When racist bastards (Southern) Cross the line
I had a disturbing chat on the eve of Australia Day — with First Dog on the Moon — so the disturbing bit wasn’t entirely beyond the norm. Dog suggested that I had broken the mould by a) having a tattoo of the Southern Cross on my arm, and b) by being a half-decent, non-racist bloke. Tick. Tick. But Jesus wept. What’s the place coming to when something as intrinsically Australian as the Southern Cross is linked to something as abhorrent as redneck racists and Swastikas? Have a look at and the entry from Corro and you’ll get the drift.
Then go to and check out filmmaker Warwick Thornton’s welcome plea for some sanity. Thornton called on us to consider what the flag means, considering the Southern Cross constellation had for 40,000 years been a beacon to guide Aboriginals across the country.
Amen to that. I can fly the flag a bit, having spent most of last year wandering the deserts, bush and rainforests of Oz, as a grey nomad. I’m eminently qualified on the grey bit … I make KRudd look like a blackhead. Read into that what you will … as a pointer to his hair, which I reckon is darker than mine, or perhaps it’s simply a reference to him being a pimple on the arse of Australian politics. But I digress. I ended the tour flying three flags: The Aussie, the Aboriginal (One Mob) and the Eureka. My Aussie flag was just one of thousands I saw along the way. The Aboriginal flag got me the thumbs up from indigenous people in places as disparate as Coober Pedy to Tennant Creek to Karumba to Tamworth and beyond, and as for the Eureka, that’s essentially a message from Nimbin, which is another story. It was in North Queensland that I became indelibly inked with the Southern Cross after a chat with a French backpacker, Vincent, who I’d met several times in various parts of the country. He told me he wanted to take something really Australian back to his home country and wanted a Southern Cross tattoo. Yeah, believe it or not, national pride in Australia from a French national. If he was doing it, so was I. We were pointed in the direction of the tattooist by a true North Queensland feral (read Deliverance with a Southern Cross tatt), who, the tattooist told us, vented his aggression at home by drinking beer and rum and shooting from his verandah at empty bottles in his garden. For the first time, the tatt didn’t hurt (yeah, I’ve got a few), and sitting having a beer later in the day I felt proud to be wearing my heart where my sleeve once had been.
Nothing has changed. |
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21 Comments
If the majority allow a extreme minority to steal the image of the Southern Cross, it is our fault. We should not actively leave it to them. The KKK love the American Flag, the British Skinheads sport the Union Jack. So what! They do it without integrity or understanding. Surely we can be a bit deeper than your entry from Corro who has now prejudged anybody with a Southern Cross as a ‘tool’. I am not a tatt person, but I am (almost) minded to get one after reading this beat up.
Yeah, but how do you tattoo fur?
I like this article, but on the whole issue one absurdity keeps distracting me;
Everyone in the Southern Hemisphere can see the Southern Cross. It’s been used by people from all over to navigate for a very long time. It is on the Brazilian and NZ flags. It is not quintessentially Australian.
@Paul: If more ‘thinking types’ got southern cross tattoos, it would tend to skew the data away from the racist rednecks.
They are just stars. Why do we have to appropriate this sort of crap and call it “Strayan” anyway.
Straya is just a bit of dirt with people living on it and buggering it all up.
If he was doing it, so was I.
That’s usually how these things begin.
“Straya is just a bit of dirt with people living on it and buggering it all up”
Woah … “if you don’t love it, leave”! Ok that was a joke. But seriously now, I know a few people desperate to get permanent visas here. They go blue in the face when people take it for granted.
@Pete: <obligatory woad joke> I didn’t know Poms still had trouble getting visas </obligatory woad joke>
“I would like to introduce you to Bruce, he is the Professor of Hagaelian philosophy at the University of Wolloomooloo, and he’s also in charge of the sheep dip.
Here is the wattle, emblem of our land, you can put it in a bottle, or hold it in your hand”
Fair enough.
But I wonder, how many Southern Cross tattoo-bearing guys know how to actually tell SOUTH from the Southern Cross…
get one now before they change the flag.
I woke up with one on my groin after a night out, went to see the Doctor who gave me some antibiotics, all cleared up now.
I know I’m going to sound to some like a social reactionary and hopelessly past my use by date but what the hell.
Any illustrative or pattern tatt is going to identify you as a bogan no matter what the design or where you put it and no matter how hip you think you are.
It just goes with the territory and you will be just as much a bogan as the rednecks you affect to despise.
@Bangin: It depends how you define the set that is Bogans.
Pfft, all this talk of bogans and rednecks, what a lot of BS. I like the southern cross and identify with that because of the history associated with it and the fact that when I look at our flag, the only part I associate with is, you guessed it the southern cross. Hands off my southern cross you PC brigade
Pete
Are you a kiwi, or a brazillian because they have it on their flags too, so I don’t think you can claim sole ownership !
@scottyea: interesting point — the Southern Cross is significant as it is a Christian symbol. If the other cross on our flag is to go surely the Southern Cross must go too, as we want the symbolism on our national flag to be secular.
</shit-stirring>
Hi Nugget,
Dont claim ownership. As I said when I look at our flag, I identify with the southern cross, not the union jack, simple.
Not a big fan of tattoos anyway, but on a broader level I don’t want the Southern Cross taken over by racists.
It’s all that middle class Bra bad-ass boy shit. isn’t it? Australian tough beach types who don’t take shit from nobody. yeah yeah they have convinced me, I’m off to get a rum pig ute to go with mine
If ever there has been reason to change a few things around here. So many competing voices on one flag. The Union of Jack, a generic constellation and a malformed star representing another committee. It looks like a Woolworth’s isle of ideas
We australians: We Australians.. lost on the rest of the world and me. Time to change up and leave a few behind.
Sure go get your tattoo. Good idea, not the first narrow minded people who had a tattoos for identification. It maybe a good emblem for those who can not think past the last drink
Cheers
momento mori