I’ve seen this slogan, with an Australian flag, on bumper stickers, and Google reveals that it a similar T-shirt was the subject of controversy not so long ago.
I have a couple of thoughts on this
First, this supposedly patriotic slogan was imported from the US, where it has been around for decades. In this respect, it’s similar to the recent innovation of having a single performer sing the national anthem at sporting events (adopted in the US because The Star Spangled Banner is virtually unsingable). This has displaced the Australian tradition of either standing silently or singing as a group while the anthem was played.
Second, I’d encourage the slogan if those who spouted it were expected to act accordingly. That is, the moment they complained about any aspect of Australia (for example, Muslims, dole bludgers, greenies and so on) they would be issued with a deportation notice and told to find a country they could love as it is.
John Quiggin 
Oh yes.
The Mark of the Wanker.
“How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one’s country; is it hate of one’s uncountry? Then it’s not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That’s a good thing, but one mustn’t make a virtue of it, or a profession… Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope.”
Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand Of Darkness
The words emphasise the negative. Not ‘if you love it, care for it’, which might encourage more environmental and social volunteering. Or more responsible voting! But the words attack anyone who doesn’t endorse unquestioning nationalism.
The comment that it was borrowed from an American fashion is even more pathetic. We can’t even invent our own patriotism!
The people who walk around wearing garments displaying the national flag seem to me to be xenophobic, antiintellectual, aggressive yobbos. I don’t identify with them, let alone love them.
There was something on mamamia the other day about a mayor who has decided not to read Scott Morrison’s statement at the citizen’s ceremony due to his harsh treatment of refugees – he has issued a directive that she must, but she says there is not a law that she has to do so, so she won’t . It would be good if more mayors followed her example
http://www.mamamia.com.au/social/moreland-mayor/
I have always wondered where people without any claim to anything but Australian nationality were supposed to go.
Just thinking of AFL grand finals, I don’t recall the old tradition described here; how recent is it and what’s the significance? Can we expect hand on heart next?
I can honestly say I have never seen that sticker or T-shirt. I do remember “America – Love it Leave It” as an American pro-war slogan during the Vietnam War.
The Wikipedia also tells us;
“Brazil: love it or leave it” (Portuguese: Brasil, ame-o ou deixe-o), nationalist slogan of the Brazilian military dictatorship.”
So it has an unfortunate provenance, being tied up war-mongering and dicatorship.
That would be “unAustralian”.
It is a mindless slogan – love of a community or tradition can drive critique
Pr Q said:
The term “Australia” in this context refers to the traditional values expressed by the country of our fore-fathers, which does not seem an outlandish form of conservative polemics. Conservatives are as loving as any other, but their affections tend to be focused on the familiar, particularly if it works well for a long time. Any Chinaman will tell you that a country that loves its ancestors has much better prospects than one that doesn’t. But the Australia that is currently being fashioned by post-modern liberals is no country for old-fashioned men.
Further, the slogan contains a suggestion to leave, not an order to quit. Of course when it comes to the actual and existing state of free speech in this nation it is the Left, not the Right, which is the most consistent and avowed enemy of free expression, with its politically-correct Thought Police administering speech codes, sacking dissidents and chilling free speech in the general community. The populist Right contents itself with episodic expressions of frustrated rage (bumper stickers, shock-jocks, internet trolls) followed by a helpless shrug of despair.
BTW Pr Q should be careful about applying his deportation rule too consistently as it is a double-edged sword which would apply with equal force to all public intellectuals, particularly Left-wing ones. After all, complaining about the deal of ruin in the nation is pretty much all they do.
I have had great pleasure in telling more than a few racist bogans that English is our language in this country and if they cannot be bothered to learn how to use this wonderful language of our heritage then go F*****ing LEAVE !!!!
The bumper sticker shows how Conservatives have divided us into good and bad Australians ,suggesting there are traitors in our midst .Also it suppresses any questioning of our direction ,deeming that to be unpatriotic and self hating .There is a surprising array of racist ,angry and hateful bumper stickers for sale on E Bay . There is also a great ‘one term Tony ‘ one that I got .
