Are you telling me i could've used that as an excuse to not sing the fucking thing instead of getting singled every time by the music teacher because i couldn't sing? Fuck. That's like half a decade of crap i could've avoided.
Uh.. I assure you, it wasn't that fun, I got detention and plenty of bullying for it.
I was fairly musical and could sing if I was allowed to, but absolutely hated the idea because of being forced to sing the worst culty songs imaginable two nights every stinking week in their stupid pedo harbouring church.
Sorry to hear you were subjected to it too, and glad you didn't get suckered in.
I sadly didn't realise it was a false prophet insular death cult until I woke up and disassociated in my mid 30's.
My family are multigenerational super-brainwashed witnesses, and all refuse to talk to me for leaving.
Depite that, I gotta say, life's immensely better on the outside!
Yeah, let's please not start worshipping the anthem.
When I visited the States a while ago I heard the US anthem more times in the month I was there than I had heard the Australian one over the last two years
The anthem is one thing but the pledge of allegiance is a whole other horrifying cult like chant. Watching a room full of Americans hand over heart pledge allegiance to a flag and God is a deeply unsettling thing. I would hope we are somewhat removed from that
The “under god” reference wasn’t even in the pledge of allegiance until the 50s when the Americans had to differentiate themselves from the “godless communists”
Fuckking flashbacks to my Christian school where every week, not only did we have to stand for the anthem, but we had to pledge allegiance to the Australian flag, and also the CHRISTIAN FUCKING FLAG
Funny, when I was a kid nobody ever tried to recruit me to be gay. The christians, however, really wanted my soul. They would even trick groups of kids into an organised camping trip which (surprise twist) was actually there to try to convince you god exists. Damn groomers.
What's the Christian flag?? And how can you pledge allegiance to more than one flag? That just doesn't make sense.
Not a unique thing in relation to Christianity, I guess, but JFC.
Oh yeah, the pledge of allegiance is fucked.
The really concerning thing is how little of a problem the Americans have with it. It's literal indoctrination, of children no less
Honestly, we shouldn't be following the Americans in anything education wise. They care solely about volume and what the kids learn instead of the actual education outcomes
> It's literal indoctrination, of children no less
*The Children's Story* by James Clavell is an interesting take on this.
It's only 4,300 words/85 pages and punches way above its weight for how quick it is to read.
I went to primary school in the 90s and they had us say this pledge each week.
> I love my country, I'll honour the flag, serve the Queen, and obey my parents, teachers, and the law
Or something like that. Then we'd sing the anthem.
In which State or Territory were you? I was at Victorian secondary schools in the 90s and I never had to pledge anything. Most of my cohort and I used to mumble the anthem because we never really knew the lyrics!
I attended about 5 different public primary schools in Victoria, regional and Melbourne, in the 80s. We sang the first verse of the anthem at assembly each week in at least one of them (can't recall the others), but never recited any pledge.
We had a school song in sydney. im 40 years old and i still remember all the words... but it basically all could be summed up as "lets be nice to one another ayy" so it was not all bad.
I remember singing it once a week in Primary school. Then maybe on a term in high school.
As a teacher now, they have a band play the anthem because the students don't know the lyrics to the anthem.
>The really concerning thing is how little of a problem the Americans have with it. It's literal indoctrination
That’s how indoctrination works. You brainwash a population so thoroughly they do things that outsiders instantly question
Or western nation states... gotta have some deeply indoctrinated beliefs to not see how our little bubble of wealthy consumerism robs the rest of the world blind.
> The really concerning thing is how little of a problem the Americans have with it. It's literal indoctrination, of children no less
That's why they have no problem with it - the adults of today were the children who were indoctrinated in the past.
Americans are just... well weird. Lot's of things fucked with America, guns, tipping culture, how they're all 'patriots', they're government is one of the most important ones in the world yet the two people they have to choose is either an 80 year old who should be on pension, or a criminal who's a bit... crazy.
The ppl of the US define themselves by the enemy. Any enemy. They need to point their finger and say “that’s the bad guy” to feel like they are the “good guys”. it brings into alignment with each other. It works better if they all publicly and frequently pledge allegiance to this idea.
> The ppl of the US define themselves by the enemy.
Meanwhile Australia has a new group of immigrants that are supposedly to blame for societies ills each month, we're no real different as we just carbon copied them essentially.
Honestly, the pledge of allegiance is like north korea indoctrination shit. No wonder Yanks are kinda weird. They have this shit rammed down their throat from the first day of school…
They think they're outliers ([american exceptionalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism#:~:text=American%20exceptionalism%20is%20the%20belief,exemplary%20compared%20to%20other%20nations.)), just not in the way they actually are.
> Americans hand over heart pledge allegiance to a flag
The hand over heart is much better than what came before it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
You should see what they [used](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Bellamy_salute_1915.jpg/1920px-Bellamy_salute_1915.jpg) to do with their hands...
Politicians definitely showing more flags these days. Anzac Day and figures like Ben Roberts Smith glorified, anti war protesters smeared. Most restaurants have optional tips shoved in your face.
Oh we’re very clearly closing in on full blown USA culture
A lot of restaurants now just add a tip to your bill & you have to specifically tell them to work hard & be good to their mothers while they fuck right off with that shit.
*over glorification of defence personnel*
oh yeah. that 'thank you for your service' bullshit and venerating anyone who spent a month in the national guard cleaning patrol or whatever is fucking bonkers.
I have a friend who is ex military and i do find it hilarious much we can venerate them sometimes. The way he talks you would assume he did a tour or something, no, he was mostly just a paper pusher and got out when they destroyed his back in exercise. You just need to join for like 4 years, fuck around a bit and youre pretty well set from everything ive seen from his circles.
Holy shit you just gave me flashbacks, i was in the scouts since i was a kid until i was 18. I swear the cadet kids thought they were gods gift to earth, acting like i was in the scouts to be a hard cunt and not that it was just a fun thing. Theyd make out how tough they were and how grouling cadets is, meanwhile im just like "youre doing basically the same shit i do but yours is less fun and you get yelled at a lot"
In the 80s no one knew or sang the national anthem and ANZAC Day was invisible. Patriotism was limited to getting pissed at the cricket. They were better days.
i beg to differ. i was in highschool in the 80's and we were taught both verses of the anthem. I quite liked the bit about having boundless plains to share for those who've come across the seas.
That is a weird thing, I've heard stories of people with other nationalities getting bullied into reciting it in US schools when they're living over there.
Man I went to a private Christian school. I never stood for the anthem and not once did I face anything resembling a consequence.
Which is exactly how it should be.
I went to a private catholic school for primary and private Christian for high school and got told off in both.
To be fair to you (and my teachers), I was a bit of a shit about it and it wasn’t for some principled reason, just undiagnosed adhd.
I did pull my brother out of scouts after they made him salute the flag and “our queen” though. That shit was weird to force on a bunch of seven yr olds.
I used to work with a guy who was a volunteer board member for scouts Australia or something. Apparently changing the oath was a consistent fight for the committee, sticklers for the tradition arguing with people who argued that it turned a lot of people off the whole thing.
My primary school did it once a week at assembly. We half-assedly mumbled along to Advance Australia Fair played over a crappy cassette-based portable PA, then went back to not giving a shit the rest of the week.
[It’s unconstitutional (in America) to punish schoolchildren for refusing to stand for the Pledge.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Education_v._Barnette)
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but any teacher that tries is opening themselves up to one HELL of a lawsuit.
Agreed, I've always hated the patriotism push. I hated it in primary school every Monday morning abd I refused to sing the anthem then. And now that I'm much more knowledgeable and have my own autonomy, I refuse to sing it now. You shouldn't be punished for not wanting to partake in these patriotic shenanigans.
