Knockers need to take a look at themselves

Posted June 22, 200619 yr

The article (from news.com.au) mentions Delta (briefly):

Knockers need to take a look at themselves

22jun06
IT'S high season for Australia's cruellest and most degrading cultural activity, toppling the tall poppies. Our obsession with humiliating successful people, who have made it to the top of their sport or profession, is embarrassing.

There's nothing wrong with gently deflating someone who â€“ to use a colloquial term â€“ gets too big for their boots. But as a nation we have made an art form of dragging the reputation of successful Australians down to the level of the common herd.

The tall-poppy syndrome is driven by envy and individual underachievement.

The knockers are jealous that someone may have been given a leg-up or got a lucky break â€“ ignoring the hours of hard work which inevitably accompanies success. They bask in the weak sunshine of failure.

Friday will be the next example.

If the Socceroos can't beat Croatia and advance to the final 16 of the soccer World Cup, the whingers will emerge from the shadows. "I told you so," they will crow. "That mob were never good enough to take on the world."

And poor souls like Harry Kewell will be individually identified as villains even though they have played their hearts out in Germany. At the weekend, Nicole Kidman will be rounded on for not co-operating with the media or fans during her wedding to Keith Urban. For years, showbiz types have become special targets for the whingers.

Remember Nikki Webster, the puppet on a string at the 2000 Sydney Olympics? She's been broken like a brittle doll.

It's been little better for Guy Sebastian after his Australian Idol win and even stars like Kylie and Dannii Minogue and Delta Goodrem are better treated overseas than in Australia.
It took Kamahl half his performing life to be accepted as a talent and not a freak.

Once we negotiate the Kidman/Urban nuptials, there's the Wimbledon tennis championships which begin in London next week. If poor old Lleyton Hewitt doesn't cruise through his early rounds and make it to the finals, he will be dubbed a failure, a has-been. Never as good as he was in 2002 as so on.

As for Alicia Molik, she had better use a magician's wand instead of a racquet if she is going to avoid being rubbished by the couch experts.

And some people just can't wait for Mark Philippoussis who, like Molik, squeezed into the championships on a wild card, to fail again. Mark must already be able to hear the tall-poppy choppers sharpening their axes.

In football, the Power has been ridiculed for not being in the top half-dozen teams in the competition although the players have silenced their critics for the moment. The vultures can barely contain themselves hoping for the Crows to stumble from the top spot.

Prime Minister John Howard has outlasted the hope-for-the-worst critics but poor Mark Latham, the former Labor leader, was like a rabbit in the headlights when he crashed at the past election. It was the same with former state opposition leader Rob Kerin in South Australia. The "nice bloke but ... " line trotted out during the election campaign became "Nice bloke, but we knew he was useless" when the Libs were beaten.

The problem with the open season on tall poppies is that it lasts most of the year. The doomsday people will be hoping Australia can't win back the Ashes this summer.

And, of course, any innovation like tunnels along South Rd is already a white elephant.

What is it about Australians? Why can't we accept defeat, failure in the face of adversity, with dignity and style? Why can't we praise the runner-up for giving it a go? Why do we have to stunt our tall poppies?