The passing of great men has often captured the imagination of the popular masses. Less so the great women of this world. Certainly the contributions to society of Queen Victoria in the early 20th Century, and Mother Theresa late last century have been well acclaimed and recognised.
Perhaps the years to come, one may recall the life of one Estee Lauder. Born Josephine Esther Mentzer, she developed and nurtured her passion for cosmetics, and introduces the concept of having free sample displays in retail outlets. Her understanding of the market’s desire to ‘try before you buy’ propelled her company to expand across 118 countries that currently controls merely 45% of the US market. Until recently, Estee Lauder would personally launch new retail outlets as far flung as Easter Europe. Her focus on creating opportunities to allow women to feel beautiful has remained constant throughout. Indeed, what Estee Lauder has stood for during her 97 years of life continue through product lines such as Prescriptives, Clinique, Origins and Aramis.
Mary Poppins has arguably been one of the most talked about children’s books since the first book was published sometime in the 1930s. Yet its Australian-born creator has always maintained that she had never intended to write specifically for children. During interviews (which were infrequent, and never about her private life), P. L. Travers would say that her books (eight in totally for Mary Poppins series, amongst many poems and other literary works) were written for people who have not forgotten the child within. The film, created by Disney, popularised the first book, although details such as the many years that it took to arrive at an agreement with Travers, and her often-strident position against distorting her prized work via film, were often communicated in hushed whispers.
Probably much less recognised and celebrated than Estee Lauder or P. L. Travers, is the work of Gloria Channon. In a book entitled ‘Homework’, she outlines a first-person account of the trials and tribulations of being in what was then often regarded as the noblest profession; in these times it is often reviled and mocked. Despite shifts in public perception, the demands of the occupation have constantly required willing candidates to possess what could conceivably be termed as masochism. Industry demands have more often than not subjugated governments to shape the future of children in the moulds of cogs in the never-ending wheel of production. Growth and progress, it is trumpeted by politicians worldwide. In our beloved island nation, the distinction between government and industry can arguably be akin to a morning fog that is lifting ever so gradually in the warmth of a seven-am sun. In this climate of turbulent uncertainty, industry-shaped curriculum is at best a desperate measure to plug holes in a porous dam that continually and incessantly springs new leaks once the initial ones have been arrested. Teachers bear the brunt of training mere boys and girls to perform the work of, not men and women, but faceless programs, in a nameless, resource-greedy, and recognition-blind, system better known as the Economy. The authorities have a definition for this insanity: education.
The Olympic Games held in Melbourne in 1956 were a watershed in more ways than one. The Games were awarded to the Australians by a single vote from Buenos Aires in Argentina, and it marked the first time the Games were held in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Games were held against a backdrop of invasions: the Soviets in Hungary, and the French and British in the Suez Canal. In the Asian political arena, China did not participate in the Games as a sign of protest over the participation of the island of Formosa, today known as Taiwan. The Germans sent a combined team, and continued to do so until the 1964 Games in Tokyo; the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961.
With the advent of colour television, the profile of the Games grew, and the media hyped it up eagerly: the first day saw many papers highlighting not individual sporting achievements; the ‘free press’ curiously summarised the opening day’s with headlines similar in meaning to ‘USSR 43 USA 35’. I wonder if Baron Pierre de Coubertin had intended the upsurge of media interest in sporting achievements when he launched the Modern Olympic Movement in 1894.
To be fair to the esteemed Frenchman, the evolution of the modern Games turned crucially in Melbourne. With constant media attention, particularly from television, athletes such as Poland’s Elzbieta Dunska-Krzesinska, rose to the occasion despite being obviously affected by the incessant glare of motion cameras, to win a gold medal, equalling the world record in the process. On the track, Bobby Joe Morrow emulated Jesse Owens’ 1936 feat of three gold medals in sprint events, while his compatriots were similarly inspired, perhaps by the Melbournian sun, to achieve success on the tracks. American dominance continued the field events, with Al Oerter winning the first of his four consecutive gold medals in the discus.
The women’s track events belonged to Australia’s Golden Girls, Betty Cuthbert, Marlene Matthews, Shirley Strickland, Norma Croker, and Fleur Mellor. They captured the public imagination in the sprint events, winning four gold medals among them. The swimming team also did superbly, with the women earning 3 gold medals, and the men, led by Murray Rose, swept five golds.
The 50-kilometre walk fascinated Norman Reed, who emigrated to New Zealand from Great Britain prior to the Games. He gratefully accepted the opportunity to compete, and repaid his new-found country with a gold medal. The great Emil Zatopek finally conceded the marathon title he had won four years ago to Algerian-born Frenchman Alain Mimoun. Agnes Keleti, the Hungarian Jew, won four gold medals in gymnastics at the young age of thirty-five, a feat that would perhaps be unparalleled until year 2056. Her compatriot Laszlo Papp won a third consecutive gold medal in boxing, and became the first athlete from a Communist country to turn professional. Hungary’s water polo team fought off all opponents, including the Soviet team, to win a gold medal.
