Intellectuals in a cold climate, South African society

[Tabouli]

Sean:
> As Tabouli mentioned, even here we differentiate on regional accents, and when
I was small we moved from Melbourne to Far North Queensland (the caps are
intentional: the rest of us have taken to referring to it as the Deep North),
where my clean Melbourne accent was taken by all to be "sissy" and several
unprintable descriptions, which basically boil down to an opinion that I knew
too much for my own good, and a healthy beating would soon cure my malady. I
very quickly learnt to be silent.<

Another Australian!  Excellent, excellent, it was getting a bit burdensome carrying the flag all by myself.  Now, I've never been to the Deep North, but I am of course familiar with the sissy south's stereotypes of Queenslanders in general, and rural/far north Queenslanders in general...!  I've long speculated on this as evidence of how climate shapes culture and temperament.

Melbourne is considered to be the most "European" of Australian cities (Sydney is supposed to be the most "American").  Indeed, I have met Europeans and even a New Zealander who say that Melbourne is the only Australian city they would consider living in, because it's more progressive and sophisticated than the rest of those uncultured Aussie cities (?).  I think they have excellent taste, of course, but parochialism aside it's interesting to muse on why this is. 

Being the closest to the South Pole of all mainland capitals (Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, is beautiful, but hardly in the big league at 300,000 people), Melbourne has the coolest climate of the major Australian cities, and hence has a reputation elsewhere of being a ghastly, grey place of perpetual rain and cold (Tabouli glances casually out of the window at the pleasant 25C/78Fsummer's day, resplendent with sunshine, low humidity and bonus cool breeze).  Unwitting tourists have come to Melbourne in the middle of winter without any warm clothes, believing Australia to be a beach resort country of eternal sun and surf, and get a very nasty shock.  Trust me, it is cold in Melbourne in winter.  It may not be up there with Canada and Northern Europe, it may not snow or even drop below 0C/32F much, but we get icy winds from Antarctica, icy rains which drizzle on for days, and icy lawns covered in frost.

Moreover, our houses tend not be as efficiently heated as houses in more obviously cold climates, as shivering Canadians and Europeans are always complaining.  "Why do Australians keep on telling us we should be used to the cold?" they protest, hastily packing away their beach gear.  "In Canada/England/etc. we *heat* our houses properly and dress for the cold!  I've never been so cold at home as I am here!"

Anyway, to get to the point, I've long been convinced that cold climates are much more likely to produce intellectuals and highbrows.  Why sit inside reading literature, drinking sophisticated wines and coffees, conversing about art and politics and watching arthouse films when you could be outside having a barbecue on the beach?

Take a friend of mine who briefly left Melbourne for Brisbane (capital of Queensland, sub-tropical), for example.  He joined the arthouse film society, and it was tiny!  A mere handful of 30 or so highbrows for the whole of Brisbane!  He actually said it was, in some ways, much nicer that way... in Melbourne you have hundreds of competing highbrow film societies, all exclusive and elitist.

Then there was that grumpy New Zealand woman I met in an Athens youth hostel, who was loudly scathing about Australia and all its works.  She was a vegan, and claimed that *no-one* had ever had a problem with this in New Zealand, whereas in Australia *everyone* seemed to be hassling her about this!  (Australians, bunch of uncultured plebs, wouldn't know a progressive stance on consumerism, ecology and animal welfare if it smothered them in a baby sealskin coat...)  I expressed surprise.  I know countless strident Australian vegetarians and vegans, and have, over the last 15 years, seen a vegetarian revolution in Australian restaurants, supermarkets and cafes.  I also suggested that her observations probably had everything to do with the social circles she was frequenting in the respective countries (there are certainly Australian circles where veganism would be considered the ultimate in pretentious middle-class wankery).  She scowled suspiciously at me.  "You're from Melbourne, aren't you?" she said.

[Interestingly, I was surprised to arrive in South Africa in 1998 to discover that vegetarianism still appeared to be the domain of eccentric hippies only.  Any South African listmembers out there for more informed comment?]

John:
> He's a mature student (mid 30s) and remembers, during his late teens
and early 20s, having to pass himself off as Australian while travelling
lest he be harangued by anti-apartheid activists. The fact that he himself
is a strong believer in racial equality never entered into it.<

Ironically enough (especially considering recent events), there was, and to some extent is, a strong prejudice against white South Africans in Australia.  At 15, my peers harangued me endlessly about writing to an Afrikaner penfriend, accusing me of "supporting Apartheid" (see my October post "Rant on Overdog Racism").  The people who lived across the road from us when I was a child were white South Africans, and told us some people refused to associate with them.

In South Africa, I met whites who knew of and deeply resented this.  "Who are Australians to accuse *us* of racism?  They killed off most of *their* indigenous people!"  I also noticed something rather interesting... I actually hear a lot more *overt* racist comments in Australia than I heard in South Africa.  Of course, I was interacting with a pretty unusual subset of SA society and was only there for five weeks, but nonetheless (I'm conscious that I'm working on limited information here, and welcome input from South Africans, who hopefully won't be too offended by anything I say here...)

South Africa reminded me of a colour-coded version of a feudalist society, with the whites as nobles and landowners, the coloured as the bourgeoisie, and the blacks as the peasants.  It wasn't so much that the peasants were revolting (so to speak!), but that they just didn't exist in noble society.  Didn't feature on the radar.  Whereas in Australia, non-white immigrants and Aborigines are mixed in across different social strata, and are hence more of a presence in the lives of WASP Australians (particularly those in large capital cities, where most immigrants go).  It's one thing if the only non-whites you know are sweeping your streets and serving you in shops and working in your factories (i.e. of manifestly lower socio-economic status than you and all the people you socialise with), and quite another if you have a Chinese doctor, an Indian accountant, and Aboriginal and Vietnamese children at school with your children.  Not to mention half-Chinese half-white Australians posting on your Harry Potter OT-Chatter list...

Tabouli.


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