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The wildly popular Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) lamb advertisement has been well-received right across Australia by revisionists and optimists alike.
The advertisement, which shows three Indigenous Australians having a BBQ on the beach while having to keep expanding the event to accommodate all the various people — European settlers, immigrants and “boat people” – has gone ‘viral’ since it’s release yesterday morning.
Featuring the English, French, German, Greeks and Chinese all arriving on Australia’s shores at roughly the same time, the ad has been praised by politicians and educators right across Australia for not directly mentioning the massacres that followed white settlement.
However, an extended version was leaked earlier this morning, featuring several other demographics who didn’t make the final cut.
The first to not be mentioned was the Australian Lebanese community, one of the earliest migrant waves to actually arrive through an airport. The ad shows the Lebanese community utilising lamb in a way not yet seen by the First Nation people or the English… Shaved from a rotating steel rod and served with garlic yoghurt.
Several others included the Vietnamese community who arrived in a convoy of lowered Nissan Skylines, bearing delicious baked goods, as well as a few Anh Doh paintings.
The Sudanese community were seen briefly before being taken back to America by College Basketball scouts and the Indian migrants quickly joined the more conservative side of the party and began condemning the arrival of other migrants.
The agency behind the advertisement has said that Australia is simply too diverse to include all of these demographics so they just went for the least politicised.
Dear Sirs,
As a Western Australian, I am part of a small noisy band of fringe psychotics and easily-offended eccentrics across the continent who have been deeply disgusted by this advertisement. Admittedly, it does pain me greatly to be sharing a platform with assorted GST thieves and mumbling, incoherent weirdos who just happen to be as fruity as I am – albeit for far odder reasons, but sometimes it does become necessary to bury one’s ingrained hatred and desire to fire off one’s muskets towards tax pirates in cause of a higher ideal.
I was present when this colony was invaded, and it definitely WAS NOT on January 26. It was way too hot to be engaged in pillaging and general land theft during summer as anyone who has tried it would well know, and Captain Fremantle sensibly made sure we only arrived towards the end of April. In fact, because that blunderer Stirling in HMS Parmelia also got lost on the way, and even managed to run aground just offshore to much behind-the-hand snickering, there was no actual one single day when we invaded.
Celebrations were short, sweet, and carried nowhere near the level of bonhomie displayed in this fanciful depiction being aired at present. Yagan, representing the natives, gave a short greeting which we found out much later translated roughly as “Fuck off you thieving, white, unwashed bastards, or this is going to end badly for someone. Most probably us” and then his chums fired off a brief volley of spears which we were frankly quite impressed by despite needing to duck them, and the Governor replied by speechifying eloquently of the grace, wisdom, and majesty of King William, ordered a return volley of rifle and musket fire, and then kicked everything off with those thrilling and inspiring words which still ring loudly in my ears today; “Right lads. Let’s nick some stuff”. To the best of my recollection there was no lady making kebabs at the event, and the sodomisers amongst us were in the main much more modestly clothed and not nearly as good at dancing as depicted in the advertisement.
Yes, a handful of easterners originally led by Major Lockyer were already hiding out down at King George’s Sound, but first chance we got we sent them packing after initially having relieved them of the government revenue they’d illegally levied in the interim, so for all intents and purposes this has always been a proud land grab and series of killings that have absolutely nothing to do with anyone east of where Eucla would be once we got around to building it.
There is way too much of this sort of fabrication and re-writing of history happening today, and I remember telling Stirling then that unless we shot and pillaged not just the natives but also those lazy, devious easterners, then this was all going to end rather badly. It is amongst my greatest regrets that I wasn’t more persuasive at the time.
Regards
Ron Muppet
that was perfect Ron
Whenever I read anything about Australia Day, I’m disappointed for a number of reasons.
