24 Jul 2022 10:38 pm
I was more thinking of the shared experience of flooding and impromptu community cooperation. why put yourself out if there is no God??? Paywalled. They seem to have materialised in 2011 as a spontaneous response to the tragedy of the Summer of Disaster, yet Brisbane’s now famous “Mud Army’’ has a noble tradition stretching back more than one century.Organic, inclusive, free of government or even basic administrative oversight, the Mud Army represents all that is good about Queensland communities, illustrating that natural desire to assist others without any expectation of reward or recognition.In 1893, after the “Black February’’ floods when the Brisbane River burst its banks three times in four week, the then Mayor of South Brisbane Thomas Heaslop noted the spirit encapsulated by the Mud Army was already flourishing in a state capital which, relative to today, was little more than a shanty town.Thanking fundraisers who gathered money for the Flood Relief Distribution committee, Heaslop noted that many South Brisbane flood victims “appeared to forget their own losses in their solicitude for the suffering of others.’’“The calamity, dreadful though it was, was a means of good in one respect,’’ Heaslop noted in a report published in the Brisbane Courier following the floods.“It brought people of all shades of opinion and of all nationalities together to work for the common good and in the case of suffering humanity.’’Just over 80 years later the same spirit swept the city after the 1974 floods which cost 16 lives and peaked over the January Australia Day weekend.Neighbour helped neighbour and volunteers appeared from nowhere prompting a Courier Mail February 2 1974 editorial which said in part:“Queenslanders take a bow. This week in the face of disaster people have responded superbly.“Many flood victims have been awed by the way folk - often total strangers - spontaneously arrived to help.“There is no glamour in shovelling mud or scrubbing muck-encrusted walls.“It is hard, stinking drudgery.’’Yet it was only in mid January 2011, even before the flood waters had receded, that the “Mud Army’’ received its honorific and became a nationally recognised phenomenon.The 2011 Mud Army consisted of tens of thousands of people who, without any directive, arrived at flooded homes with rubber gloves, shovels and sometimes even heavy earthmoving equipment to clean up in an amiable atmosphere of shared endeavour.The power of social media almost certainly played a role in spreading the world of the movement, spurring others to join in what was, at times, a marauding, chaotic and utterly leaderless army driven not my conquest but compassion.Then Brisbane Mayor Campbell Newman, a passionate believer in the ability of ordinary people to deal with problems without the need for government interference, was ecstatic:“The volunteers turned out and that we cleaned up Brisbane and put it back on its feet .... we can hold our heads high forever after this,’’ he declared a year later.....(continued due to being too many characters...on next post)Cannonpointer » 24 Jul 2022, 9:16 pm » wrote: ↑ Seriously?
If I saw that group on The Office, then yeah. Funny.
But here, it was just sad. If any of those guys gets laid, ever, there is no God.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/que ... 24d191775b
PS: I was there, but further up the Valley.
Greg