Originally dispatched on 13 May 2014
Hoe gaat het vrienden,
Many Australians arrogantly believe my adoptive country is in every way the best country in the southern hemisphere. My mother used to say “Australië is het beste land ter wereld, maar in Canberra zijn er mensen die hun best doen om het te verpesten” (Australia is the best country in the world, but in Canberra there are some that do their level best to spoil it).
The denizens of my country of birth are often stereotyped as arrogant and many are. I believe no society or country is devoid of arrogant members. Germany is no exception.
I calculate it to have been in 1991 that a kombi van full of tourists pulled up at our petrol pump. One of my hobbies is to pick accents. I derive satisfaction from getting it right, and embarrassment from getting it wrong. The Dutch guttural, Swiss singing and German hissing accents are the ones I’m most adept at correctly identifying.
Thus the hissing sound emanating from the kombi van prompted me to greet them with “Guten Abend” (Good evening) , “Sie sind Deutch?” (You are German?), “Nein ich bin Holander” (No, I’m Dutch-why confuse them?), “Wass machts du den in dass Arsh der Welt” (I won’t bother to check the spelling)(What are you doing here in the arsehole of the world?). This took me aback. My German is not adequate enough to come up with an instant repartee. By the time I’d worked out what I should have said it was zu späht (too late). No point in yelling out “kommen Sie zurük!” (Come back!). What I should have said was “ Nein dass stimmt nicht- dass Arsh der Welt ist dass zwartze Walt in Deutchland” (No, that is wrong, the arsehole of the world is the black forest in Germany) .
My father’s childhood circumstances resulted in him being fully Dutch/German bilingual. I called him on the phone to tell him ‘ik heb net een ervaring met uw landgenoten gehad” (I’ve just had an experience with your countrymen- ha ha ha, he hated that!) Then, for fun, we switched from Dutch to his excellent German and my so-so German. “Wissen Sie wass die sagten?” (Do you know what they said?) and then I told him, and he said “Hast du mussen sagen……” (You should have said) and rattled off a German sentence I didn’t catch. “What did that mean?” “It means ‘have you got your flags and pendants ready for 20th April?’ ” “Wass ist dass den?” “Dass ist der Geburtstag der Führer” (What is that?- that is Hitler’s birthday) “Wie alt wird der Kerl sein?” (How old would the old bastard have been?) “Ein moment…. ich glaube hundert und drei” (Hold it…I think 103) “Ah, dann ist er wirklich tot” (Then he is definitely dead) “Ja, aber aufpassen. Er ist tot, aber sein Geist lebt noch” (Yes, but look out, he may be dead, but his spirit lives on).
In Australia the pinnacle of arrogance is achieved by many politicians and public servants, who are certain of knowing all the answers.
Those questions they pose themselves or the dorothy dixers put to them by those singing from the same song sheet, they have no trouble in answering, often several times in the same reply.
For those questions they don’t know or don’t want us to know the answer to, they have raised the non-sequitur to an art form.
As for public servants, far too many don’t serve the public, only their masters.
The last Dispatch dealt with the dire consequence of unbalanced wings. So try power and justice for size!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXJV1Z6ZQoA ¿Que te ha pasado Justicia? (Justice, what has happened to you?)
A group of linguists that are involved with Brazilian native languages came to visit not long ago. This is part of an email I received:
“We’re back in Brazil after our long and eye-opening trip around the land of oz……we saw very little activism during our time there. What we did see, not only in Yuendumu, but also in the Torres Strait Islands, for instance was a lot of outraging government attempts to sabotage all language maintenance efforts and the possibility of living life in a different way. No right to be different in oz, it seems to me…..”
No right to be wrong …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HhzMRMAhXU
Regarding the dearth of activism, I’ve seen it in (in)action. The power imbalance at cross-cultural interactions makes effective activism almost impossible. Resulting is what has been described as ‘polite disattention’ not to mention that Neville Chamberlain may be dead, but his spirit lives on.
And thus new word forms arise. For instance we all know what ‘googling’ means.
Watch “The Most Interesting Word in the English Language” ….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl1i656Ja2I&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Outrage- noun
Outrageous- adjective
Outraging- verb
The bane of Aboriginal Australia- those f*cking arrogant politicians that are in charge. They are forever outraging!
Tot de volgende keer,
En nu een mooi liedje om mee te eindigen…
Frenk
Met wat hulp van m’n vrienden…..