verging_on_random

Bread and circuses

September 5, 2006 on 8:19 am | In Uncategorized |

In ancient Rome, the ruling class kept the masses happy with an endless series of public holidays and stadium games. Our contemporary politicians have clearly decided that it’s a winning formula.

This thought was triggered by reading that Peter Beattie is prepared to give Steve Irwin a state funeral. Now I won’t tell you what I thought of Steve Irwin but wtf has he done to deserve a state funeral? He was a successful media personality, period. But I suppose if it was good enough to have state memorial services for Slim Dusty and Kerry Packer and Don Bradman, why not Steve?

There’s actually a longass list of suitable candidates when you think about it …. which is just as well because there’s one federal and heaps of state and territory governments who’ll want to get in on the act. There’s Paul Hogan, Dame Edna, Steve Waugh, Alan Border …. well pretty much any Australian cricket team captain ….. Kylie Minogue …. but NOT Jason Donovan because there were those rumours and … well you know, the whole purpose of these state funerals is so politicians can pretend they were best buddies with the dead person.

Of course any ex-serviceman who can claim to be the last of his kind is a candidate …. like the guy who was a steward in a merchant ship for 3 months in 1918, never heard a gun fired, but got written up as our last surviving ‘hero’ from World War 1. And we all remember the circus that was Jake Kovco’s funeral, he was a private who got killed in dodgy circumstances in his own barracks and they still gave him a flypast and the Prime Minister looking solemn …. imagine what they could do if we get an officer actually killed fighting Terrurists!!! The funeral will run for a week.

And don’t get me started on ticker-tape parades. A ticker-tape parade for returned servicepeople at the end of World War 2 was a pretty understandable thing but since then it’s got out of hand, don’t you think? First it was sporting teams that won really important competitions like world cups …. then it was sporting teams that won pretty much anything …. last I heard Steve Bracks was going to have one for the Socceroos who didn’t make it past the second round of the world cup and won a whole 1 (one) game.

All this public bullshit serves an obvious purpose of course … the politicians who organise it get reflected glory from being associated with the people who are being honoured. Or at least they think they do. Plus it also distracts the media from other stories that might be politically embarrassing, so it’s all good except where they bring home the wrong body or something (omg i would love to have seen the look on Brendan Nelson’s face when they told him they’d brought home the wrong Jake Kovco).

I can see a day soon when government representatives will be hovering at the bedside of dying Famous People, jostling for rights to the state funeral. Every night’s lead TV news story will be a state funeral or a tickertape parade. And of course the whole nonsense will get more and more devalued but who cares … it’s all about appearance, not substance. Sounds like a good reflection of public life to me.

PS Last night’s news featured Howard doing exactly the same gig for Peter Brock as he did for Steve Irwin. Same background of Australian flags, same solemn face, same earnest platitudes. And yes, Victoria’s first in the race with the offer of a state funeral.