@Jack Strocchi
Disassembling rubbish. What the slogan offers is the threat of dispossession unless the subjects avows their love for some indeterminate set of ideas. It’s a favourite trick of the right, think South American dictatorships. One again the Strochi trips over his bias and ends up face down in the rhetorical garbage.
It has often been observed (borrowing from Dr. Johnson) that “patriotism is the last refuge of [a] scoundrels[s]”. Nothing more needs be said.
What the slogan implies is that those with divided loyalties have no place in Australia; as J Lambie so eloquently put it, “leave – before we deport you.”
The irony here is that the “we” is the current govt, not some remembered conservative country of our forefathers. So for those whose loyalty is divided between the present and the past should..just..
@Jack Strocchi
As anyone familiar with the English language would know, English usually omits the subject pronoun in imperative sentences. It is a typographic convention that other elements can be added to emphasise the imperative. A couple of these conventions are capital letters and underlining.
Thus “STOP” on a stop sign means “You STOP.” (Imperative.)
“LEAVE” underlined on a slogan clearly indicates “You, LEAVE.” in the imperative sense. That is a intended as a direct order. It is disingenuous to pretend it’s only a suggestion. If I walked up to another person in a public space where we clearly both had a right to be and said “LEAVE” in a loud voice (the equivalent to underlining) would it be interpreted as a suggetion or as a rude and unjustified order?
Also, the sentence “The term “Australia” in this context refers to the traditional values expressed by the country of our fore-fathers,” is also disingenuous. There is not one or “the” country of our forefathers, there are many. We are a modern nation of immigrants except for our indigenous people. If you want to get pendantic about our indigenous people being immigrants, well they were but about 50,000 years ago according to most credible estimates.
From Wikipedia: At the 2011 Census, residents were asked to describe their ancestry, in which up to two could be nominated. Proportionate to the Australian resident population, the most commonly nominated ancestries were:
English (36.1%)
Australian (35.4%)
Irish (10.4%)
Scottish (8.9%)
Italian (4.6%)
German (4.5%)
Chinese (4.3%)
Indian (2.0%)
Greek (1.9%)
Dutch(1.7%)
Thus there is no “THE country of our forefathers.” Again, the argument is disingenuous and amounts to special claims for the mores of one forefather country over all the others. It’s also a kind of cultural cringe saying we can’t develop our own melded, eclectic mores from our own cultural diversity. Instead, we must rely on the mores of one country favoured by just some conservatives descended from forefathers of that country.
It’s really a pleading for special priveleged status as follows. “I am of the minority that is of English or U.K descent and who are Arch-conservatives or Ocker Bogans and I demand you conform to my mores or LEAVE! Would you accept that from any other minority saying: “Conform to me idea of Australia or leave!”
We (the majority) are not asking you to leave Jack. We are just asking to start thinking logically and equitably.
@Jack Strocchi
If the term refers to ‘the traditional values expressed by the country of our forefathers’, then it refers to nothing, since there are no traditional values expressed by the country of our forefathers.
Jack Strochi,
“. Any Chinaman will tell you that a country that loves its ancestors has much better prospects than one that doesn’t.”
In Australia we respect the indigenous ancestors very regularly with acknowledgements if it welcomes to country.
Since I live in a historic area everybody thinks of the historic people – we have some nice buildings and and arts and crafts house and gardens and lots of nice things – but also the bush got very damaged by the gold miners and most of the wealth went to Nelbourbe or back to Engkand or even Chiba as you mention.
Chinese gold miners that you mention were often treated badly, and the indigenous people had to live in a protectorate which they were not so happy to stay at, the protector noted in his letters to the the chief protector that the indigenous people were more honest than the Europeans, then the protectorate was shut and I think all indigenous people moved to Coranderk near Healesville Sanctuary for wildlife.