1. People make it sound as though the British got off the boats and mercilessly started killing Aboriginal people for no reason. But Captain Arthur Phillip actually ordered that the Eora people be well treated and that anyone killing an Aboriginal would be hanged. This is in spite of the fact that he was speared in the shoulder at Manly Beach after a misunderstanding arose.
2. People make it sound as though the Aboriginals have it worse off because the British came. Well, truth be told, I’m not so sure myself. But it just seems so one sided. Why does nobody else seem to notice that the Aboriginal pagans committed infanticide etc. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if this still occurs to an extent. That’s not to say we shouldn’t respect Aboriginal Australians with a certain primacy. I think we should because they have been here a lot longer than us. But can we please stop being so one-sided about this?
3. Nobody talks about how Captain Arthur Phillip refused to take slaves. He wrote to the king saying that there was a law he especially wanted to see enforced – that ‘…there can be no slavery in a free land…’ – I actually hope one day we put his figure on a (money) note with that quote on it too. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Sydney is named after Lord Sydney who was anti-slavery
4. Nobody talks about how Bennelong and Arthur Phillip got along.
5. Everybody seems to think that NSW was claimed by the British on Australia Day. That’s wrong – what happened was a raising of a flag. The claiming of NSW came on 7 February as I understand. You can read more here https://www.statusquo.org/aru_html/html/ausday.html#Proclamtion
http://www.ausflag.com.au/new_south_wales_1867-1870.asp
In my opinion, journalists should be ashamed and embarrassed because they never seem to pick any of this up! Come on fellas, do your history homework!
Specifically about this ad, I dislike it how it’s not giving a certain primacy to our British heritage. Immigrants who come by air are welcome, but they should be grateful and adopt the spirituality of the nation. We have the union jack on our flag.
Perhaps more importantly, I dislike it how it is promoting the killing of refugees at sea by basically saying we should welcome boat people unconditionally.
Whenever I read anything about Australia Day, I’m disappointed for a number of reasons.
1. People make it sound as though the British got off the boats and mercilessly started killing Aboriginal people for no reason. But Captain Arthur Phillip actually ordered that the Eora people be well treated and that anyone killing an Aboriginal would be hanged. This is in spite of the fact that he was speared in the shoulder at Manly Beach after a misunderstanding arose.
2. People make it sound as though the Aboriginals have it worse off because the British came. Well, truth be told, I’m not so sure myself. But it just seems so one sided. Why does nobody else seem to notice that the Aboriginal pagans committed horrible practices such as infanticide etc. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if this still occurs to an extent. That’s not to say we shouldn’t respect Aboriginal Australians with a certain primacy. I think we should because they have been here a lot longer than us. But can we please stop ignoring all the bad traits of Aboriginal cultures?
3. Nobody talks about how Captain Arthur Phillip refused to take slaves. He wrote to the king saying that there was a law he especially wanted to see enforced – that ‘…there can be no slavery in a free land…’ – I actually hope one day we put his figure on a (money) note with that quote on it too. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Sydney is named after Lord Sydney who was an anti-slavery whig.
4. Nobody talks about how Bennelong and Arthur Phillip got along.
5. Everybody seems to think that NSW was claimed by the British on Australia Day. That’s wrong – what happened was a raising of a flag. The claiming of NSW came on 7 February as I understand. You can read more here https://www.statusquo.org/aru_html/html/ausday.html#Proclamtion
http://www.ausflag.com.au/new_south_wales_1867-1870.asp
In my opinion, journalists should be ashamed and embarrassed because they never seem to pick any of this up! Come on fellas, do your history homework!
Specifically about this ad, I dislike it how it’s not giving a certain primacy to our British heritage. Immigrants who come by air are welcome provided they don’t want to do us harm, but they should be grateful and adopt the spirituality of the nation. We have the union jack on our flag.
More importantly, I dislike it how it is promoting the killing of refugees at sea by basically saying we should welcome boat people unconditionally. There is more I could say about this unworthy ad but I’ll leave it here.