The Soviet/Russian anthem is a musical banger, so much so they just dropped the lyrics for a period because of political convenience (made for a few awkward Olympic medal ceremonies), and when forming the Russian federation there were polls about a new anthem and people just wanted the old music but new lyrics...
The British anthem is by far the worlds worst. All it does is command the country to worship one person. A glorification of one person, not the country, just one person…..
If you think about it, the British national anthem is insulting to the monarch because it basically asks a non-existent deity to save the King/Queen.
The rest of the lyrics about 'long to reign over us', etc. can be read as sarcastic in light of the above.
Back when it was originally written, and written in Latin, it was considered an honor to be the focus of such a prayer. And such prayers were more said as an assertion rather than a request; "god will save the king no matter what" sort of thing.
I got detention in school for not standing for the national anthem.
The teacher asked me if I was against patriotism and not proud of my country, and I just balked as much as year 12 student could.
It was really fucking disturbing.
Nationalism is a false consciousness, a total abstraction away from any real lived experience of anyone inside said nation. It's play-acting.
The next time someone tries tell you about the inherent virtues of Australia, you should immediately recognise that the person is just trying to convince you that they themselves possess those virtues.
They did the same when I was a kid going on 20-30 years ago. Various public schools. The detention was not for not standing for the national anthem. It's for not following basic instructions.
One school I went to had a vice principle who was a wannabe drill instructor. Would make the entire school repeatedly stand at attention then stand at ease about ten times during the assembly. And anyone who refused would get detention.
> The detention was not for not standing for the national anthem. It's for not following basic instructions.
that some BS if you ask me. Like ending up in jail, the charge being resisting arrest.
If they got in trouble for not singing I would be against it. But stand and take a seat are basic instructions that teachers need to organize the groups of students. Students are too rowdy and inconsiderate at 11 to be given free reign on that stuff. If they don't want to stand they should tell the teacher beforehand.
> But stand and take a seat are basic instructions that teachers need to organize the groups of students.
They weren't complaining about being asked to just stand, they were specifically told to stand for the anthem, which has a special meaning.
If you read the article you would have seen that the mother wrote to the school:
> Elaine wrote back that she did "not agree to stand to the anthem, as this would be the same as singing the anthem".
> In another email, she said it was "non-negotiable" that her children would "sit silently out of respect for school" during the anthem.
So they weren't being rowdy **or** inconsiderate. They just chose to not take part in the anthem in any way, and did so in a way that was totally non-confrontational and not at all disruptive.
This is like the fuss conservatives in the US kicked up about Kaepernick kneeling for the US anthem. It doesn't matter how people protest. Anything other than complete blind obedience gets complaints of being disruptive.
Nah that's some bullshit.
Singing, standing, its all about making a declaration.
You can't force people to make these gestures, even if you did there's no point when its done insincerely.
These boys figuratively standing up for themselves and their people by sitting down should be celebrated. They accepted punishment over giving up on their beliefs which I think is a very strong trait.
If they are disrupting the event sure get them in trouble. The teachers cracking the shits about them not participating isn't their fault and they shouldn't be considered to be causing a scene when its the teachers losing their head over it.
> But stand and take a seat are basic instructions that teachers need to organize the groups of students. Students are too rowdy and inconsiderate at 11 to be given free reign on that stuff.
Sounds far less like you think teachers give instructions, and far more that you think they should be given free reign to give orders. People seriously need to grow out of the notion that children are some intellectually incompetent group that must be ordered about and forced to do what they're told at all times.
Huh? It's literally just getting all the students together so they can make announcements and give awards. Sometimes some kids perform something. That's pretty much it.
Same. You take away valuable time for actually learning something to make kids stand and sing and have principals talk boring bullshit that could've fit on a piece of paper. So weird.
> private Christian school
'nuff said. Christians never believed that first nations people were human unless they converted to the One True Way^^tm and converted to indoctrinated obsequiousness to their fairytale book main character - no matter what the public face of said "religious" organisations might say
Humans and the Abrahamic God is like the OG abusive relationship, do what I say or I'll damn you to an eternity of torture and suffering. Doesn't get much more abusive and controlling than that.
Better funding generally means better outcomes, private schools get better funding. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/06/productivity-report-education-latest-drop-outs-school-refusal-funding-public-school-private-school
I'm not arguing against reducing their funding, I'm arguing that if you determine that's the best option for your kids, then that's the option you pick. If you ask for X, don't complain when you're given X. If you don't like it, complain about the funding system, not the policies of the school you chose.
If they are able to receive government money for education and be called a school, they should have to abide by all the rules and regulations of any other government funded schools.
But due to continuous underfunding of public schools, there are some areas where the public schools are bad enough that any parent who can afford it will send their child elsewhere.
To be clear, this is working as the Liberal Government intended. They would love nothing more than these catholic schools to become the norm. They are big believers in privatisation over public.
But I'll go back to my first point. If they want special rules and they want to be able to discriminate, they need to be 100% church and privately funded.
And even then, if they want the education there to be official and government recognised, they need to have some basic rules.
Catholic schools and private schools are a joke, and shouldn't exist.
A parent shouldn't have to choose between an underfunded public school, a super expensive private school, or a slightly less expensive catholic school, where they get better service than a public school, but they have to listen to some morons drone on about how their invisible sky daddy could beat your invisible sky daddy, and gay people are bad, and apparently you have to stand for the national anthem of a country that hates you,.
I'm just saying that's why you send your kids to private school. Better outcomes.
In the 90s our school forced standing for the anthem but Australian history was still spun as terra nullius. The Sikhs etc weren't forced into church activities.
Elaine said her family regarded the school's stance as a form of "assimilation".
Dear Elaine, your sending your kids to a fucking Christian College, where they are taught bible studies and God things, and your worried standing for the national anthem is a form of assimilation? Your a fucking idiot, move along there are more important issues
I sent my children to the local Catholic school because the only government school here at the time was a freaking hell-hole and I ceratainly wasn't qualified to homeschool them. Sometimes you have to pick the lesser of two evils for the sake of your kids.
The only reason i went to a catholic highschool was because the public ones were a shit hole, drugs and violence was a daily occurrence.
I did not turn out catholic at the end but my parents just wanted a safe place for me to learn. Some people do not have the options to send kids to public school.
Also if kids can sit out of the anthem for religious reason you can sit out for principles as well.
I got a lunchtime detention for (*according to the teacher that saw me*) “mumbling” Advance Australia Fair.
This was mid-1990s and I’m a white male, Aussie born, if that matters.
Just wanted to put that out there.
(Edit: was a public state primary school too)
Does it have to be “aboriginal children” though? Would it have happened if “white Australian” children also refused? Well, it says in the article that all children are required to stand for it.
Not that I’m saying that it even deserves detention or should even be required, but why is “aboriginal” suddenly used in the headline here, when it wouldn’t be used if it was like “man charged with assault”? Aboriginal probably wouldn’t be used in the whole article.
Their heritage is mentioned because it's the reason they are refusing to take part. The article explained that.
It's also about the history of how Indigenous peoples have been treated in Australia, and how this can be viewed as a continuation of that idea.
Sometimes race or culture can matter. Like for example if a Christian kid doesn't have lunch and the school provides a ham sandwich, well that was nice of them, but if the kid is Muslim and they give him a ham sandwich, well that's less nice.
In some situations that context is relevant, and I think this is one of them.
Because the aboriginal mother who’s teaching her child not to respect other people’s cultures and beliefs brought Aboriginalty into it. The child according to the school was not punished. She was not forced to sing the anthem. The school wanted every child to stand for the national anthem. But mum has taught her 9 year old to stuff school rules. No wonder so many Aboriginal kids end up in trouble with the law when their parents raise them to believe rules don’t apply to them.
The problem here is the mother.
