Loyalty Down Under

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

Loyalty Down Under
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A nation is made great by the loyalty of its citizens to a noble and mutual cause.

  In Japan you are loyal to the Company. You start each dawn with the eight verses of the Company song, toil hard alongside your colleagues for ten to twelve hours, then drink a litre of sake with the same colleagues after hours till midnight. For your five-day annual holidays you all go away together to a work-motivation camp where you discuss, naturally, the production problems of a company you know you will stay with for the rest of your life.

  In Italy, on the other hand, you're loyal to the Family. Yours, that is. One uncle owns the angora goats that another uncle shears and brings to the village where aunts and cousins weave the wool into cashmere, which when brought to town father cuts into patterns which your six brothers and sisters sew into exclusive outfits to be sold around places like Australia under a David Jones label.

  In Australia loyalty is seen in a totally different light.

Here allegiance to any party is pointless because none of them will provide you with much in the way of luxuries, schools or lodgings, things which, in any case, are more easily obtained in Australia by borrowing money from a bank or credit union. Devotion to the family is also superfluous as by staying at home you will only get in the way. Besides, Mum and Dad are already under enough stress from each other. And it's certainly not necessary to show loyalty to the company you work for since by moving on to a new position you are not only vacating the job for somebody else but reducing unemployment as well.

  In Australia your loyalty is to brand-names.

  Here words such as Vegemite, Aeroplane Jelly and Violet Crumble inspire same fervour and arouse the same high adrenalin level that terms like partiya, famiglia or chosei do to the body chemistry of overseas loyalists.

  Just as Poles in exile become all tearful at the site of the beloved red and white flag of their nation, Australians away from their home country go jelly-like in the knees as the mere sight of a Vegemite red and orange label.

  Very early in life children in a place such as Northern Ireland learn to be loyal to the Protestant or Catholic parties of their respective backgrounds. In Nicaragua kids became aware at a tender age that they have to choose between loyalty to the Sandinistas or the Contras. Similarly in Australia, even in isolated outback places, your childhood loyalties are established at a tender age between Kelloggs and Sanitarium, Fountain and Rosella, Cadbury or Nestles, Peters and Streets.

  Since Australians are no less fiercly loyal than overseas zealots, if you love Vegemite you simply don't eat Marmite; Monte Carlo aficionados won't have a bar of Iced Vo Vo's; while Fosters drinkers avoid Tooheys like the plague. It's all out war between Brut and Old Spice splashers. Tampax wielders won't go near a Modess. Ansell fans won't touch a Durex with a ten foot pole. Generations of Holden enthusiasts wouldn't be seen dead in a Ford.

  Your favourite brand names stay with you for life and allegiance to them proves your steadfastness of character to everyone. Successful persons in Australia always know to trot out their loyalties at the right moment in order to create the correct impression:
  "Oh, I've eaten Aeroplane Jelly from the time I was six, and haven't tried anything else ever since."
  "No matter how poor we were I would only use Kleenex toilet rolls in the bathroom."
  "I don't go for any of these fancy cheeses, just give me a slice of Coon."

  You are also expected to maintain your brand-name loyalties right through your rise to the top to show that underneath you are really an acceptable, ordinary Australian. Hence though you may drink a French cognac like Courvoisier in private, in public you still go for Vic Bitter or XXXX. And though you may wear an original Swiss-made Rolex, point out that it is held on by your favourite Woolworths watchband.

Copyright © 1991-2002 - Robert Treborlang

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

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