PM Howard Demands Australia's Biggest Music Festival Be Cancelled
A stupid decision to ban the Australian flag from next week's Big Day Out music festival in Sydney has been greeted by stupid comments from the Australian prime minister and the premier of New South Wales in response.
The producer of the Big Day Out claims he has no choice but to ban the flag from the festival in Sydney because he doesn't want a repeat of last year's incidents where gangs roamed through the crowd with the Australian flag and demanded people pledge allegiance to it. To show how "Aussie" they were.
But the producer, Ken West, is clearly attempting to make a couple of political points with the ban as well :
"I didn't like the behaviour of last year and we have moved the event from Australia Day this year partly because of the way the flags were used," Mr West said.Here's what the prime minister John Howard had to say :
"The Australian flag was being used as gang colours. It was racism disguised as patriotism and I'm not going to tolerate it.
Mr West added the ban was also in part trying to be respectful to the Aboriginal community, who view Australia Day as invasion day.
"This is about giving people the opportunity to think about it and what the flag means to them," he said.
(The PM) yesterday condemned the Big Day Out's decision to outlaw the Australian flag as an insult to the freedom it represents.
"The event organisers should not ram their peculiar political views down the throats of young Australians who are only interested in a good day out," an angry Mr Howard said yesterday.
"Such an event with such a condition is not welcome anywhere in Australia."
The flag is not exactly a shining representation of "freedom" when it has a big fat Union Jack filling almost a quarter of its total size. The Union Jack represents Australia's colonial past, when settlers and freed convicts existed under a brutal police state ruled by British military redcoats.
Here's what the premier of New South Wales had to say :
Premier Morris Iemma reacted angrily to the ban, claiming the promotors should "reverse their decision immediately".Making comparisons between Australia and the United States is "just ridiculous". Particularly when it comes to the issue of "Independence Day". Australia has no Independence Day.
"If they pulled this on Independence Day in the US, imagine what would happen. It's just ridiculous," he said.
The ban is going to cause more trouble than it's worth. The easier option would have been to simply have security guards at the Big Day Out keep an eye on those they think are going to make trouble.
While everyone should be protected from violence and dickhead thugs, it's a fact of life that you are going to come across people at large gatherings who might hassle you a bit, or upset you. That's just too bad.
Why do people have such an aversion to being confronted by someone who has ideas and beliefs that they do not agree with? What happened to civil arguments and debate?
Nobody likes someone getting in their face, particularly at a music festival where the idea is to have fun. But this ban is going to incite the very same people the Big Day Out producers intended to waylay.
Then again, it's about time we had an Australian flag that doesn't reek of the British Empire. The Union Jack has no business hogging the top right hand corner of the Australian flag.
We need to be a Republic, we need a new flag and we need a Bill of Rights.
Why fight for all these things in Iraq, when we can't even have them here at home?
Hell Of A Flap About The Flag - Road To Surfdom
Go To 'The Orstrahyun' For More, And A Short History Of The Australian Flag
Tim Dunlop Has More At Blogocracy, And A Wide Range Of Opinions In Comments