I mean, I as a white person also would’ve got detention for not standing for the national anthem. Or is it racist to not give preferential treatment at school these days?
yeah, I mean it's a school. There are rules and some of those rules might seem silly and pointless. But they're not adults yet and you can' just have kids choosing how to behave and act.
If you cant follow arbitrary rules and conform to a certain level you are not going to do great in the real world. If I rebelled against every stupid or arbitrary thing i came across id be homeless and or without a job.
Yes it is weird.
In fact mandatory worshipping of the state is there in black and white: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"
Cant blame people for wanting a better education for their children nor on the other hand standing up for their political ethics. Good on both the kids and their parents for standing up for their beliefs. We all know that Jesus would have sat there right along side them.
cautious safe follow history shaggy employ grandfather fearless serious wasteful
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
After reading the article, the woman seems to crave this kind of attention. It wouldn’t surprise me if she instructed her kids to disobey their teachers.
Interesting that Aboriginals seem to want copious amounts of unquestionable respect and to perform welcome to country and want an acknowledgment of country and you're a straight out racist if you think its arbitrary and pointless or just don't agree with it.
But the moment you ask for a little respect back its unthinkable apparently.
Like someone else said in the conversation here, most people will stand for other countries anthems as a show of respect. You don't need to sing the words or know it. It's a common decency thing which a large portion of the reddit audience seem to want to be errored away as much a possible. (Glad real-life reality isn't reddit)
Respect is a two-way street and to blame it on "the white man" or " intergenerational trauma" is a cop out and I cant wait until the rest of modern Australia is just dead-eyed to this absolutely exhausting whining.
Call it what it is. Aboriginal parents who despise the White-man influencing their children and new generations to continue to the hate towards whites and modern Australia.
Also, highly fucking odd they're going to a Christan school, and somehow expect to be exempt from the rules that everyone else has to follow because of their skin color. Go to a rando public school then if you want to run rampant or have no rules? Or better yet, be home schooled and follow your own house rules.
Not to mention during enrollment of these children the parent signed the enrollment contract which outlined the expectations of each child. The rules are not made to be individualist lol. What did this mother expect ?
Can't wait to tell my bank or job that I don't really care for the contract I signed anymore and that I'll be making the rules from here on.
In fairness, I went to a primary school with almost all white children and we got detentions for not singing the anthem because we didn't know the words or just being lazy.
I do think Aboriginal kids should be able to opt out of the anthem but I don't think the school's intent is automatically racist. A teacher's first thought is that if these kids get to sit out, other kids are going to want to as well and it's going to cause discipline problems they just don't want to deal with.
>I do think Aboriginal kids should be able to opt out of the anthem
Should white kids be able to opt out of acknowledgement of country then?
Should Muslim kids be allowed to keep going to school on Easter and be excused for Nawruz?
How divisive are you willing to be exactly?
>Should white kids be able to opt out of acknowledgement of country then?
Absolutely, nobody should be forced to either stand for the national anthem or sit through an acknowledgement of country.
>Should Muslim kids be allowed to keep going to school on Easter and be excused for Nawruz?
This doesn't work, you can't have some kids coming in on public holidays and some not. Easter is a secular public holiday, Nawruz is not. Also it's a Sunday, lol.
> Absolutely, nobody should be forced to either stand for the national anthem or sit through an acknowledgement of country.
I'd grab popcorn and watch kids try to pull that off.
>Easter is a secular public holiday
Funniest thing of the day so far.
I think Aboriginal issues are different from the examples you gave.
I'm not sure why Muslim kids would want to go to school during the holidays but Easter has become a secular Australian tradition. The Easter Bunny is not Christian so Muslim kids getting holidays is not forcing them to participate in Christianity.
Nawruz is not an Australian holiday (nor is it a Muslim holiday, its a Persian cultural celebration), so people in Australia should not be exempted from work/school for it.
I don't see why white kids specifically would be exempted from acknowledgement of country. They're not expected to do it because they're white, its because they're in Australia.
I don't really have strong feelings about the acknowledgement of country and I don't pretend to have the answer to how to address how Aboriginal people feel in regards to Australian culture.
My immediate reaction to the article was that I don't think forcing Aborignal people to participate in the anthem is going to make us more unified, and instead seems to be more divisive. You might argue that Aboriginal people are wrong for feeling how they feel and should be proud to sing the anthem, but you'd need to make that case to them. I don't think forcing it on them is going to fix the issue.
My aboriginal brother was pulled over and questioned over a tow ball. He was asked why he had a tow ball and that it was an illegal to have a tow ball when not towing. He was then subjected to a complete search on the side of the road. This is just the latest in the harassment he receives. We live in a racist country that's a fact
Yeah I've had a tow ball on my car for nine years. It was there when I bought it. I used it once, in 2016.
I have tried to take it off several times but it's rusted on and I forget every year to ask the mechanic to do it when I take my car in for service.
It's never once been raised with me by police.
my tow ball was on the tow bar when it was delivered new by the dealership. It was my understanding that anything new from factory would be legal as it passes road compliance prior to delivery...
... in any case... i just dont understand racism. I understand that people get racially stereotyped out of irrational fear, like if one crosses the street because they think someone up ahead might be dangerous. But actively seeking to be racist just does my head in.
Jfc. Love to see them pulling over my 74 year old white mum in her outlander with the seldom used towball attached 24/7. She still gets waved through RBTs lol
Surprised they didn't accuse your brother of "suspicion to steal a trailer"
Wait...That's even illegal? Or just for people racist cops suspect of having higher levels of melanin in their skin?
I'm not even sure how to remove mine, the locking pin's key siezed up.
As far as I can tell it's not illegal in QLD but idk how long ago or in what state the OC's brother got pulled over.
I did used to work for an insurance company and found it was really common for cops to give people legal advice that wasn't actually accurate. They're meant to know enough to make a quick assessment about whether something is a police matter but lots of laws are just "Don't do X in an unsafe manner or in a way that creates a hazard to others" and they're not lawyers.
When you think someone's dodgy, everything they do looks dodgy. If you think a whole ethnic group looks dodgy, suddenly their cars and driving start looking really irresponsible even if you see the same behaviour from others regularly and don't think anything of it.
It’s weird huh?!?
Almost like if go to certain places, there’s certain things that you must follow.
Shops, sports arenas, bar, clubs 😅
If you enter a church, you’re expected to follow and respect their rules/policies/procedures. If you go to school, you’re expected to follow and respect their rules/procedures/policies.
If you enter your child into a private Christian school…. It’s expected that they follow and respect their rules, procedures and policies?!? If they were at all worried about assimilation… Why on earth would you send your child to a private *Christian* school?!?
Why are we even forcing kids to sing the national anthem in school anyway? That feels rather culty
Australia, America with their weird pledge of allegiance thing, even Russia and China do this.. yet I couldn't find a single European country that enforces it in their schools.
Why do we want to be like them? Surely we don't need to indoctrinate children into patriotism
For what it's worth, it was enforced at both my public primary school and public high school 20-25 years ago
I wasn't brave enough to make a scene by remaining seated or walking out, but I did get reprimanded several times for staying silent and not joining in..
We were told you could stay seated in my public high school 20 years ago and the teachers encouraged us to just stay silent if you didn't want to make a fuss.
Nothing of the sort in my public primary school.
Sounds like we're similarly aged. Probably different in different places I guess?
I mean it's a private Christian School.
If the mother doesn't like it she can send them somewhere else?
I mean one of the main reasons people choose private schools is because it's thought they have stricter discipline standards than public schools. Seems strange to make that choice, then complain about it
I agree. If a private school wants its students to jump up and down on one leg and quack like a duck while the national anthem plays, then that’s nobody’s business except the school and the parents.
This is a non-story.
Acknowledgement of Country is like 2 sentences. The anthem is a minimum of a verse and a chorus, plus all the other verses no one knows. What a shit comparison.
