Fremantle City Council has cancelled fireworks for next year’s Australia Day, after requests that the national day be made more inclusive. In a statement posted to Facebook, Mayor Brad Pettitt said that the change would take place because:
“There has been a growing movement that January 26 is increasingly becoming a day that is ‘not for all Australians’. For many Aboriginal Australians it is indeed a day of sadness and dispossession.”
Obvs, the decision has been met with derision by people who deride things for a living. Right on time, Andrew Bolt has gone full Andrew Bolt:
“This is a surrender to the politics of race and identity. It is also a surrender to the politics of grievance from Aboriginal activists whose personal lives have unquestionably been enhanced by British settlement, which has given this country everything from secure food supplies to dentistry and pain relief; from democracy and the rule of law to literacy.”
It’s an argument that conveniently leaves out, you know, all the genocide. Many Indigenous Australians are celebrating the decision, which starts to rectify what is without question, an incredibly problematic and divisive holiday. As one person reportedly said at the council meeting where the fireworks were scrapped: “Every bang to us is like a gun being fired at our ancestors.”
And to all the non-politically aware fireworks fans out there today, don’t worry. The City of Fremantle has promised a new “family-friendly event to celebrate being Australian on an alternative date.”
Don’t sweat it, 33 people who ‘liked’ last year’s fireworks, you’ll still get to celebrate nationalism via explosions some other time.
Photo: Facebook.