We also had the Monster Meeting – which prefigured the Eureka Stockade – neither of which were conservative in the liberal sense you mean.
“If you don’t love it – leave” [Fascism]
“If you don’t love it – change it” [Socialism]
@Jack Strocchi
Perhaps Chinese people will tell you that a country that loves its ancestors has better prospects than one that doesn’t; I don’t know, I’ve never tested it. I haven’t observed that the current Chinese government has a great love of Chinese ancestors. Be that as it may, even if every Chinese person in the world said that a country that loves its ancestors has better prospects than one that doesn’t, that wouldn’t make it true.
There’s an occasional visitor to Fleapit who gets around the place in a 4wd ute with the sticker “eff off – we’re full” on the back tray. In response, a small local mob have taken to writing “of sh*te” on the tailgate in indelible ink. He hasn’t been back for a while now.
Chinese grammar doesn’t have explicit tenses. This makes both the past and future more psychologically “present.” Some research indicates that Chinese speakers have lower discount rates, and IIRC managed to tie it to the grammar. The same probably applies to the past giving ancestors a “more-present” quality rather than being interesting old history.
This is different to what motivates this kind all-or-nothing patriotism, which seems to me more related to the rightwing personality type tending to find ambiguity and uncertainty stressful.
The day break brings news that a gang of jihadists has just murdered 12 journalists in Paris, including 4 cartoonists. Another day, another atrocity by “lone wolves”. A philosophical question: how many “lone wolves” does it take to make a wolf pack?
This post seems to have been a case of poor timing. It looks like Pr Q’s Malcolm Macluhan moment.
The late editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo were not the kind of people who paste “France, love it or leave it” stickers on their bumper bars. So they are not deportation material in Pr Q’s eyes – be thankful for small mercies!
But they did engage in a sustained critique, some might call it satire, of the cultural identity politics of a sizeable minority group. This makes them “bigots” and “Islamophobes” in the eyes of the post-modern Left. Anyway they are dead now, so they won’t be bothering anyone anymore.
Free speech is not dead yet, but clearly it is on life-support in some areas. Throughout the West there is now much weaker organized political defence of the ideal of free speech, which has been more or less abandoned by Left-liberal diversicrats and Right-liberal businessmen. This is proven by their united opposition to Brandis libertarian amendments to S 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act. Thus far the main institutional response has been to subject dissidents, like Mark Steyn, to legal and administrative sanction. I am betting that there will be no honest re-think on this, but I would be happy to proven wrong.
This incident proves that small, but significant, parts of the Left are fanatically opposed to free speech. International and insurgent jihadists (outside theocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran) are Leftists in that they seek to empower a lower-status group, namely devout Muslims. Jihadist Leftists use terror to silence free criticism of their way of life.
The Left-liberal mainstream is paralyzed by the internal contradiction of its post-modern ideology and the corrupting influence of the obligation to maintain ideological solidarity with the “oppressed”: pas d’ennemi à Gauche. Right-liberals are simply interested in turn-over and the bottom-line. Although, in fairness to Pr Q and his comrades, virtually all secular Left-liberal intellectuals are sincere in their opposition to mass-homicidal attacks on a free press.
But that did not stop him from dreaming of deporting people who disagree with his point of view.
@J-D
Heh. I’ve just finished re-reading The Left Hand of Darkness (a Christmas present to myself – I was stoked to find it).
@Jack Strocchi
I’d never heard of Charlie Hebdo before today. I did find a comment at Jacobin that declares CH to have been ‘frankly racist’. It continues:
So, Jack, they exercised the sort of voice that Brandis wanted to protect with his ‘libertarian amendments’ to S 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act. Do you support those amendments?
If there are people in the world who want to antagonise armed religious bigots and zealots then there may well be a heavy price to pay. Heaven knows, there are armed religious bigots everywhere. Just look at the murders, bombings and arson by the pro-life movement in the US.
