An Aussie boy

Mateship is not as intimate as friendship. It has the element of circumstance to it. Kids have mates, but friendship is something that solely connects two people, whereas mateship is more triangulated: where the connection is from a commonality of a shared circumstance, where mates share the same house, or workplace, the same sports team or the same muddy trench.

Just as you cannot have a “deep and meaningful” with anyone who you are calling by their nickname, as it always creates a distance between the two, a country cannot have a serious dialogue with itself if it refers to itself by its nickname.

For example “Aussie diggers in Iraq” has only one meaning and cannot be analysed; it is one dimensional. “Australian soldiers in Iraq” is quite another matter as its meaning has many more implications. Australians, the same as you and I, as soldiers, men who are trained to kill, in Iraq, an invaded sovereign nation. “Australian soldiers in Iraq” then is a phrase that has political and moral implications but they have not struck a populist chord, because these spheres are the stuff of adulthood not childhood.

Just as “nether men” are happy to see themselves as “one of the boys”, and not rise to the challenge of emotionally developing into whole people, so too Aussies can avoid the responsibility of being a mature member of the world of nation states. As if to say please excuse us, of ponder and reflection, for in such doing we run the risk of discovering our lives to be irresponsible, superficial and escapist.

If we identified as Australians we would have to shoulder responsibilities but as Aussies we can escape those chores, and keep playing.

As the world's highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases, we can ignore Kyoto, the imprisonment of illegal immigrants, international law and human rights. We can ignore it because that's all grown up stuff.

We just want our Aussie's to win in the pool and on the field.

We just want to be permanent kids, hangin' out with our mates at the footy or at the beach.

Go Aussie go, yes please go!