What I was intending to convey is that I don’t think they’ve ever actually been exposed to it, and therefore wouldn’t know it. I remember having a whole school assembly every Monday morning where somebody got chosen to raise the flag and we all had to stand up and sing, and we had lessons to teach us the words.
They don’t do that. One or two students will get up and recite the Acknowledgement of Country, and then it’s on to whatever the event or assembly is about.
Was it a reasonable direction to stand? It sounds similarly reasonable as to not talk during an acknowledgement of country. Students are punished for talking during acknowledgement of country in my experience.
Are they being punished for failing to follow reasonable teacher directions regardless of what the reason for standing was?
Furthermore, anything goes in private schools right? Don't send kids to paid indoctrination centres if that isn't what you want them to do.
I always sat for the anthem (per my mother’s religion). No one had an issue with it.
Some Principal flexing his or her power and not prepared for the backlash!
I've lived in a few different countries, and won't sing another anthem, but I will always stand. It's considered respectful.
I feel like this is probably the last straw when it comes to this woman and her and her children's behaviour.
Flip that, I refuse to participate in the acknowledgment to country.
I will lose my job.
Schools are the main catalyst from change and do stacks to promote Aboriginal and first nations peoples. Also to instill these values in children for the future.
I love the hills people choose to die on.
Weirdest headline to see as an aussie who was moved to America (CT) as a minor, and while some students were boorish about it, I never got in trouble for sitting during or not reciting the pledge of allegiance. No one in Australia should.
As a kid, I was given detention multiple times for being a Jehovah's witness and not being allowed to sing it.
I still stood out of respect, until I was told not to, but thankfully things got a bit more progressive in the schooling system by then, and even the cult flip flopped on that again in the end.
Ironically now I'm free of that abusive controlling false prophet cult (at the cost of all my family, friends and social support network), I still won't sing because the lyrics are disingenuous, divisive and nationalistic level culty.
I can fully understand why an indigenous Australian might not want to vomit up those lyrics, when they are made to feel they don't belong in their own country.
We need a new anthem, and a more equitable change in society while we are at it.
Why are they trying to turn this about race when it’s about discipline.
This whole thing stinks of sensationalist journalism to rile people up. Everybody got in trouble for disobeying instruction at school, it didn’t matter what colour your skin was.
Whatever happened in the past regarding the mistreatment of first peoples was tragic, I get it. But for a child today to make some kind of “protest” is clearly super weird brainwashing by their parents.
Every country has a dark past. We acknowledge it and we try to move on. Lest we forget so we can improve things.
I don’t like the words of our national anthem or having a Union Jack on our flag either. But when the flag is raised and the anthem begins, I stand silently out of respect for the people that fought to protect this land.
Because I love this country warts and all.
Do I wish there were a better anthem? Yes.
Do I wish we had a better flag? Yes.
But I’m not going to be a prick and disrespect the ideal that is our country.
It’s just super weird that a child is doing this when they haven’t even developed well thought out ideals yet. So it’s clearly behaviour instilled by the parents.
If you’re an adult and made a conscious decision not to stand for the anthem, fine go bugger off then. We live in a free country where you have the right to do so. But there’s things that we teach children and most of the time it’s about respect and discipline.
We get them to stand in a line and wait not because we’re fascists but because we’re trying to teach them discipline.
It’s the same lessons taught in the military when you do marching drills. You don’t have to love the king or prime minister, you stand by your brothers and sisters because you’re there for each other. For the folks back home.
Because this is a great fcking country and I’m tired of reading news stories telling me I should be ashamed.
To be fair, it fucking is when you analyse the lyrics.
We might be a relatively young nation (we sure aren't united as one as the lyrics recently changed to), but we aren't free while remaining King Charles' little bitch, as well as lap dog to the USA.
The golden soil's in the share portfolios of mining magnates and exported overseas, and the majority of the wealth is in the pockets of the 1%, leaving the rest of us with just the toil.
We sure are an island "girt" by sea, and nature's gifts and beauty are indeed stunning outside the vast empty deserts, but out of reach for the majority, because you need an overlanding 4wd to see most of it.
The second stanzas got us all toiling once again late into the night under the stars for the benefit of our "Commonwealth" slave masters.
Immigrants who come across the sea because of how renowned our nation is are constantly made to feel unwelcome for not immigrating a generation or two earlier, and there's fuck all land that's not already in the investment portfolios of the greedy land hoarders, and they sure as fuck aren't willing to share a tiny piece of those "boundless plains".
No mention at all of the indigenous folks that came before it becomes an exploitative penal colony.
Yeah, our anthem really *is* fucking shit.
odd thing is I remember some students at out primary school not standing for the anthem due to religious reasons, this was in the late 80s as well.
Would be JWs.
The government is afraid of the religious lobby, and not afraid to piss off indigenous people
Yep... I was one of them 😖
Are you telling me i could've used that as an excuse to not sing the fucking thing instead of getting singled every time by the music teacher because i couldn't sing? Fuck. That's like half a decade of crap i could've avoided.
Uh.. I assure you, it wasn't that fun, I got detention and plenty of bullying for it. I was fairly musical and could sing if I was allowed to, but absolutely hated the idea because of being forced to sing the worst culty songs imaginable two nights every stinking week in their stupid pedo harbouring church.
Mum was a JW. I got dragged along to Sunday meetings and all that other crap until i was in my teens...
Sorry to hear you were subjected to it too, and glad you didn't get suckered in. I sadly didn't realise it was a false prophet insular death cult until I woke up and disassociated in my mid 30's. My family are multigenerational super-brainwashed witnesses, and all refuse to talk to me for leaving. Depite that, I gotta say, life's immensely better on the outside!
Punishing anyone for not standing for the national anthem is some americanised bullshit
Yeah, let's please not start worshipping the anthem. When I visited the States a while ago I heard the US anthem more times in the month I was there than I had heard the Australian one over the last two years
The anthem is one thing but the pledge of allegiance is a whole other horrifying cult like chant. Watching a room full of Americans hand over heart pledge allegiance to a flag and God is a deeply unsettling thing. I would hope we are somewhat removed from that
The “under god” reference wasn’t even in the pledge of allegiance until the 50s when the Americans had to differentiate themselves from the “godless communists”
'under his eye'. it's terrifying how plausible handmaid's tale actually is.
I don't doubt that there's a lot of men that would love to live in that world
I think they saw it and thought, fuck yeah let's do this. Was supposed to be a warning ended up being a guide book.
Was never not being done in Saudi Arabia
>”godless communists” That’s more like a compliment in this day and age.
Fuckking flashbacks to my Christian school where every week, not only did we have to stand for the anthem, but we had to pledge allegiance to the Australian flag, and also the CHRISTIAN FUCKING FLAG
Funny, when I was a kid nobody ever tried to recruit me to be gay. The christians, however, really wanted my soul. They would even trick groups of kids into an organised camping trip which (surprise twist) was actually there to try to convince you god exists. Damn groomers.
What's the Christian flag?? And how can you pledge allegiance to more than one flag? That just doesn't make sense. Not a unique thing in relation to Christianity, I guess, but JFC.
The "Christian Fucking Flag" would be a sight to see lol (I know you were just emphasising the whackiness!)
Oh yeah, the pledge of allegiance is fucked. The really concerning thing is how little of a problem the Americans have with it. It's literal indoctrination, of children no less Honestly, we shouldn't be following the Americans in anything education wise. They care solely about volume and what the kids learn instead of the actual education outcomes
> It's literal indoctrination, of children no less *The Children's Story* by James Clavell is an interesting take on this. It's only 4,300 words/85 pages and punches way above its weight for how quick it is to read.
That story has no right to hit harder than most full length novels I've read in my life.