Most significant religions have a holy book, and perhaps some surrounding texts which offer interpretations of the holy book, and cultural practices to be abided. The holy book, being ancient, inevitably loses its connection with the world of its more modern readers. There often comes a time when the holy book is no longer able to be read in its original language, the language being a dead language. People of “the book” rely more and more on the surrounding texts, without having any appreciation of the original holy book’s words on these matters. The result of this is that the religion is fissured into schisms, shattered along cultural lines and disagreements over interpretation of the relic.
The disgusting act of violence that you mention, perpetrated in the name of Islam according to the shooters, is not a one-off incident. There are ardent followers of the holy book who truly believe it is their moral duty to massacre in defence of a book written in the days of sand and camels. To kill as punishment of being quietly mocked. It is no use saying that they are some kind of abomination of Islam teachings, for in their eyes they are no such thing.
Remember “The Troubles” in Ireland? That had Christian killing Christian—and agnostics and atheists, too; the fact that both tribes hailed from Christian denominations did not unite them, but pit them against one another in a fight to the bitter end. Were the people of one denomination an abomination of Christianity? Eventually, they came to a political solution…
So, I do in some sense agree with you Jack, but I don’t agree that it would be appropriate to view Islam as the mark of troubled souls; it is probably better to view this as a specific subset (denomination) of followers of Islam, those who believe that violence is the answer to meeting non-violent provocation. These shooters are not crazy; nor are they representative of all followers of Islam. They are a criminal menace and need to be dealt with, first and foremost, under the law.
Personally, I strongly believe it is in the interests of democratic countries to make quite explicit that no religion has preference, that no person can be forced into or out of a religion, and that no political party is allowed to have a religious affiliation or doctrinal purpose. I would be happy if it were made explicit to all Australians, including immigrants of course, that the law of the land trumps all religious “law”. I would also be happier if religion was not allowed to be practised within schools, was restricted to personal time and weekends. If all this were in play, it would mean that we need not fear one religious group gaining political power over all others, and religion would be treated as a private matter for the individual to indulge in during their own time. I am probably in a minority for thinking like this, I know 😦
US President, Barack Obama 2nd August 2014:
Well, now some guys in Paris have “killed some folks”.
Violence begets violence.
@Donald Oats
In France this type of severe secularism is laïcité. It is peculiar to France, apparently, but I don’t think that is has offered much shelter to the children of colonialism now living in France.
Moreover:
Which is the knock down argument that liberal democracy uses to promote the rights of the individual in the latter trump communal laws and any rights attached to them. In other words, and this is how the law has been interpreted in Australia, if you are a young 14 yo) woman in the NT who has been betrothed to a very elderly elder, in recognition of traditional custom, and you appeal for common law recognition as the bearer of specifically democratic rights to defend your right not to be subject to an illegal marriage, then you win.
Finally, yes, religion has no claim to the public sphere. Away with it.
@Jack Strocchi
I (and I guess I’m not alone) am having trouble following your argument.
It appears you are saying that if the lefties in cahoots with the righties hadn’t opposed the amendments Brandis wanted to make to S18C, the staff of a French magazine would still be alive.
Have I missed anything?
There is one good thing about “If you don’t love it, leave”, and that is it might make you think what the “it” is that you love. And of course, if you actually think, you’ll discover that indeed some aspects of Australia are very lovable, but there are others that could be improved.
But of course that involves thinking, which is very hard work.
zoot @ #30 said:
You have missed everything. With logic like that you would have trouble following any argument.
What I am saying is quite clear as day, a multi-pronged snark at liberals, particularly Left-liberals, for their epic fail in the defence of freedom in general and their own national civic traditions in particular which is based on severe internal contradictions in their ideology and their very wedgeable social base:
1. If liberals, both Left- and Right-, had been true to their supposed ideological principles and supported Brandis then they would not have left themselves wide open to the charge of hypocrisy, cowardice and corruption when it comes to the defence of freedom. But they were not, so they are.
2. Pr Q’s little jab at conservative bogans and their media allies, who are getting fed up with the violent antics of minorities within certain minority groups, was poorly timed and betrayed an intolerant streak.
