with us passers by.
When I was much younger I used to like badges, particularly ones that were vaguely political but ambiguous and (I think like many of my generation) wore them like my mum wore brooches. I remember a particular favourite was "Social deviants against the bomb". There was a young woman next to a board of badges proclaiming "Howard Hater". Given that we're now at last into the real campaign, I thought it might be time to make a little quiet protest of my own again.
I asked if there was anything else less blatant to which this young woman turned on me and said, "but don't you hate him?"
I replied that I certainly hated what John Howard had done to the country, despise what he represents or how he has no idea what life's like for anyone on a low income - anyone like me. However, I felt that he was probably very sincere in doing what he felt was the right thing for the country. In short, I don't hate the person - I hate the politics.
Somehow, I had committed the great sin.... is the concept of "sin" applicaple to the Demorcratic Socialist Party? A question for another time I think...... in this instance, I dared to not hate the perptrator of so many of the social woes of the past decade.
I suggested that the button "Stop HoWARd" was more my statement, with the letters "stop" and "war" in blood red. I further suggested that the notion of applying a personal hatred at the feet of any individual was perpetuating the very principals that Howard and his government stand for. The very same principals of patriarchal control that have been shoved down our throats for more years than can be counted.
There's more than one song in that.
Somedays I despair of what we - Australians as a nation - have become.
posted by Debra Manskey at 12:33 pm
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