One of the kids said “Oh look, a parade!” and sure enough there were five utes/trucks in line, travelling slowly past the Australia Day picnickers who were having gathered at the lakeside-park. They were cheap, homemade parade floats, which looked like fun to my kids, but to me looked almost terrifying. They were the “Fuck off, we’re full” brigade; stickers on their utes’ back windows told their politics on the days there were no flags to fly.
Giant Australian flags streamed back on both sides at the fronts of their utes, with smaller flags flapping from the backs. As many as they could add. They travelled slowly on the road which loops around the lake and I could imagine the ‘courage’ each of them felt from being a part of that formation. They passed several times, driving in formation around and around the six-kilometre loop. There is only one reason to do what they were doing and that is intimidation.
A lot of people were waving Australian flags today: the ice-cream van had triangle Aussie-flag bunting; a huge plastic Aussie flag covered a picnic table; a couple of Aussie flag beach-towels served as a picnic rug; a mother and daughter sported matching blue Australian flag dresses with ruching at the top; the local café celebrated with a 10% surcharge… everybody was getting in on the fun, celebrating Australia Day and waving flags. I tell you this because I don’t want you to think that Australian flags somehow trigger feelings of terror in me.
Instead, I just want to reflect on the intentions of these young white men, and they were all white men, as they chose to drive slowly past a large group of people of various ethnicities, mostly families, who were celebrating the national day of the country. What goes through their minds that they think decorating their utes like this is a good idea? Do they really plan the details like: where and when to meet; how many goes around the lake would be just right and how many would be overkill; what to have to dinner afterwards? Do they do this every year, or is this year special because Brexit and Trump gave them permission to stop hiding their racism? Their inaugural racists’ parade. Mostly, these people confuse me. They came out to intimidate, terrify, scare, and generally be mean arseholes. Everybody else was just having fun.
PS Change the date of Australia Day.
Pip's Thinks 