3. The targets of the latest jihadist attack were not stereotypical bogans, ockers, red-necks, chavs, neo-Nazis or, as they say in France, a beauf. [1] They were liberal humanist journalists concerned with protecting and promoting free speech a la Voltaire.
4. Left-liberals of late have been noticeably reticent, nay openly hostile, to this old-fashioned understanding of liberalism. But then the post-modern liberal is hostile to every thing that is traditional, so no surprises there. Perhaps if they paid more attention to the traditional values of our fore-fathers they might not be so prone to renounce their principles x 3 times before daybreak. But that would mean having to learn political philosophy from bumper-stickers, so don’t hold your breath.
5. There is now in the EU, and to a lesser extent AUS, a significant minority of an ethnic minority who are not reconciled to the civic tradition of a liberal nation. The numbers are large, probably hundreds of thousands in the EU, and they show no sign of settling down, indeed the trend line now is for the worse. No one has any idea how to deal with this problem, at least not in a way consistent with liberal traditions. Although it is self-evident that immigration selection will have to be tightened and immigration settlement will have to be assimilationist. My simple suggestion to the Left is that while you are in this hole, could you please stop digging?
[1.], Beauf is roughly a French colloquialism for bogan, meaning “vulgar, unintelligent, arrogant, uncaring, misogynist and chauvinistic, without any taste for etiquette or good manners. A “beauf” will typically be prompt to jump to conclusions and have strong views on complex social issues, based on an insufficient analysis of the facts, but presented as being plain common sense.” That is, the kind of person who would sport a bumper-sticker proclaiming: “France, love it or leave it”.
The French cartoonist Cabu was responsible for popularising the term in the late sixties by creating a cartoon character of that name in Charlie Hebdo. In the nineties up-dated it to “nouveaux-beauf” which is equivalent to a “cashed-up bogan”.
For this, and other satirical efforts, he was singled out for murder early this morning.
@Jack Strocchi
Like a few others have said, you are making no sense what so ever, your rant seems absolute gibberish. And I don’t mean I disagree, I mean it doesn’t seem to be making any point or claim.
What on earth does this have to with this topic? Or even JQ’s blog in general? Your subsequent paragraphs don’t help there either. Are you saying look we criticsed a right wing group just as some terrorist that may have been jailed or deported by some right wingers kill some innocent people?
JQ did not say anyone should be deported, he was pointing out that people will likely have display these stickers because there are things in Australia that they really don’t like, of course they think they get to decide these things are not Australian for the rest of us. And it still has absolutely nothing to do with these journalists.
Also you haven’t said who Charlie Hebdo are, at least that is just an oversight.
Are you saying France didn’t protect these journalist because they had no right to say the things they did? I hope your answer is not “yes” that is clearly absurd. Also this article has nothing to do with free speech, no one is suggesting these stickers should be banned.
Geez, Jack, are you still hung over from xmas? Your screed reads like a drunk trying to go ten rounds with a straw man. Where are these people who invent Boudrillardian excuses to aid islamofascist terrorists? I’ve never met any.
Bluntly, mate, it’s the most ignorant set of comments I’ve ever seen from you. You’re always longwinded but I’ve never wanted to dismiss you as simply stupid, as I do at the moment.
Juan Cole is my go to dude for islamic and middle eastern events, and he is of the opinion that this attack “… was not a pious protest against the defamation of a religious icon. It was an attempt to provoke European society into pogroms against French Muslims, at which point al-Qaeda recruitment would suddenly exhibit some successes…” which makes sense.
@Jack Strocchi
Jack, you are beyond pathetic.
And I know you’ll defend to the death my right to so characterise you.
Disagree Cambo. That’s a conspiracy theory. I prefer this view from the New Yorker. “The killers are soldiers in a war against freedom of thought and speech, against tolerance, pluralism, and the right to offend—against everything decent in a democratic society. So we must all try to be Charlie, not just today but every day”. It’s why I love Australia and France – tolerant decent societies that have moved on from the Middle Ages. Everything that most of the Islamic societies are not.