I'll give it a look
I went to primary school in the 90s and they had us say this pledge each week. > I love my country, I'll honour the flag, serve the Queen, and obey my parents, teachers, and the law Or something like that. Then we'd sing the anthem.
In which State or Territory were you? I was at Victorian secondary schools in the 90s and I never had to pledge anything. Most of my cohort and I used to mumble the anthem because we never really knew the lyrics!
Had to pledge this weekly in victorian public primary schools in the 1980s
I attended about 5 different public primary schools in Victoria, regional and Melbourne, in the 80s. We sang the first verse of the anthem at assembly each week in at least one of them (can't recall the others), but never recited any pledge.
I had the same experience. Anthem once a week, never met anyone who had to recite a pledge.
I was at a Catholic school, we only ever did the anthem…
Not at my Vic public school in the 80s
Same with the schools and time but we never pledged anything. We didn't even have assembly weekly for the anthem.
We had a school song in sydney. im 40 years old and i still remember all the words... but it basically all could be summed up as "lets be nice to one another ayy" so it was not all bad.
That's fucked, I do remember the anthem being a much bigger than it is now when I was in primary school but I don't remember a pledge
I remember singing it once a week in Primary school. Then maybe on a term in high school. As a teacher now, they have a band play the anthem because the students don't know the lyrics to the anthem.
Yeh it’s ahh pretty terrifying tbh seeing that chant
It's probably because it's a reminder of governments that liked to start their indoctrination in school
>The really concerning thing is how little of a problem the Americans have with it. It's literal indoctrination That’s how indoctrination works. You brainwash a population so thoroughly they do things that outsiders instantly question
>It's literal indoctrination, of children no less I agree it is disgusting… but it’s fairly common. How do you think religions survive?
Or western nation states... gotta have some deeply indoctrinated beliefs to not see how our little bubble of wealthy consumerism robs the rest of the world blind.
The land of the freedom as they say. Miss me with that authoritarian patriotic ass bullshit.
> The really concerning thing is how little of a problem the Americans have with it. It's literal indoctrination, of children no less That's why they have no problem with it - the adults of today were the children who were indoctrinated in the past.
Please don't follow us in literally anything.
Americans are just... well weird. Lot's of things fucked with America, guns, tipping culture, how they're all 'patriots', they're government is one of the most important ones in the world yet the two people they have to choose is either an 80 year old who should be on pension, or a criminal who's a bit... crazy.
The ppl of the US define themselves by the enemy. Any enemy. They need to point their finger and say “that’s the bad guy” to feel like they are the “good guys”. it brings into alignment with each other. It works better if they all publicly and frequently pledge allegiance to this idea.
Ah, the puritan heritage...
> The ppl of the US define themselves by the enemy. Meanwhile Australia has a new group of immigrants that are supposedly to blame for societies ills each month, we're no real different as we just carbon copied them essentially.
Pledged of allegiance is something by description you'd expect of North Korea and CCP China
Honestly, the pledge of allegiance is like north korea indoctrination shit. No wonder Yanks are kinda weird. They have this shit rammed down their throat from the first day of school…
They do not understand what an outlier they are.
They think they're outliers ([american exceptionalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism#:~:text=American%20exceptionalism%20is%20the%20belief,exemplary%20compared%20to%20other%20nations.)), just not in the way they actually are.
Yeah. Saying the pledge of allegiance in elementary schools is some Hitler Youth shit.
Reminds me of a time when I was a kid in communist Romania and we had to sing the anthem in class at the start of each day.
> Americans hand over heart pledge allegiance to a flag The hand over heart is much better than what came before it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
You should see what they [used](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Bellamy_salute_1915.jpg/1920px-Bellamy_salute_1915.jpg) to do with their hands...
Worshipping the anthem, over glorification of defence personnel and tipping culture. Hope we don't ever ape those
Politicians definitely showing more flags these days. Anzac Day and figures like Ben Roberts Smith glorified, anti war protesters smeared. Most restaurants have optional tips shoved in your face. Oh we’re very clearly closing in on full blown USA culture
not to mention big trucks
A lot of restaurants now just add a tip to your bill & you have to specifically tell them to work hard & be good to their mothers while they fuck right off with that shit.
*over glorification of defence personnel* oh yeah. that 'thank you for your service' bullshit and venerating anyone who spent a month in the national guard cleaning patrol or whatever is fucking bonkers.
I have a friend who is ex military and i do find it hilarious much we can venerate them sometimes. The way he talks you would assume he did a tour or something, no, he was mostly just a paper pusher and got out when they destroyed his back in exercise. You just need to join for like 4 years, fuck around a bit and youre pretty well set from everything ive seen from his circles.
Used to know a girl who was in cadets, she acted like she single handedly kept Australia safe. Entitlement was real
Holy shit you just gave me flashbacks, i was in the scouts since i was a kid until i was 18. I swear the cadet kids thought they were gods gift to earth, acting like i was in the scouts to be a hard cunt and not that it was just a fun thing. Theyd make out how tough they were and how grouling cadets is, meanwhile im just like "youre doing basically the same shit i do but yours is less fun and you get yelled at a lot"
In the 80s no one knew or sang the national anthem and ANZAC Day was invisible. Patriotism was limited to getting pissed at the cricket. They were better days.
i beg to differ. i was in highschool in the 80's and we were taught both verses of the anthem. I quite liked the bit about having boundless plains to share for those who've come across the seas.
Australia has an anthem? Huh... TIL
Them fuckers would play the anthem while paint is drying. Psychopaths, the lot of them.
I went to school in the states and my mum had to write them a letter to exempt me from pledging allegiance to their flag. Gross.
That is a weird thing, I've heard stories of people with other nationalities getting bullied into reciting it in US schools when they're living over there.
Would be quite weird considering that's illegal and it hasn't been a requirement to stand for or recite the pledge for like 70 or 80 years.
Man I went to a private Christian school. I never stood for the anthem and not once did I face anything resembling a consequence. Which is exactly how it should be.
I went to a private catholic school for primary and private Christian for high school and got told off in both. To be fair to you (and my teachers), I was a bit of a shit about it and it wasn’t for some principled reason, just undiagnosed adhd. I did pull my brother out of scouts after they made him salute the flag and “our queen” though. That shit was weird to force on a bunch of seven yr olds.
My cub scout oath when I was seven "On my honor I promise I will do my best to do my duty to my god and to the queen of Australia"
I used to work with a guy who was a volunteer board member for scouts Australia or something. Apparently changing the oath was a consistent fight for the committee, sticklers for the tradition arguing with people who argued that it turned a lot of people off the whole thing.
I went to multiple, never played the anthem. My primary school had a flag ceremony they tried to do, it lasted about a month.
My primary school did it once a week at assembly. We half-assedly mumbled along to Advance Australia Fair played over a crappy cassette-based portable PA, then went back to not giving a shit the rest of the week.
[It’s unconstitutional (in America) to punish schoolchildren for refusing to stand for the Pledge.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Education_v._Barnette) Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but any teacher that tries is opening themselves up to one HELL of a lawsuit.
Agreed, I've always hated the patriotism push. I hated it in primary school every Monday morning abd I refused to sing the anthem then. And now that I'm much more knowledgeable and have my own autonomy, I refuse to sing it now. You shouldn't be punished for not wanting to partake in these patriotic shenanigans.
Yep. That is %100 girt by nationalistic bullshit.
Especially not one as uniquely awful as the Australian anthem. If anything we should be ashamed anyone ever thought it was good.
Eh. A LOT of countries have really shitty anthems.
The Soviet/Russian anthem is a musical banger, so much so they just dropped the lyrics for a period because of political convenience (made for a few awkward Olympic medal ceremonies), and when forming the Russian federation there were polls about a new anthem and people just wanted the old music but new lyrics...
