2 hours ago
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We were walking in the rainforests of New Britain in the Bismarck Archipelago. Our porters were locals, men of the inland villages. They were happy men who talked and laughed freely. Smaller than us and stronger, they carried our many contrivances easily on their backs, but must have been secretly piqued when the gradients became steep because they had no kit of their own and ours surely seemed increasingly frivolous as the mountains rose.
At night by the campfire, cloaked in smoke to ward off anopheles, they told us what they knew of Australia. They told us Australia was a utopian miracle, though they did not use those words. They told us that we Australians were each rich to a head-shaking degree and that they had heard every child, on their 14th birthday, received a new Toyota car.
Credit: Robin Cowcher
Not wanting to fracture their romanticism or their hope for better worlds, and strangely proud to be a native of this imaginary country, I told them they were well-informed and what they said was true. Our teens drove themselves to school in shiny new LandCruisers. They told me there were no poor people in Australia. And I agreed the wealthy were commonplace and our system and our sentiments were such that we couldn’t abide the poor and therefore did away with them by making them rich.
And no crime, they marvelled. No robbery or violence. Safe streets and easy sleep. Yes, I lied, we have no need of locks, the darkest night is as safe as the brightest day in Australia, and cops as obsolescent as wheelwrights.
Furthermore, they had heard, and knew to be true, that in Australia even people who didn’t work received money. I confirmed this. We have welfare, I said. “Money for nothing” was a perplexing idea and they weren’t sure they liked it, but if it led to widespread happiness then it must be borne, they supposed.
“Widespread happiness?” I asked. Yes, they had heard Australia was a happy country. This is also true, I told them, not willing to trash a stranger’s Shangri-La for honesty’s sake. Homegrown statistics prove we are the happiest place of all, I said.
More wonderful still to these men was that they had heard we have no tribal fighting in Australia. How could we? I asked. Though we are of many colours, beliefs and histories, indeed of many tribes, we are brought up in such an open-minded manner that we are unable to see trivial difference of this kind – thus loathing along tribal lines has become impossible. They clucked and boggled at this wondrous news and sadly admitted there was much tribal trouble in New Britain.
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They mentioned, with some heat, that their politicians were not to be trusted and took secret money from China and Malaysia and served their own interests rather than the interests of the people. I was on a roll now and feigned deep vexation at hearing of this depravity and confirmed political corruption was a sin exclusive to their country and that ours was governed by a parliament of contending Christs constantly turning other cheeks, healing the sick and calming storms. It swelled me with pride to come from such a place – even knowing I didn’t.
At one point I began to wonder if these men were having a lend of me. Recognising they had a patriot on their hands, and thrilled at my mendacity, were they stringing me along to see how far I would go? Had they met other Australian flag-wavers and encouraged them to similar braggartry? Was this an old game they had played before? Were they merely giving licence to a fool’s pride and working him for a gratuity at trip’s end? After all, it’s a global norm, and necessity, for impoverished locals to flatter first-world visitors for profit.
I dismissed that idea. Their knowledge of Australia had arrived not via TV, radio or internet, but by a conversational grapevine annually fruiting bullshit. Many of us subconsciously justify poverty as a deserved circumstance and thus wander the broken streets of third world towns aglow with piety and offering advice on how to build tomorrow’s Rome. I think they really did believe the gloss let loose on their island by Australian tourists.
I think they believed in the Australia they were telling me about. And it made me happy that such a country exists ... somewhere, in the minds of those furthest from it. And a little sad, too, that it is only ever there.
