off the track

The Australian flag and patriotism are in the news again today and Australia Day isn’t until Friday.  There’s debate over whether or not the flag has a place at functions like The Big Day Out rockfest  where – after the Serb-Croat brawling at the tennis – the organisers are wary flags could be magnets for more unruly behaviour.

And there is the usual debate over what Australia Day means to you and what exactly is ‘unAustralian behaviour’.

The flag debate is reminiscent of the United States during the Vietnam War protests. Not only was burning the flag an offence but a hippie was arrested and charged with desecration of the Stars and Stripes for wearing part of a flag as a patch on the bum of his torn jeans.

In this country girls now wear tiny bits of the Australian flag as  bikini tops at the cricket and the tennis. Nobody seems to complain.

There is another issue about patriotism which Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, may have unwittingly bought into at the weekend. It concerns  the revered Kokoda Track.

It epitomises the hardship and heroism of Aussie soldiers and their loyal fuzzy wuzzy supporters as they stopped the Japanese advance through the Pacific and right on our doorstep.

Villagers, from along the track, have threatened to close it, unless they get more of the tourists’ dollars.

At the weekend, Kevin Rudd  pledged to secure the future of the Kokoda Track with a World Heritage listing.  A fine ideal. But it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The Kokoda Track is in somebody else’s country. That they let it be used as a pilgrimage for Aussies is a privilege not a right.

The same as Gallipoli. We are lucky that Turkey has preserved the World War One battle site for posterity.  They could easily have turned it into a parking lot. We see Gallipoli as the epitome of the Diggers’ bravery and sacrifice. They see it as a place where invaders – Australians, New Zealanders, French and British – tried to over-run their country. And despite losing nearly 90,000  men the Turks won. We retreated.

This sounds harsh but imagine of the Japanese insisted on deciding the fate of Fort Denison, Pinchgut, in Sydney Harbour. If they saw it as a memorial of just how close they got to invading Australia with mini- submarines in Sydney Harbour?

Or they did the same in Darwin – the city they bombed. It’s easy to put one’s hand over one’s heart and make pledges about Kokoda. It’s not that simple.

Monday, January 22, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007