Indeed it can be said that the Melbourne Games were a cauldron of stories on and off the field – or pool, or indeed ring – of sport. A veritable melting pot of politics, sporting breakthroughs, and indeed romance. Olga Fikotova, the Czech discus gold medallist, and Harold Vincent Connolly, the American winner of the hammer event, would meet, fall in love, marry in communist Czechoslovakia – with the express permission of the Czech President, and eventually settle in the US.
Perhaps one final story would serve to illustrate just how much of a watershed the Melbourne Games were at the time. John Ian Wing, a seventeen year old Australian of Chinese descent, wrote a letter to the Melbourne Olympic Organising Committee. He proposed that all participating nations march together during the closing ceremony as
one family, as opposed to marching under separate national flags. ‘During the march there will be only one nation, what more could anybody want if the whole world could be made as one nation…’. Wise words from one so tender in years. This ‘new tradition’, if you will, continues through this day.
During periods of high tension and uncertainty, it is nothing short of amazing how common sense can overcome the illusory power that institutions, governments, social conventions, and prejudices, aim to project. Looking back at the openness created by the ordinary citizen forty-eight years ago, it is perhaps ludicrous to allow oneself to be distracted by the powers-that-be when they discuss protectionism and the closing of borders. If anything, the Australian government is allowing more, not fewer, people from foreign countries to settle and gain residency, despite what may be portrayed in the popular press and television. Indeed globalisation, having taken root with the invention of the steam engine and the airplane, and nurtured ever since the end of the Second World War, is not only here to stay; its growth will continue despite attempts to stem or prune it. Australian and other nations would do well to appreciate that attempts to reverse such a trends may prove counter-productive and ultimately futile.
It is amazing how things can be taken for granted. Or people, for that matter. I remember the times when I was in primary school, or elementary school, as the Americans would call it. It would be accurate to say that I am in touch with a minute minority of my classmates from those times. Yet it is through no fault of theirs. Psychologists have a term for this phenomenon: proximity.
I certainly do not profess to be an expert on psychology by any stretch of the imagination, but my layman's understanding of that is one of emotional, rather than physical proximity. Through my secondary, or high school days, the friendships formed have indeed endured far further than those formed during the primary school years. Of course it was rare for one to articulate clearly his ambitions during those times, much less to his peers, who understandably would focus their attentions and energies on studies, work or the opposite sex.
It is said that the first twenty years of one's life constitute the formative years: a precursor to how one's life would develop through adulthood, old age, unto death. Perhaps a century down the road, there may be a definitive conclusion to this academic debate. Until then, we would do well to make decisions the best we see fit, given the ‘boundedness’ of our rationality (at this juncture it would only do justice to give due credit to the economists for their contribution of this term to the masses). For my part, the teenage years were initiations to the concept of careers, empathy, and the meaning of life.
It was a time of growth and excitement, and equally so, pitfalls and uncertainty. Those old enough to live through, or study the 1980s would appreciate the giddying heights of growth in the Japanese and Asian economies. These would go hand in hand with the deadlock and stagnation that was the Cold War, and the fear of inflation during the Thatcherite era in Britain. These would all climax during the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Words can do no justice to express the significance to a student of history who was actually living these events as they unfolded. From what was East Germany, to Hungary, to Romania, to Czechoslovakia, to the Baltic states, the 'reverse domino', if I may be permitted to use that phrase, continued through to the former Soviet Union itself. One by one, these great nations released themselves from Communism and embraced self-determination.
The 1990s saw more, if not less, uncertainty. One by one, more and more beliefs that were held so strongly by the masses were systematically shaken, some of them to the core. Japanese economic prowess receded to mere figments of the 80s imagination; lesser economies such as South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore had their time in the sun, their fifteen minutes, so to speak. The audacity of one nation invading another was roundly rejected: Saddam Hussein would attest to that. However, uncertainty revealed itself in the guise of structural unemployment in Europe and Japan; Australia would grow and prosper during these years. Splinter elements in Chechnya, Georgia, the former Yugoslavia, and Somalia, would replace the former Soviet Union as threats to the New World Order as the politicians would coin the global geopolitik.
Increasingly, during the 1990s, life-long employment would be no more than a formula for the baby-boomer generation, but not for their children, the Generation Xers. More women began to enter, some to re-enter, the workforce, in order to supply much-needed income to maintain their increasingly costly families. The growth of the temporary workforce, known as Manpower Inc. in the US, redefines the meaning of the word 'career', even unto this present day. Globalisation, the much-maligned word, has enabled more to travel to seek opportunities in the US, Asia, Europe and Australia, than at any other time during the course of human history. Indeed, more uncertainties will accompany the opportunities, through the ebb and flow to the life and times of this first decade of the 21st century. It is during times like these that one tends to search for sources of consistency and stability: for comfort, if not for counsel.
To the man who has inspired my writing, and indeed the creation of this blog. He does not know me; then again he does, through his weekly contributions to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). I must admit to not being as faithful as many others in listening to his fifteen minute snapshots of global events, yet each time I do so, it is undeniable the impact mere words can have upon me, when articulated through his constantly clear, distinct, voice. This same voice that I was introduced to during my secondary school years, all the way through adulthood, this voice that had endured in the public domain for seven decades, and for ninety-five years elsewhere. To Alistair Cooke, from all who know him: Thank you.
