Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Why we moved to Oz

We emigrated to Australia because, fundamentally, we are self concerned people, intent on protecting our narrow interests and preserving our comfort and convenience levels ( some might say with a fair degree of accuracy we are fundamentally selfish), and we wanted to be in a country where the majority shares these values of selfishness and narrow self interest, and prioritise the welfare of their narrowly defined 'own' while being innured to the suffering of the 'not ours/not us.')

We feel right at home here, where an "I'm all right Jack, I'm sitting on my piece of the pie" or "I'll be all right Jack, as soon as I've got/ regained my piece of the pie" attitude prevails.
[So main stream Australians will coo over puppies but not blink an eyelid at the industrialised cruelties of their farm industries, or of their so-called sports. (For example about 18 000 "failed" racehorses are slaughtered each year, often because they are raced before they become skeletally mature at four years old, and suffer serious injury.)

And they will defend their right to a fair go wherever obvious self interest is involved, but not be too concerened about refugeees drowning in Australia's territorial waters or exploited immigrant workers.]

Of course, to be fair, the self-concern here also creates a certain resourcedness - so there is a much broader middle class here than in countries like South Africa, where there is lip service to the notion of altruism and social justice, but the same values as Australia are the real ones, and because they function covertly as opposed to their more explicit legitimisation here in Oz, they leave many many people - the majority - outside the circle of priviledge. Whereas here the circle of priviledge is much bigger, and many more people have handled in an ongoing way, both their primary needs (shelter, food, transport) and - to some degree - their secondary ones - meaningful work (self esteem and productivity), recreation etc etc.

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