Conservatives want us to see this as a simple attack on our pure and innocent way of life, inevitable given the evil of radical Islam .Rupert may get his 100 year war on Islam ,but it wasnt inevitable. Notice the deafening silence from the MSM and those in public office re motives of radicals -only said to be the unexplainable hatred of our superiority. I’ve heard/read child psychologists consulted to help in explaining the unexplainable to the most innocent and pure of all -our children. Not to hard to explain I would have thought – if you push someone for long enough dont be surprised if they push back .Kids know that simple logic well.
Thats why we don’t torture, drone kill, imprison without due process, assassinate or stuff like that. Nor do we use sanctions to kill 1/2 million children. And we respect international law, and the Geneva Convention. We do not engage in agressive warfare. We do not support theocacies, and – oh, forget it.
You are very easy to forget Tony.
All this outpouring of affection and sympathy for a country which, just recently, was described by so many as “a bunch of cheese-eating surrender-monkeys” because, at that time, they refused to take part in an illegal war of aggression against the citizens of Iraq.
Later they relented and got very military in other countries.
@Megan
Not by me Megan! I rather like the French. They seem rather good at stuff in general.
@hc
A bit like Fred Nile then?
@Jack Strocchi
You contradict yourself. ‘Multi-pronged snark’ is never ‘clear as day’.
@Megan
I’m not seeing how those two acts of violence are connected with each other.
I didn’t say they were. Nobody knows what the Paris shooting is really all about yet.
Plenty of speculating and jumping to (admittedly probable) conclusions, but also plenty of room for a range of possible scenarios.
A t-shirt like that, it passes as intellectual literature for bogans. The perfect blend of the false dichotomy (You are with us, Or you are ag’in us), passive-aggressive insolence, and a subtle hint of belligerence for good measure. If I see someone wearing that t-shirt, I’ll offer to read what it says for them, since I’ll know they sure wouldn’t have.
There. I feel better now.
I must admit I do cringe a little at the “love it or leave” slogan but I also cringe when the local school flies the aboriginal flag. I think the “love it or leave” message echos back to the idea of whinging poms. It’s just shallow, mostly harmless, hairy chested Aussie patriotism. Others fly their patriotism in other ways like sticking up for the rights of Aussie born cows on holidays in Indonesian whilst being relatively indifferent to the plight of Indonesian born cows. Or loudly insisting that we don’t want to be like America. Or in the case of Queensland getting all thing about the sun shine. Seriously it’s just people blowing steam and marking territory. I wouldn’t try and derive some rational meaning from any of it. People define themselves in odd ways but a common theme is by listing off the things they are not.
Mom, how many lone wolves make a pack… Anders breivik, Timothy mcveigh, the London nail bomber… How many make a pack? Tell me jack, what race was the UK’s most prolific child abuser, and the people who protected him? What religion? What race were the cops who recorded that 12 year old victims of Pakistani groomers were “asking for it?” Come on, you are proud of your forefathers, perhaps you should explain why we must honor the values these people expressed? Are they the values of our forefathers you think the bumper sticker is protecting, or is it only Muslims who can be tarred by the action of a few?
And if libertarian free speech is your gas, let’s talk about the Lindt cafe hostage taker. He was enraged that the high court wouldn’t defend his right to free speech by voiding community service penalties incurred for sending insulting letters to grieving families of Aussie soldiers. Some patriot you are, supporting his right to do that. Is it worth it? Some crazy dude in oz gets to break the hearts of a few grieving elders, just so that a few French cartoonists can have the right to insult an entire religion? Are these the rights you think the liberal left are terrible for doing away with?
“He was enraged that the high court wouldn’t defend his right to free speech by voiding community service penalties incurred for sending insulting letters to grieving families of Aussie soldiers.” — to be fair the high court judges did split evenly on the question. Unfortunately an even split means appeal failed. Personally I think the appeal should have been granted.