An Australian-American's Official Comment on the Wildfires (Culture)

I have been in Australia since 2011. In that time, I have seen many things about this country that I love and also things I don't like at all. One of the things I notice is that as I see America spiraling into an increasingly "New Age" culture, where legalized marijuana is the major headline and the young millennial "snowflakes" are now greatly influencing policy making, Australia wanders down that road like a little sister following the older, trying to keep up but having no idea where she's going. America sets the pop culture trends of the world - like it or not. So when pop culture says "Transsexual is cool!" Australia follows without too much consideration for the ramifications on its own culture and population (VASTLY different from the US's!). The major populations (in the cities) pass policies which not only allow for us to be like America, but FORCE FEED it into our children at the school age, hoping to make a new generation more like our new ideal. This would be unacceptable in America, but not here in Australia because our culture and ideas of community, unity, and government are vastly different. We're just not historically or culturally set up to give people "options" the way America is, so what Americans see as an option, Australia can only institute as the new norm.

Now Australia is on fire. America's opinionated pop culturists (and in this, I include the media) have opinions. They voice their opinions loudly without any regard for their little sister's naive "nod and follow" approach. "Climate change!" America cries. "Oust the stupid prime minister who took a vacation! Fix the air pollution and while you're at it, save the Great Barrier Reef!" What Americans on this bandwagon may not realize is that we have a political party called the "Greens" who make it appear that they run on a platform of "Climate fixing". And they do care about climate change, don't get me wrong. But along with "climate fixing" (in ways Americans would balk at, by the way, like "It's now illegal to give you free bags when you go shopping!" - a law here in Queensland) they are also largely supportive of the social changes in America and mimicking them here in Australia. And of course, by mimicking, I mean force feeding. The bigger problem is not whether we would legalize marijuana or not (as an example), it's the fact that even AMERICA is struggling to handle the influx of new problems from that policy change and there are a hell of a lot more resources there than we could ever hope to have here. Adopting American cultural elements - good or bad - without an American culture as a foundation is DANGEROUS.

My point is this: When Americans join the cry of "This is your own fault, Australia. You need to fix the environment!" then realize what you're saying. You're making a political statement: "Support the Greens." You're making a social statement: "You people don't care enough about the environment." You're making an economic statement: "Your country that runs on coal NEEDS a recession! How dare you continue to thrive at the expense of the environment!" You're making an international statement: "Your big sister America is ashamed of your failure to prevent this." And you're making all of these statements about a culture you have NO BASIS for understanding. Australia is NOT like America. Our problems, culture, challenges, and values are different here. This culture, here in rural Australia (most of the country) says, "Yeah, it's happening. But it's happened before and it'll happen again. We're Aussies; we'll survive. Why is America sticking its nose in?" Right or wrong, that's what my Australian husband thinks, and he is not a stupid, ignorant man. He's just Australian. You're not going to change that mentality by making asinine statements from the other side of the world.

So please, send your prayers to heaven. Send your words of encouragement to those of us faced with the flames themselves, the economic ramifications afterward (as they will be massive), and the political crisis that may be coming as a result. But keep your opinions about climate, coal, and Australia's care for the coral reef to yourself. You're embarrassing me.