Last night, after work, we went down to the RSL for a few drinks. It's the cheapest beer in Sydney. It's also very old, dingy and filled mostly with men and a doorman who appears to be more than a little bit insane. I have caught Sydneysiders calling this kind of thing "character". Other Australians refer to a place like this as "a pub". I know it's a club. Back off, pedants.
For those of you who have never been to an RSL: it's a Retired Services Club. For all the old soldiers. They turn up occasionally, in some strange rhythm, wearing their medals and ribbons.
Every evening at six, the lights are dimmed and the Ode of Remembrance is recited, with all the lack of flair and passion that poetry and routine and a minimum wage job can create.
Everyone in the place is asked to stand and face the light fitting shaped like a torch, on the western wall. Twice, at the end of the poem, there is an opportunity to respond, in chorus. Most people do, embarrassed to the point where it only comes across as a general rumble. Which leads to another bout of foot-shuffling and averted eyes once the lights come back on. It's quiet for a second or two. Then everyone goes back to poisoning themselves with $2.70 schooners.
I quite like all this. I suspect the way I feel about Australian military glory is sharply at odds with the general views of the RSL membership; I also think that doesn't matter in the slightest.
The reason I'm even mentioning this is that a couple of my co-workers impressed me with their total lack of manners. One explained she would not be standing. While they recited the Ode, she crossed her arms and faced away from the torch/light fitting/kitsch explosion. Then proceeded to talk about how crap it was. To her credit, it was after the lights had come back on. Another co-worker, possibly after having read some philosophy books thicker than my torso, staked out the moral high ground with the carefully reasoned and rarely considered credo "Well, I don't like war".
Disagreeing with the glorification of war is not really a reason to be impolite and disrespectful. A poem and a moment of silence is hardly a chest beating paean to the days when Australians bestrode the world like colossi and crushed the meek beneath their thongs. Note for Americans: those are flip-flops. Adherence to form does not imply an acceptance of the world view that produced it; the RSL is not inside your head. The RSL can not, I repeat, read your mind. Not until those fat cats in Canberra get off their arses and help out the little man with mind reading devices and constant thought control. I, for one, can't wait. Currently, you are free to think of whatever you please while the Ode is taking place. I often choose to think about food, but I'm told sex and being super famous are also pretty diverting. I think all I'm saying here is that when you go to a Japanese house, you take off your shoes. When you go to the Vatican (ha, that's in Rome, that works nicely) you try not to go topless and speak loudly about how you're more of a Pharisee supporter and when you come to the RSL you fucking well stand up and mumble some gibberish about not forgetting something you never even heard of and then shuffle around looking sheepish once the lights come back on.
These are people who find it necessary to be scrupulously correct on behalf of others, but rarely for their own.
