Patriot Realm
By Feather Douglas
All over the western world, the United Nations is forcing countries to accept foreigners who claim to be refugees but are nothing more than economic country-shoppers looking for a good deal. I don’t know about you, but I am sick of it.
I am sick and tired of seeing my country damaged and drained of our cultural identity and money because our so-called leaders are too weak to just say “No”. What is wrong with them? Why are they allowing and almost encouraging the theft of our heritage and hard-fought-for sense of self?
Just look at America. In a few short decades, it has gone from being all about apple pie to being all about tacos. In Australia, it has gone from being about a roast lamb Sunday lunch to a kebab and hummus – while in Britain the fish and chips has morphed into a curry take-away.
What frightens and annoys me the most is that the city folk embrace this cultural theft and the people in the country still try to hold steadfastly to the old traditions and values. We are becoming nations divided and our governments have endorsed and encouraged this ‘Great Divide’.
In Australia, there is a mountain range called the Great Divide. It stretches over 3500 km from North to South. It separates the coast from the rural areas that spread to the west and are the home of the people who work to feed the people on the eastern side. The mountain range is aptly named: it is a geographical boundary and a cultural one.
I spent 10 years living on the western side. Many more on the eastern side. My heart lies in both. My empathy, however, lies in the west. Where water is scarce and lives are lived in a precarious balance of good rain and no rain. Too much rain and drought. Life is always in the balance.
When people who live in the cities visit the country and people who live in the country visit the cities, we see a crossing over of the Great Divide – yet both groups scurry back happily to their home burrows and are thankful that they do not live where the other does.
I find it strange, however, that, apart from shopping, restaurants, bars, cafes and theme parks, the city does not offer its residents a great deal. Without money, living in a city is impossibly difficult – bordering on diabolical. The city requires distractions that the residents believe are necessities in life. They tend to forget that, without those who live on the other side of the Great Divide, there would be no food to serve in their swanky restaurants. No milk for their latte and no flour to make their pasta.
The city people who hold so much sway in political terms and boldly dictate that dams are damned, coal is old and sun is fun have forgotten that, without the sloggers on the other side of the Divide, they would not enjoy the lifestyles that they currently enjoy.
Why can they not see that without coal, dams, farming and the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice that their brethren on the other side make every day – they would not have a city to live in? Throw a few crumbs of humanity and leave the farmers alone. Don’t set fire to their barns, invade their properties and become weekend warriors with a cause so that you can wreak havoc until Sunday night and then slip back on Monday to pat yourselves on the back for a job well done.
Leave the bushies to do what they do best: work. From dawn until sunset. 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. No paid holidays, no double time and no maternity leave. Just leave them alone and let them have their dams, their control of their own land, their livestock, their livelihoods and their destinies. So that you lot can live in your concrete jungles and take selfies and eat the produce that you cannot do without.
I cannot help but think of something that President Ronald Reagan said on a totally different subject, but it is relevant all the same.
“I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.”
Think about it.
