JAFA ...

Aussie - Identity
http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/new_yanks_and_jafas_why_no_one.html

“When I first started travelling, only about 10 years ago, everyone loved an Aussie. You walked into a pub, someone would hear your accent, and clap you on the shoulder and buy you a drink. "G'day," was an acceptable pick-up line.

You'd find yourself the token conversation piece at get-togethers, where you could persuade people that you wrestled kangaroos for a living. Doors magically opened, hassles were incredibly smoothed over, with the help of an Australian accent.

But it's all gone wrong ...Try the old "g'day" line at a pub in London now, and at best you'll get a roll of the eyes, at worst a "piss off jafa".

Posted by Ben Groundwater March 26, 2007 7:59 PM


Ben Groundwater published on the Sydney Morning Herald blog website this very interesting article about the australian identity and reputation throughout the world (see abstract below): New Yanks and jafas: why no one likes Aussies anymore

The article basically deals with some general clichés that Australia might have abroad; for instance, the author of these ideas plays around these new stereotypes, by affirming for example that the australian reputation used to be a better one many years before, that Australian people is now considered abroad as a drunk population using to acting in a stupid way once abroad.

Hence, he is talking about the Australians as JAFA’s (Just another f------ing Australian) and more generally, tends to adopt an ironic point of view about their image. This might be controversed as cynical in his very sarcastic way of speaking: Try the old "g'day" line at a pub in London now, and at best you'll get a roll of the eyes, at worst a "piss off jafa".
As being an international Student myself, I read these lines with a lot of attention and interest. Indeed, unconciously, I found this article so frustrating, but at the same time so ironical, that it couldn’t leave my mind.

Is it the Aussie-Identity-complex or just reality?

The National Myth of Anzac Day

“ Anzac Day now belongs to the past and during the war all energy was concentrated on the future but the influence of the Gallipoli Campaign upon the national life of Australia and New Zealand has been far too deep to fade… it was on the 25th of April 1915 that the consciousness of nationhood was born” (Bean 1924, p. 910)”

“The legacy inherited from our Anzac forebears includes values of courage, determination and respect…We have also developed a stronger sense of our national identity and realisation that our goals and aspirations were not necessarily those of the British Empire” Helen Clarke Prime Minister of New Zealand, April 25 2005

Anzac Day is based on the day of national significance. For John Howard, Australian’s prime minister, nationalism encompasses unconditional acceptance, mutual and self respect, sharing whatever is available no matter how meagre, a concept based on trust and selflessness and absolute interdependence’ (Howard, 2003).

The Anzac Day 2007 was caracterized this year with its patriotic festival showing the pride of the Australian Veterans during the fantastic march between Martin Place and Hyde Park, and the commemorial Sunset in Martin Place. However, since the late 20th century, the indigenous Australian community and their many supporters have criticized Australia Day celebrations as being excessively nationalistic.

But on this day the ideals of courage, endurance and mateship are still relevant. This tradition was established on 25 April 1915 when the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula

(www.smh.com.au/news/world/thousands-mark-anzac-day-at-gallipoli/2007/04/25/1177459765055.html - 8 May 2007 ).

Several thousand people were standing in George and Pitt street waiting for their heroes walking down the Sydney main streets. All in all, a very mythic day. Mythic because of the complementary feelings of sadness and happiness, myhtic also because of all represented generations walking and sharing the same History and Culture, and mythic because of the nationality of the event in general. The number of australian flags was impressive, the Australian pride of the marching people sensational.
But still, is Anzac Day a viable strategy to promote nationalistic behaviour in Australia?

Mr Carlsen, 54, was one of the members during the march. Coming from New Zealand to Sydney only for the Anzac Day, he tried to give me an answer to this question: "I think the media always try to convince people that these traditions are bad, nationalistic or whatever; But we - citizens - were in the war. We fought for Australia! Don't we have the right to commemorate this by walking down the Pitt Street? Of course we are "nationalistic", or better: conscious of our identity; but who isn't? People who cry because their country lost in a football game, isn't that nationalistic? We are here to remember heroes, we owe them this, don't we?".

“The soldiers died not in defence of their own land but in someone else’s war, far from home. The action in which they died was of doubtful wisdom, and was inadequately planned and executed. In the event, the soldiers died to hold for a short time a few hills, a few valleys, and a tiny stretch of beach.”
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5758 (26/04/07)

The Last Performance ...

