While some argue Tony Abbott has “opened up the culture wars” by declaring the practice of respecting traditional Aboriginal land owners at official gatherings as “out of place tokenism”, you can’t deny that though controversial, the Ab-Blaster has a point. These repeatedly enforced preambles for the Whatever Tribe Of Wherever grow ever more meaningless each ensuing shindig, and are at best, descending into farce.
It isn’t culture, it’s clutter. PCYC CEO Chris Gardiner has also picked up the dustpan and brush, declaring kicking off parliament with the Lord’s Prayer is not only intolerable, but “anachronistic at best… superstitious at worst”. The message is clear – it’s time for a clean out Australia!
This is a big, brown and far too dusty land, and there’s plenty more mouldy, moth-eared, curry-stained tokenistic traditions still loitering about the flat, in desperate need of either chucking in the wash, or just a good old chucking out.
Anzac Day marches:
This bizarre annual tradition of old blokes marching up and down city streets, blocking shopping access to discount fashion outlets and electrical goods warehouses, has surely done its dash.
Every year it’s the same old tired routine; same old dudes, same old war that was so like, ages ago. Most of them don’t even bother actually marching anymore and resort to sitting lazily in their cars, waving aimlessly at a bunch of out-of-focus onlookers.
Really, what’s the point? You’ve got your R.S.L clubs for this ridiculous indulgent nostalgia, please stop forcing it on our footpaths. It’s in the past old-timers, time to move on. Lest we forget? Lest we bloody try to!
Christmas Day:
A long time ago, some bloke claiming to be the son of god was born and yada yada yada. Yeah, we know. In fact we know so well, we based our entire calendar around it. Jesus, what more do you want from us?
The only thing that’s become more part of the furniture than the Christmas story, is Christmas Day itself.
Every year the carbon copy of boredom is the same; wake up in the morning to screaming kids if you have them, or a screaming hangover if you don’t; trundle your sorry state to some sort of family gathering and try not to get into a fight with an in-law. Talk about obligation on a biblical scale.
Jesus Christ died for our sins people, so let’s not make it harder for the guy by cluttering our collective souls with more of ‘em. Stick a fork in Christmas, it’s done.
Voting:
As you should be well aware by now through shocking fines or shocking boredom, voting is compulsory in Australia. Now if we’re talking token efforts, surely the manner in which we choose our nation’s leaders is the mother of them all.
The sleep-inducing voting process is like dull de ja vu - same boring candidates, same boring forms, no fun word jumbles or Sudoku puzzles between the House of Reps and the Senate, just the mindless colouring in of tiny squares on offensively oversized pieces of paper. You don’t even get coloured pencils to choose from.
Where’s all the passion and excitement as promised on the hustings? It is of course totally absent, obliterated by the totalitarian obligation to roll up, or else. The whole thing needs abolishing. All those in favour, say meh.
Funeral ceremonies:
Ashes to ashes, dust to d… yawwwwwwwn. Really, what’s the point of all this morbidly overblown pomp and ceremony?
“He was a great man”. “I’m sorry for your loss”. “She’s in a better place”. Oh please. I bet you say that to all the grievers.
Furthermore it’s so typical of human beings, even after they’ve shuffled off the mortal coil, to force their survivors to sit through another a self-aggrandising sideshow of “me-me-me”. Selfish creatures ‘till the bitter end. R.I.P to funerals I say, and may God have mercy on their souls.
Foreplay:
By very definition, foreplay is a redundant notion. As the tiny green Jedi master Yoda might say, “Foreplay? There is no foreplay. There is only play, or play not”.
Come on, we’re all consenting adults here. We’ve been around the block a few times, we know what’s going to happen. Yet each time, women get all uppity when blokes even dream of skipping the pointless preamble of respecting the traditional owner of the woman’s body, and leap straight into the meat of the matter.
Foreplay is just another token effort that needs a binning, along with sticking around once the formalities are over, and any suggestions that maybe the speeches could “go a bit longer next time”.
Saying hello:
This is probably the most shocking token offender all. Every day, Earth’s population seem hell-bent on being polite to each other by actually saying, “hello”. Some even go so far as to embellish this meaningless social ritual with physical contact, by holding the other person’s hand and literally shaking it up and down in a warm and welcoming manner.
Give me a break. I can see you, you can see me. We are both aware of each other, and that at some point we might interact. So can we just drop this ridiculous greeting charade once and for all?
I implore anyone who actually meets Tony Abbott not to offend him with such an insultingly empty, token gesture.
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