Outsider


I grew up in Northern Ireland and have been a teacher and lived in England, Ghana, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Malawi, Mexico, Colombia, The United Arab Emirates, Australia, Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia.

These are my memoirs which are arranged chronologically by year. Much is social commentary.

Aside from narrative recount, the style is often anecdotal, aphoristic and ironical. I try to soften the heavy social commentary with humour. Some friends have said I tend to 'rant' at times. I don't deny it! Perhaps it is the Irish in me. I apologise in advance then, if that is your impression too.

I do not intend to stereotype various nationalities but inevitably I will generalise for dramatic effect.

In a globalised multicultural world there is an urgent need to identify and face up to our national idiosyncracies and shortcomings. Nationalism has always seemed to me to be a bogus substitute for a genuine sense of connectedness and community. It is a highly dangerous concept when manipulated by politicians to get citizens to do things that are unpalatable to them-like going to war for instance.

If we don't begin to see ourselves as others perceive us - and not as we would like to see ourselves, then catastrophe looms.

I contend we can be comfortable with our heritage and still be able to criticize and even laugh at ourselves at the same time.


The two are not mutually exclusive.

Outsiders are in a unique position to show us our shortcomings because we simply cannot see them ourselves.

I believe that no culture has found the ideal 'solutions' to the challenges of life. Every culture I have lived in has both positive and disturbing characteristics.

In which cultures do people appear happiest? (notwithstanding natural and man-made disasters such as war and famine)

What question can be more profound than that?

The results may be surprising. In my experience, the happiest cultures were Ghana, Malawi, Mexico and Colombia. At the bottom of the list would be England, Ireland and Australia.

I think we need to learn from each other-not try to 'teach' each other...there is a big difference.

Please send me an E-mail if you would like to comment on anything.


Outsider


Outsider1952@gmail.com









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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Interlude (22) Of Bikies and Hoons in South Australia

For the uninitiated, South Australia appears to have a thriving 'Bikie' subculture: rebels who roar around on motorcycles upsetting everyone.

Six months ago, when I first arrived in Adelaide, I thought to myself

'How can there possibly be a 'Bikie' culture in Adelaide?'

Adelaide seemed to me to be so calm, ordered, peaceful and well...civilized and ...well-regulated!

And I was dead right!

It is over-regulated.. you can't put your elbow out the window of your car without being fined.

And that is precisely why there is a bikie subculture.

These 'Bikies' just thumb their noses at the regulated mainstream society of Adelaide.

I'm beginning to see why.

"Good on them!" I say.

The calm is phony. It reminds me of middle-class suburbia in Belfast or Dublin or Bristol

but..get in your car or on your bicycle and find out what mainstream Adelaide is really like.

The honking horns, the flashing lights -the strings of curses and shouts from open windows- it gives the lie to the "We're more civilised than you' attitude which Adelaide tries to project.

The 'Hoons' are there too-especially at night when they come out to drive like drag-racers in the suburbs-to take their revenge on the sleeping hordes of petty bureaucrats and petty officials...
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