Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
I wonder if these anti-American statements are meant in a mostly harmless, playfully teasing way or if they are meant to be provocative.
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From an Australian's point of view, absolutely. That tends to be the way the Australian sense of humour works. It is well known inside Australia that as a culture we tend to suffer from "tall poppy syndrome". I doubt very much any members of this forum are truly anti-American, if they were why would they involve themselves in a group that is numerically dominated by Americans?
I sometimes wonder how Australia is portrayed in popular American culture. I was playing Grand Theft Auto 4 the other day and in a radio advertisement in-game Australians were referred to as being "funny but militarilly inept". I was simultaneously amused and insulted by that, and it caused me to feel a bit defensive. I thought to myself "there are only 21 million or so of us and the proportion of GDP Australia spends on its military is comperable to other western nations".
I think that on the whole Australians are very fond of Americans in general. Sometimes we get upset at the perception that decisions made by the US Government sometimes affect the rest of the world negatively but hey, if China was the world's dominating superpower I expect we would be a lot less happy. Another issue that Australians may have is that American culture tends to be a bit overpowering as a result of cheap US media exports. Anybody in Australia who has a big problem with that has the option to not watch TV or visit cinemas. None of these things should affect the relationships between posters on this forum. Our mutual respect and long history as stalwart brothers in arms are much stronger factors in our relationship as brother cultures.
In closing I say be cool companjeros, be cool.
Edit: If this post is more a part of the problem than part of the solution feel free to delete it Kato. I don't want to make things worse.