Press leads our 'cultural cringe'

Most Australians other than the self-styled cultural elite are pretty comfortable with who they are and don’t give a damn if others dislike it. On the other hand there are the breast-beating pompous prats who have a vision of excellence for us, which they firmly believe we should abide by to give the right image of the nation and its people to others. Governments are very fond of telling us what Australians ought to be.

The rest of us are fairly accustomed to the reality that our leaders are ashamed of us and feel we don’t deserve them and couldn’t care less about their discomfort. There are though, a small proportion of suck-ups who aspire to present an approved image. Leading the charge among these is the press, which tends to find every criticism of us justified.

As an example, the rather sycophantic Malcolm Conn of the Herald Sun had the following to say about the Perth Test Match drinking incident:

IT'S been confirmed to many millions of Indians that Australians are a bunch of drunks. (Awwwwww)

Just hours after India captain MS Dhoni made the spurious claim that Australia’s players concocted stories about his divided team over a few beers, India television showed a dozen WACA staff drinking on the Test pitch.

Australians it seems will drink anytime anywhere without any respect or regard. Is there anything more sacred or central to a Test match than the pitch on the evening before the match? And there they were, half of them sitting, half of them standing in the middle of the WACA wicket before a match that could well decide the series.

What an insult to Test cricket and the visiting Indian team. Perception is reality and this is now reality to a significant chunk of the largest and most powerful cricket nation in the world.

The reality is that the WACA staff were having their traditional pre match drinks when the curator decided to do a final inspection of the wicket. They walked out to watch the process and were filmed by Indian television. The Indian media tend to be extremely sanctimonious about Australians and thus, it hit the fan.

While it is desirable that respect be proffered to residents of other countries where it is due, it seems that in the eyes of those like Malcolm Conn that we should be properly obsequious to anyone who wants to bitch about us over anything at all, no matter how trivial.

Next time Malcolm; tell them to go take a running jump.