“You will be the best audience we ever had”

The Name sounds traditional. The Choir is fantastic. Morriston Orpheus Choir was formed on 23rd April 1935 by Ivor E Sims and, in its early days concentrated primarily on competitions and local concerts. In 1937 the Choir achieved its first success at the Royal National Eisteddfod in Machynlleth, going on to win at the "National" on six further occasions. Although many years have passed since the Choir last sang in competitions, its present members do not forget the eminence which their predecessors achieved and they constantly strive for the musical excellence in which audiences at home and overseas delight.Over the years, successive Musical Directors have developed and broadened the repertoire. Variety is now the hallmark of the Choir's performances which include arrangements by Alwyn Humphreys M.B.E., Musical Director from 1979 to January 2005 (http://www.morristonorpheus.com/).

Highlights of previous overseas tours have included four appearances at British Military Tattoos and Concerts in the former West Berlin, participating at the International Choral Festivals in Nancy, France, and Toronto, Canada, representing Wales at Expo '92 in Seville, Spain, and becoming in 1996, the first British choir to perform at the International Choral Festival in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The Choir has been received enthusiastically in all the major cities of Australia and New Zealand - including standing ovations at their two appearances at the world famous Sydney Opera House.

Yesterday, I had the chance to see them live. And I was only partly surprised when the choir started a highly nationalistic welsh discourse and when suddendly, as an answer to this discourse, four welsh flags appeared in the public. The Choir was proud, the Musical Director and the rest of the public laughing.

The combination of both entertainment and singing made the content of the performance original and interesting, without appearing populistic or nonprofessional. The direct approach to the choir through the Musical Director was amusing, since we had the opportunity to listen sentences such as: “These guys here are happy with a good breakfast in the morning and a Pint in the evening”, or “We have all original members, that’s the welsh side of our repertoire”.

Everytime you walk to the opera house, you have this special feeling; you feel enchanted walking into a different era. An era of australian pride, of upper-class behaviour and of fairytale dream. With this Choir, the paradox of high-society and patriotic humor is reached. This was their last performance in Australia, after a three weeks travelling through Australia and New-Zealand. But we are all invited to Swansea/Wales ...

Rockin' for rights

“... to say that climate change is the overwhelming moral challenge for this generation of Australians is misguided at best and misleading at worst”.

Sunday morning, 22th of April, thousands of motivated people gathered in the Sydney Hyde Park in order to protest against the federal government’s industrial relations laws. The protesters then made their way to the Sydney Cricket Ground to attend the protest concert Rockin’ for Rights, which lasted several hours, and the different bands were interrupted inbetween for some protesters’ speeches. Union members made up a heavy contingent of the crowd, many of which carried protest signs, flags and balloons (see more on http://www.rockinforrights.com.au/index.html).

The main message was: “on election day ... we will be voting for rights at work". Asbestos rights campaigner Bernie Banton also addressed the crowd, saying it was time for Prime Minister John Howard to go.

He said for instance: "We had a victory, but there's a more important victory the day we can say goodbye to John Howard". Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey has conceded the union campaign against the federal government's new industrial relations (IR) laws has gained traction with voters.

Against this, Howards party claimed: "The fact that they have to use rock stars to try to get a crowd illustrates that it's not a widespread fear in the community." He's in politics now, he should avoid trying to be part of what is a protest movement on steroids," Mr Hockey said.

Mr Rudd said Labor should speak to business, unions and families in order to develop an alternative set of industrial relations laws for Australia: "At the National Press Club last week, I announced four new elements of our policy on industrial relations and we've got more to go. But that'll come out in due sequence.''

Some of the criticized points of Howard’s worklpace laws were:

(http://www.rockinforrights.com.au/say_no.html)
· Unfair Dismissal protection has been abolished for nearly 4 million workers
· Workers are being forced onto individual contracts (AWA's) that undercut pay and conditions
· Conditions such as penalty rates, overtime, holiday loadings, public holidays, redundancy pay and work allowances can all be cut
· The minimum wage is set by Government appointees, not an independent umpire

· Ordinary union activities are now illegal, attracting fines of up to $33000

Rene Baxxs, a 25 years old International Business Student at the UTS, gave me some interesting arguments during the protest march. As to him: "it is a "shame" that young employees like you and me can be fired at "any" moment during their first years of work. Where is our security?" He was comparing this to the case of France last year with the CPE (Contrat premiere embauche), where the universities closed for more than four years for similar reasons (new french law bringing in danger the work contracts in the first two years of experience). As to the protest march itself, Rene was surprised of the silence during the march. He said for instance:"In the Netherlands (where he is originated from), people is screaming, the police has to keep an eye constantly on every single corner of the demo. Here, everything was really quiet". Concerning the topic of the linkage of music and protest march, he found this a real nice idea to gather people together: "we need tricks and good music to get together, that's the sad side of our society; but however, both sides, the organization and the music get good publicity!".