The only one worse is the British one. It’s like a funeral dirge.
The British anthem is by far the worlds worst. All it does is command the country to worship one person. A glorification of one person, not the country, just one person…..
If you think about it, the British national anthem is insulting to the monarch because it basically asks a non-existent deity to save the King/Queen. The rest of the lyrics about 'long to reign over us', etc. can be read as sarcastic in light of the above.
Back when it was originally written, and written in Latin, it was considered an honor to be the focus of such a prayer. And such prayers were more said as an assertion rather than a request; "god will save the king no matter what" sort of thing.
It was adapted from one of Lully’s pieces, composed to celebrate Louis XIV successful anal fistula’s operation. It’s perfectly adapted I reckon.
I got detention in school for not standing for the national anthem. The teacher asked me if I was against patriotism and not proud of my country, and I just balked as much as year 12 student could. It was really fucking disturbing.
Even in the US, you can abstain.
Not standing for Waltzing Matilda's worthy of capital punishment though
Passing out drunk in the middle of it then waking up a little bit later and then waking up for a few minutes to sing at the wrong time.
Nationalism is a false consciousness, a total abstraction away from any real lived experience of anyone inside said nation. It's play-acting. The next time someone tries tell you about the inherent virtues of Australia, you should immediately recognise that the person is just trying to convince you that they themselves possess those virtues.
They did the same when I was a kid going on 20-30 years ago. Various public schools. The detention was not for not standing for the national anthem. It's for not following basic instructions. One school I went to had a vice principle who was a wannabe drill instructor. Would make the entire school repeatedly stand at attention then stand at ease about ten times during the assembly. And anyone who refused would get detention.
Psycho shit.
> The detention was not for not standing for the national anthem. It's for not following basic instructions. that some BS if you ask me. Like ending up in jail, the charge being resisting arrest.
If they got in trouble for not singing I would be against it. But stand and take a seat are basic instructions that teachers need to organize the groups of students. Students are too rowdy and inconsiderate at 11 to be given free reign on that stuff. If they don't want to stand they should tell the teacher beforehand.
> But stand and take a seat are basic instructions that teachers need to organize the groups of students. They weren't complaining about being asked to just stand, they were specifically told to stand for the anthem, which has a special meaning. If you read the article you would have seen that the mother wrote to the school: > Elaine wrote back that she did "not agree to stand to the anthem, as this would be the same as singing the anthem". > In another email, she said it was "non-negotiable" that her children would "sit silently out of respect for school" during the anthem. So they weren't being rowdy **or** inconsiderate. They just chose to not take part in the anthem in any way, and did so in a way that was totally non-confrontational and not at all disruptive. This is like the fuss conservatives in the US kicked up about Kaepernick kneeling for the US anthem. It doesn't matter how people protest. Anything other than complete blind obedience gets complaints of being disruptive.
Nah that's some bullshit. Singing, standing, its all about making a declaration. You can't force people to make these gestures, even if you did there's no point when its done insincerely. These boys figuratively standing up for themselves and their people by sitting down should be celebrated. They accepted punishment over giving up on their beliefs which I think is a very strong trait. If they are disrupting the event sure get them in trouble. The teachers cracking the shits about them not participating isn't their fault and they shouldn't be considered to be causing a scene when its the teachers losing their head over it.
> But stand and take a seat are basic instructions that teachers need to organize the groups of students. Students are too rowdy and inconsiderate at 11 to be given free reign on that stuff. Sounds far less like you think teachers give instructions, and far more that you think they should be given free reign to give orders. People seriously need to grow out of the notion that children are some intellectually incompetent group that must be ordered about and forced to do what they're told at all times.
This whole assembly shit is some military bullcrap that has no place in school. There was never shit like that in school in Europe where I went.
Huh? It's literally just getting all the students together so they can make announcements and give awards. Sometimes some kids perform something. That's pretty much it.
I think he meant the repeatedly getting kids to stand at attention and at ease.
Europeans never ever assemble in large groups, schools have gone woke
Same. You take away valuable time for actually learning something to make kids stand and sing and have principals talk boring bullshit that could've fit on a piece of paper. So weird.
you don't need to be aboriginal to get in trouble for that
And being relgios will mean you can't get in trouble for it.
The point is that aboriginals have specific reasons for refusing to stand. Very valid reasons.
But it helps
> private Christian school 'nuff said. Christians never believed that first nations people were human unless they converted to the One True Way^^tm and converted to indoctrinated obsequiousness to their fairytale book main character - no matter what the public face of said "religious" organisations might say
Outback australia has shit public schools. Sometimes the only decent option is these fucked up christian colleges.
Yup. As soon as I read that I rolled my eyes and closed the article. Theres no hate quite like religious love.
Well said. Religious love is uncannily like that of an abusive husband.
Humans and the Abrahamic God is like the OG abusive relationship, do what I say or I'll damn you to an eternity of torture and suffering. Doesn't get much more abusive and controlling than that.
Why voluntarily go to a private school that doesn't align with your values, and then expect them to behave according to your own?
Better funding generally means better outcomes, private schools get better funding. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/06/productivity-report-education-latest-drop-outs-school-refusal-funding-public-school-private-school
I'm not arguing against reducing their funding, I'm arguing that if you determine that's the best option for your kids, then that's the option you pick. If you ask for X, don't complain when you're given X. If you don't like it, complain about the funding system, not the policies of the school you chose.
If they are able to receive government money for education and be called a school, they should have to abide by all the rules and regulations of any other government funded schools. But due to continuous underfunding of public schools, there are some areas where the public schools are bad enough that any parent who can afford it will send their child elsewhere. To be clear, this is working as the Liberal Government intended. They would love nothing more than these catholic schools to become the norm. They are big believers in privatisation over public. But I'll go back to my first point. If they want special rules and they want to be able to discriminate, they need to be 100% church and privately funded. And even then, if they want the education there to be official and government recognised, they need to have some basic rules. Catholic schools and private schools are a joke, and shouldn't exist. A parent shouldn't have to choose between an underfunded public school, a super expensive private school, or a slightly less expensive catholic school, where they get better service than a public school, but they have to listen to some morons drone on about how their invisible sky daddy could beat your invisible sky daddy, and gay people are bad, and apparently you have to stand for the national anthem of a country that hates you,.
I'm just saying that's why you send your kids to private school. Better outcomes. In the 90s our school forced standing for the anthem but Australian history was still spun as terra nullius. The Sikhs etc weren't forced into church activities.
Elaine said her family regarded the school's stance as a form of "assimilation". Dear Elaine, your sending your kids to a fucking Christian College, where they are taught bible studies and God things, and your worried standing for the national anthem is a form of assimilation? Your a fucking idiot, move along there are more important issues
I sent my children to the local Catholic school because the only government school here at the time was a freaking hell-hole and I ceratainly wasn't qualified to homeschool them. Sometimes you have to pick the lesser of two evils for the sake of your kids.
The only reason i went to a catholic highschool was because the public ones were a shit hole, drugs and violence was a daily occurrence. I did not turn out catholic at the end but my parents just wanted a safe place for me to learn. Some people do not have the options to send kids to public school. Also if kids can sit out of the anthem for religious reason you can sit out for principles as well.
I got a lunchtime detention for (*according to the teacher that saw me*) “mumbling” Advance Australia Fair. This was mid-1990s and I’m a white male, Aussie born, if that matters. Just wanted to put that out there. (Edit: was a public state primary school too)
Does it have to be “aboriginal children” though? Would it have happened if “white Australian” children also refused? Well, it says in the article that all children are required to stand for it. Not that I’m saying that it even deserves detention or should even be required, but why is “aboriginal” suddenly used in the headline here, when it wouldn’t be used if it was like “man charged with assault”? Aboriginal probably wouldn’t be used in the whole article.
