BAN the BOGAN


The thinking bogan's bogan - Chris Franklin

‘Everybody’s gotta have somebody to look down on,
Who they can feel better than at any time they please,
Someone doin’ something dirty decent folks all frown on
If you cain’t find nobody else then help yourself to me.’
Kris Kristofferson wrote it. Good on ya Kris, you said it well. But we’re not hearing it.

I hoped we’d got a bit more civilized over the years. We try to discourage discrimination by race, religion, sexuality, age and physical or intellectual features. I know we’ve still got a long way to go, but at least we’re trying. Or so I thought.

Then I read a couple of articles in local papers recently. Two different columnists, neither of whom suffer from a low income, unless compared with Gina Reinhart, were slagging off at ‘Bogans.’

One SMUT (Smart-arsed Uppity Twit) had the temerity to explain to her brother who had been out of the country, how to pick one. She pointed out a diner’s ‘uncouth manners.’ Shock horror, he wasn’t dressed to her liking, and he was holding his fork the wrong way. This is of course a sign of a lesser person. A person who should be classified as such so that he or she can be excluded from decent society. Let’s call them Bogans. Then send them to the Tower, I say.

I’ve got news for Miss SMUT. People in different cultures have developed different forms of usage of cutlery. There is not one universally accepted way. I went into China pre the Tiananmen Square disaster. Eating in a small town up near the Gobi Desert, a compulsory guide provided by the regime, laughed at my colleague and myself. Our eating habits were really strange. We chewed with our mouths shut, just like old people with no teeth, who were scared the food would fall out. It should also be noted that balancing the peas on the back of the knife is considered stupid in a number of quite sophisticated countries. And did Miss SMUT take into account the possibility of physical disabilities that might make holding a knife and fork in any form, a real challenge?

As for clothing. Perhaps the person who wasn’t dressed to her liking, did not have the money to dress more expensively. Maybe they were a single parent doing it tough, or someone spending their spare dough, if they had any, helping someone else to cope with what is a difficult world if you don’t have enough of the folding stuff.

It is also possible that the person being classified didn’t speak real good, whatever that means. In contrast, Miss SMUT can speak real beaut, but her thinking is stuffed.
And what has any of this to do with the worth of a person? Have we moved so far from reality that we define ourselves by the trappings we can acquire? I hope not. Acquisitions can never provide the ‘measure of a man.’ Too many and they just end up enslaving us.

The classification ‘Bogan’ is in itself an interesting one. One of the origins of the word was a reference to a local indigenous group who resided around Lake Boga, in Northern Victoria. How does that make you feel about using this word to stereotype people?

Using derogatory terms has a purpose. It helps us disassociate from a group of people. We can mark them out as different, as lesser citizens of this country and therefore not worthy of the respect, or services, that us self-proclaimed superior beings deserve.

I know, you don’t really mean to hurt anyone. It’s a joke, it’s a term of endearment, etc, etc. That’s what every bully says when he or she picks on someone more vulnerable than themselves. Or is it our own vulnerability showing through?

Next time you hear someone calling someone a Bogan, fight back. Tell them not to be a SMUT. Or maybe you have your own acronym. Can you think of one for ‘FUCKWIT?’

By Brenda Richards