Beautiful Minds...

Exposition Beautiful Minds, UTS Sydney

(http://www.nobel.uts.edu.au/)


Beautiful Minds is an extraordinary exhibition, developed by the Nobel Museumin Stockholm to celebrate 100 years of the Nobel Prize. The exhibition explores the creativity of the scientists, writers, economists and peacemakers who have been recognised by the Nobel Foundation. The exhibition examines questions such as, ‘what is creativity and how can creative activity best be encouraged? Does creativity rest with an individual or their environment?’
Beautiful minds has travelled to nine countries including Norway, Japan, Korea, America, Britain and Singapore. UTS is its only Australian destination.


It was today, in a beautiful Sunday morning mood, that I decided to have a look at this UTS exposition, going on until June 2007 in the building of the UTS, University of Technology Sydney.

With my brandnew camera, I walked to the main entry of our famous tower building and saw in Shanes’ eyes, my personal guide for today. Shane Ullman is science student at UTS, very interesting and with a lot of knowledge about physics, chemestry and sciences. His enthousiasm
about the exhibition helped me in clearly understanding the main scheme of the exposition with its main actors and destinations.

Beginning with Mr. Nobel, responsible for our dynamite, many others followed with the DNA, the radioactivity and heaps of other interesting theories.

Shane told me in an interview that Alfred Nobel, the discoverer of the Atombomb, even travelled to Australia and set there the origins of the national Nobel-Prize.

The exposition is not only about Nobel prize winners and their contents during the last century. It is also about History, Culture, contextualization and networks. Indeed, which role plays each individual in this huge network of science, economics and peace? How can every single person contribute to this giant network of knowledge? How can this knowledge be judged, evaluated? Who knows exactly that this nobel prize winner was de facto the real first one and not only some plagiarist destinated to steal the money of intelligence?

Another interesting question throughout the exposition was about nationalism of knowledge. What makes this installation very “norwegian”, where are the main ideas originated from? Which country get the biggest part of institutions? Where lays the link between knowledge and power? During the conference about nationalism of the nobel prize, the question of "why does Australia doesn;t have its own nobel-prize" was an interesting issue of the exhibition itself.

The exposition is awesome in many ways of consideration: the media installation in itself is one of the best I have ever seen, the multi cultural atmosphere makes us, international students, feel very comfortable; and the perfect coordination of lights, music and movie screens gives a great sense of harmony to the whole installation. Absolutely fantastic!

For further information: http://www.utsnews.uts.edu.au/

SUSO Orchestra - traditional and very professional

The Sydney University Symphony Orchester (SUSO)

The Sydney University Symphony Orchestra (SUSO) is one of the leading student musical groups at the University of Sydney. SUSO is made up of around 50 players from all over the university and rehearses on Monday nights during semester. The orchestra is administered by an eight person committee and is conducted by George Ellis (http://susymphony.googlepages.com/info.htm).

The first concert for 2007 was on the 18th of April in the great Hall of the University of Sydney. Not only is this place a fantastic performation of a long cultural tradition, but it is also perfect for the musical representation of fifty senior talented musicians of the University of Sydney.

After the performance, I had the opportunity to talk to Michael, one of the violonists in the SUSO Orchestra. Michael is in the group for two years now, studying medecine at the University of Sydney. What he particularly enjoys is the good atmosphere of SUSO: "concurrence is a word we don't know, even if everyone of us gives his best". Studying at the same time, he gets a scholarship to afford his student life. He says for instance: "Without the money from the Uinversity, I couldn't afford both University and Orchestra. My violin costs me a lot!"

Beginning with a Mozart Ouverture, this Orchestra followed with an extract of Schubert and finished with Rachmaninoff, a piano concerto played by the soloist Steven Whale. Even though the totality of his notes fell on the floor in the middle of his representation, this person with an excellent sense of humor left the stage by closing his piano with a charming smile. See you next year!

SUSO EXECUTIVE FOR 2007
PRESIDENTAndrew Luboski

VICE PRESIDENT Showhey Matsui

SECRETARY Paul McMullen

TREASURER David Quach

PERSONNEL MANAGER Susanna Matters
SOCIAL EVENTS MANAGER Natalie Zwar

LOGISTICS MANAGER Daniel Ward

LIBRARIAN Aimee Nguyen

TECHINICAL SUPPORT OFFICER Joseph Cortbawi