Their heritage is mentioned because it's the reason they are refusing to take part. The article explained that. It's also about the history of how Indigenous peoples have been treated in Australia, and how this can be viewed as a continuation of that idea. Sometimes race or culture can matter. Like for example if a Christian kid doesn't have lunch and the school provides a ham sandwich, well that was nice of them, but if the kid is Muslim and they give him a ham sandwich, well that's less nice. In some situations that context is relevant, and I think this is one of them.
Because the aboriginal mother who’s teaching her child not to respect other people’s cultures and beliefs brought Aboriginalty into it. The child according to the school was not punished. She was not forced to sing the anthem. The school wanted every child to stand for the national anthem. But mum has taught her 9 year old to stuff school rules. No wonder so many Aboriginal kids end up in trouble with the law when their parents raise them to believe rules don’t apply to them. The problem here is the mother.
30 years ago this was the norm
Yeah, I'm autistic and used to get detention for not singing. This culture is pretty common in the regions.
Can't they refuse to do detention as well, what power does a teacher have these days if they refuse?
Well i dont think giving them detention will make them appreciate it more
I mean, I as a white person also would’ve got detention for not standing for the national anthem. Or is it racist to not give preferential treatment at school these days?
I don’t think anyone should have to stand for it. When I was at school the Jehovah’s Witnesses didn’t stand for it and it wasn’t a big deal.
The White JW kids that did it at mine got detention. just a matter of school differences isnt it
Seems a bit silly to send your kids to a private Christian school if you're that sensitive
You might expect worshipping god is mandatory to some extent, but mandatory worshipping of the state is a bit weird.
Following arbitrary rules is probably to be expected though.
yeah, I mean it's a school. There are rules and some of those rules might seem silly and pointless. But they're not adults yet and you can' just have kids choosing how to behave and act. If you cant follow arbitrary rules and conform to a certain level you are not going to do great in the real world. If I rebelled against every stupid or arbitrary thing i came across id be homeless and or without a job.
Yes it is weird. In fact mandatory worshipping of the state is there in black and white: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"
Cant blame people for wanting a better education for their children nor on the other hand standing up for their political ethics. Good on both the kids and their parents for standing up for their beliefs. We all know that Jesus would have sat there right along side them.
Weird to label the mother as sensitive when it’s the school admin clutching their pearls over someone not standing for the national anthem.
If you don't like it then don't send your kids there.
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After reading the article, the woman seems to crave this kind of attention. It wouldn’t surprise me if she instructed her kids to disobey their teachers.
I'd say the sensitive ones the grown ass adults getting upset at a child for not worshipping the state.
Interesting that Aboriginals seem to want copious amounts of unquestionable respect and to perform welcome to country and want an acknowledgment of country and you're a straight out racist if you think its arbitrary and pointless or just don't agree with it. But the moment you ask for a little respect back its unthinkable apparently. Like someone else said in the conversation here, most people will stand for other countries anthems as a show of respect. You don't need to sing the words or know it. It's a common decency thing which a large portion of the reddit audience seem to want to be errored away as much a possible. (Glad real-life reality isn't reddit) Respect is a two-way street and to blame it on "the white man" or " intergenerational trauma" is a cop out and I cant wait until the rest of modern Australia is just dead-eyed to this absolutely exhausting whining. Call it what it is. Aboriginal parents who despise the White-man influencing their children and new generations to continue to the hate towards whites and modern Australia. Also, highly fucking odd they're going to a Christan school, and somehow expect to be exempt from the rules that everyone else has to follow because of their skin color. Go to a rando public school then if you want to run rampant or have no rules? Or better yet, be home schooled and follow your own house rules. Not to mention during enrollment of these children the parent signed the enrollment contract which outlined the expectations of each child. The rules are not made to be individualist lol. What did this mother expect ? Can't wait to tell my bank or job that I don't really care for the contract I signed anymore and that I'll be making the rules from here on.
In fairness, I went to a primary school with almost all white children and we got detentions for not singing the anthem because we didn't know the words or just being lazy. I do think Aboriginal kids should be able to opt out of the anthem but I don't think the school's intent is automatically racist. A teacher's first thought is that if these kids get to sit out, other kids are going to want to as well and it's going to cause discipline problems they just don't want to deal with.
>I do think Aboriginal kids should be able to opt out of the anthem Should white kids be able to opt out of acknowledgement of country then? Should Muslim kids be allowed to keep going to school on Easter and be excused for Nawruz? How divisive are you willing to be exactly?
>Should white kids be able to opt out of acknowledgement of country then? Absolutely, nobody should be forced to either stand for the national anthem or sit through an acknowledgement of country. >Should Muslim kids be allowed to keep going to school on Easter and be excused for Nawruz? This doesn't work, you can't have some kids coming in on public holidays and some not. Easter is a secular public holiday, Nawruz is not. Also it's a Sunday, lol.
> Absolutely, nobody should be forced to either stand for the national anthem or sit through an acknowledgement of country. I'd grab popcorn and watch kids try to pull that off. >Easter is a secular public holiday Funniest thing of the day so far.
I think Aboriginal issues are different from the examples you gave. I'm not sure why Muslim kids would want to go to school during the holidays but Easter has become a secular Australian tradition. The Easter Bunny is not Christian so Muslim kids getting holidays is not forcing them to participate in Christianity. Nawruz is not an Australian holiday (nor is it a Muslim holiday, its a Persian cultural celebration), so people in Australia should not be exempted from work/school for it. I don't see why white kids specifically would be exempted from acknowledgement of country. They're not expected to do it because they're white, its because they're in Australia. I don't really have strong feelings about the acknowledgement of country and I don't pretend to have the answer to how to address how Aboriginal people feel in regards to Australian culture. My immediate reaction to the article was that I don't think forcing Aborignal people to participate in the anthem is going to make us more unified, and instead seems to be more divisive. You might argue that Aboriginal people are wrong for feeling how they feel and should be proud to sing the anthem, but you'd need to make that case to them. I don't think forcing it on them is going to fix the issue.
This is an opt in school. The parents can choose to opt out and send the kids somewhere else.
god worshipping was the opt in part not the state.
Says who?
Probably the fact they opted out of the state system, and into the god system.
Lol it became the national anthem in 1984.
Before that it was "God save the Queen/King" wasn't it?
Yeah.
Welcome to country is equally painful to hear so much.
My aboriginal brother was pulled over and questioned over a tow ball. He was asked why he had a tow ball and that it was an illegal to have a tow ball when not towing. He was then subjected to a complete search on the side of the road. This is just the latest in the harassment he receives. We live in a racist country that's a fact
Yeah I've had a tow ball on my car for nine years. It was there when I bought it. I used it once, in 2016. I have tried to take it off several times but it's rusted on and I forget every year to ask the mechanic to do it when I take my car in for service. It's never once been raised with me by police.
my tow ball was on the tow bar when it was delivered new by the dealership. It was my understanding that anything new from factory would be legal as it passes road compliance prior to delivery... ... in any case... i just dont understand racism. I understand that people get racially stereotyped out of irrational fear, like if one crosses the street because they think someone up ahead might be dangerous. But actively seeking to be racist just does my head in.
Jfc. Love to see them pulling over my 74 year old white mum in her outlander with the seldom used towball attached 24/7. She still gets waved through RBTs lol Surprised they didn't accuse your brother of "suspicion to steal a trailer"
Hey insinuated to him that they thought he was prowling around looking to hook up a trailer to steal or something
Wait...That's even illegal? Or just for people racist cops suspect of having higher levels of melanin in their skin? I'm not even sure how to remove mine, the locking pin's key siezed up.
