Of all the places to be attacked by a young "French national" yelling "Allah Ahbar", who would imagine a backpacker's hostel in Queensland, Australia?
Probably a mother, that's who.
One of my sisters had the Australian backpacker adventure, working as a waitress in some outback tavern, bungee-jumping, hugging koala bears... It never occurred to me to worry about her being stabbed to death by "French nationals." That was before I had access to the internet, so I didn't yet know about the cats-meat imam, the beach rioters and other colourful characters who have popped up in Oz.
My father has been to Australia a number of times, and he once brought back a book called "Dangerous Australians." It featured extremely scary snakes, man-eating plants, jumbo-jet sized bugs and probably fanged hedgehogs. Thus I was a bit nervous that my sister might encounter them.
I have a special horror of tourists who behave badly. Canadians pride ourselves on being our usual polite, self-effacing selves on holiday, and we flinch at the loudness of Americans. (Most American tourists I've come across abroad have been perfectly nice, but comparatively loud. A study should be done to see if Americans really are louder than anyone else. Germans are also loud, incidentally, and seem to think nobody around understands German when they make fun of the nuns walking across a piazza in Rome, etc.) In fact, there are also loud Canadians, very likely including me. It's hard to tell when it's you. Meanwhile, B.A. and I cringe at stories of Britishers abroad, especially the ones who go to Poland, already out of their minds with drink. The worst tourists I have seen abroad were British men. However, I have never heard of a British backpacker suddenly hauling off and stabbing other backpackers--and a dog--while shrieking "Allah Akbar."
Incidentally, I also have a special horror of foreign students who behave badly. This incident sank deep into my soul. This is partly because I was a foreign student at the time. However, it may also be because I have the highest respect for foreign students who can conquer language barriers and culture shock well enough to get a university degree abroad.
Whenever I think about going to the Jagellonian to finish my theology PhD ( one of my we-win-the-Lotto dreams), I feel chills of terror. Currently I am reading Benedict XVI's "Why I believe" in Polish, and it is soooo harrrrrrrd.
Watch this play right into the hands of Pauline Hanson and One Nation. I thought her political career was over, but at the last election, Queenslanders voted for her in droves.
ReplyDeleteWho is she? Never mind--to Google I go.
ReplyDeleteNow that is interesting. People can make all the remarks about racist nutters they like--for example, many Britons claim (wrongly) that Nigel Farage is a racist nutter, and yet... Brexit, which is all Nigel Farage was really interested in.
DeleteI've often read Britons wishing that the UK's immigration policies were as strict as Australia's. I understand that Australia takes a hard line on uncontrolled, illegal sea migration, too.
Ah, world population. Ah, democracy. No borders plus democracy = a third China, a third India, and a third everyone else although with a very strong Indonesian contingent.
Personally--and I'm saying this without irony--I was brought up in the 1970s to be very conscious of the rights and the cultural integrity of minorities in Canada. It was a long time before I realized that Canadians ourselves were a tiny minority in the world and, much later, that "the Canadian way of life" depends on certain cultural agreements across the board, like not cutting down trees because you think they are unlucky, and not thinking girls deserved to be raped just because they are out after dark.
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats8.htm
*That is, Australia would be a third Chinese, a third Indian and a third everyone else. You may say "So what?", of course. I know French Canadians who don't give a damn if everyone of their lineage becomes extinct, and think it's wrong to think that this could be a bad thing.
DeleteActually, it would certainly be interesting to see what would happen if all the borders did come down. Would everyone go to London, New York and Berlin? Would World Peace ensue? I rather doubt it.
DeleteMore realistically, it will be interesting to see if a gazillion hacked off traditionalist English-speakers move to Norcia, Italy. What would that do to the town, I wonder? The people are very nice, and they certainly welcome the tourist trade. I don't know how they would/will feel about a gazillion Americans/Canadians/Brits and Australians moving in.
I definitely do not think the Japanese--Japan is conveniently on the sea--would like it if million of Americans fleeing the Hillatrump got on a lot of rickety boats and sailed there.
I have been refraining from writing anything b/c I'm doing a binge read of the past 3 months worth of posts... but I just busted out laughing for a solid minute at your Japanese cum Hillatrump comment. (As a Japanonphile American I do sometimes dream of becoming an Ex-pat over there, but my sweetheart and I and any hypothetical offspring would always be gaijin, which isn't really fair to the hypothetical offspring).
DeleteHa! I'm calling them the Hillatrump until the end of the election, if not beyond.
DeleteWell, you know, thousands of British children survived being colonials and even enjoyed it. Pals of mine are living in Malaysia with their two, and they all love living in the East!
In lighter news, 1500 drunk Americans washed ashore in Canada while floating on a river. The highly capable Canadian Coast Guard rescuers sound annoyed. All the Americans in every article I read about this sound grateful, jolly, and thoroughly unrepentant. Inner tubes, beer, a cold river, Michigan, one of the last days of summer ... I bet they were also very loud.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/us/canada-float-down-trnd/
Heavens. Our worst nightmare. Were they packing?
DeleteI wonder if more than 1500 took part in the Fenian invasions?
It seemed that some were rather fearful of entering Canada without passports and so tried to swim back. They're lucky that no one drowned.
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