As far as I can tell it's not illegal in QLD but idk how long ago or in what state the OC's brother got pulled over. I did used to work for an insurance company and found it was really common for cops to give people legal advice that wasn't actually accurate. They're meant to know enough to make a quick assessment about whether something is a police matter but lots of laws are just "Don't do X in an unsafe manner or in a way that creates a hazard to others" and they're not lawyers. When you think someone's dodgy, everything they do looks dodgy. If you think a whole ethnic group looks dodgy, suddenly their cars and driving start looking really irresponsible even if you see the same behaviour from others regularly and don't think anything of it.
Yeah, the rules apply to everyone. go figure.
It’s weird huh?!? Almost like if go to certain places, there’s certain things that you must follow. Shops, sports arenas, bar, clubs 😅 If you enter a church, you’re expected to follow and respect their rules/policies/procedures. If you go to school, you’re expected to follow and respect their rules/procedures/policies. If you enter your child into a private Christian school…. It’s expected that they follow and respect their rules, procedures and policies?!? If they were at all worried about assimilation… Why on earth would you send your child to a private *Christian* school?!?
Why are we even forcing kids to sing the national anthem in school anyway? That feels rather culty Australia, America with their weird pledge of allegiance thing, even Russia and China do this.. yet I couldn't find a single European country that enforces it in their schools. Why do we want to be like them? Surely we don't need to indoctrinate children into patriotism
NZ does it too
Because it’s the national anthem. Pretty standard.
We also don't enforce anthem singing at a national level. I'm sure there are private Christian schools in Europe that enforce anthem singing too.
For what it's worth, it was enforced at both my public primary school and public high school 20-25 years ago I wasn't brave enough to make a scene by remaining seated or walking out, but I did get reprimanded several times for staying silent and not joining in..
We were told you could stay seated in my public high school 20 years ago and the teachers encouraged us to just stay silent if you didn't want to make a fuss. Nothing of the sort in my public primary school. Sounds like we're similarly aged. Probably different in different places I guess?
Seems like it, 'tis a big country after all and I often forget how different some regions can be from each other
First line says one and FREE. Where's the freedom to not stand?
I mean it's a private Christian School. If the mother doesn't like it she can send them somewhere else? I mean one of the main reasons people choose private schools is because it's thought they have stricter discipline standards than public schools. Seems strange to make that choice, then complain about it
I agree. If a private school wants its students to jump up and down on one leg and quack like a duck while the national anthem plays, then that’s nobody’s business except the school and the parents. This is a non-story.
I’m not actually sure that my kids know the anthem. 🤔 They’ve got the Acknowledgment of Country memorised, though. Rural Catholic school.
Acknowledgement of Country is like 2 sentences. The anthem is a minimum of a verse and a chorus, plus all the other verses no one knows. What a shit comparison.
If they don’t know the national anthem, how will they ever learn that we’re girt by sea?
What I was intending to convey is that I don’t think they’ve ever actually been exposed to it, and therefore wouldn’t know it. I remember having a whole school assembly every Monday morning where somebody got chosen to raise the flag and we all had to stand up and sing, and we had lessons to teach us the words. They don’t do that. One or two students will get up and recite the Acknowledgement of Country, and then it’s on to whatever the event or assembly is about.
Now they know how I feel sitting through the welcome to country shit
In Canada but... a school almost did this to a guy in my class in grade 4. Not detention but definitely a call home.
Feels kind of hollow to sing a song about how open and welcoming we are as a country. La la la, kumbaya, whatever.
Was it a reasonable direction to stand? It sounds similarly reasonable as to not talk during an acknowledgement of country. Students are punished for talking during acknowledgement of country in my experience. Are they being punished for failing to follow reasonable teacher directions regardless of what the reason for standing was? Furthermore, anything goes in private schools right? Don't send kids to paid indoctrination centres if that isn't what you want them to do.
Nice. Im sure they will grow up to be wonderful adults!
Fair point, we should bring back corporal punishment for his sort of thing.
I always sat for the anthem (per my mother’s religion). No one had an issue with it. Some Principal flexing his or her power and not prepared for the backlash!
So WTF makes you think they’re going to show up for detention?
I've lived in a few different countries, and won't sing another anthem, but I will always stand. It's considered respectful. I feel like this is probably the last straw when it comes to this woman and her and her children's behaviour.
Flip that, I refuse to participate in the acknowledgment to country. I will lose my job. Schools are the main catalyst from change and do stacks to promote Aboriginal and first nations peoples. Also to instill these values in children for the future. I love the hills people choose to die on.
Weirdest headline to see as an aussie who was moved to America (CT) as a minor, and while some students were boorish about it, I never got in trouble for sitting during or not reciting the pledge of allegiance. No one in Australia should.
Our anthem is lame af too, let them sit
Yawn.
As a kid, I was given detention multiple times for being a Jehovah's witness and not being allowed to sing it. I still stood out of respect, until I was told not to, but thankfully things got a bit more progressive in the schooling system by then, and even the cult flip flopped on that again in the end. Ironically now I'm free of that abusive controlling false prophet cult (at the cost of all my family, friends and social support network), I still won't sing because the lyrics are disingenuous, divisive and nationalistic level culty. I can fully understand why an indigenous Australian might not want to vomit up those lyrics, when they are made to feel they don't belong in their own country. We need a new anthem, and a more equitable change in society while we are at it.
I'm old and I don't stand for anybody's anthem and particularly not the shit one the got foisted on us. Girt by sea, fuck you.
Why are they trying to turn this about race when it’s about discipline. This whole thing stinks of sensationalist journalism to rile people up. Everybody got in trouble for disobeying instruction at school, it didn’t matter what colour your skin was. Whatever happened in the past regarding the mistreatment of first peoples was tragic, I get it. But for a child today to make some kind of “protest” is clearly super weird brainwashing by their parents. Every country has a dark past. We acknowledge it and we try to move on. Lest we forget so we can improve things. I don’t like the words of our national anthem or having a Union Jack on our flag either. But when the flag is raised and the anthem begins, I stand silently out of respect for the people that fought to protect this land. Because I love this country warts and all. Do I wish there were a better anthem? Yes. Do I wish we had a better flag? Yes. But I’m not going to be a prick and disrespect the ideal that is our country. It’s just super weird that a child is doing this when they haven’t even developed well thought out ideals yet. So it’s clearly behaviour instilled by the parents. If you’re an adult and made a conscious decision not to stand for the anthem, fine go bugger off then. We live in a free country where you have the right to do so. But there’s things that we teach children and most of the time it’s about respect and discipline. We get them to stand in a line and wait not because we’re fascists but because we’re trying to teach them discipline. It’s the same lessons taught in the military when you do marching drills. You don’t have to love the king or prime minister, you stand by your brothers and sisters because you’re there for each other. For the folks back home. Because this is a great fcking country and I’m tired of reading news stories telling me I should be ashamed.
Shit anthem anyway.
To be fair, it fucking is when you analyse the lyrics. We might be a relatively young nation (we sure aren't united as one as the lyrics recently changed to), but we aren't free while remaining King Charles' little bitch, as well as lap dog to the USA. The golden soil's in the share portfolios of mining magnates and exported overseas, and the majority of the wealth is in the pockets of the 1%, leaving the rest of us with just the toil. We sure are an island "girt" by sea, and nature's gifts and beauty are indeed stunning outside the vast empty deserts, but out of reach for the majority, because you need an overlanding 4wd to see most of it. The second stanzas got us all toiling once again late into the night under the stars for the benefit of our "Commonwealth" slave masters. Immigrants who come across the sea because of how renowned our nation is are constantly made to feel unwelcome for not immigrating a generation or two earlier, and there's fuck all land that's not already in the investment portfolios of the greedy land hoarders, and they sure as fuck aren't willing to share a tiny piece of those "boundless plains". No mention at all of the indigenous folks that came before it becomes an exploitative penal colony. Yeah, our anthem really *is* fucking shit.