Tag: Halloween

Halloween, Guy Fawkes and other imports

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Image by Jill Wellinto9n, www.pixabay.com

As Halloween (and Guy Fawkes) is almost upon us, I decided to revisit a post from 2015, which, statistics suggest, most of you missed.

The prediction in 1940-something that Mother’s new bairn would be born in late October may have caused some angst. In Scotland, those of a superstitious nature would have been in a ‘swither’ (a state of nervous agitation). But “no worries” as we say in Australia, or ‘nae bother’ – I was born before Halloween.

One friend says that apart from it being her birthday, October 31 is a ‘non-event’. But her American friends are horrified, in a swither, even, because of the (pagan) tradition that deems the 31st to be the date departed spirits return to earth.

I have vague early childhood memories of Halloween in Scotland where bairns wear ghost costumes and go door knocking. You don’t get something for nothing in Scotland. You had to sing, dance or recite poetry to be rewarded with a sweetie.

Cultural invasion

Meanwhile, the traditions of Halloween, or to be more precise, the retail world’s version, have been imported to Australia, but is struggling to attract a new audience.

One in four Australians said they’d be celebrating Halloween in 2022, spending $430 million, according to the Australian Retailers Association and Roy Morgan.

McCrindle Research uncovered much the same in 2011. Of the 26% of Australians who planned to celebrate Halloween (in 2010), more than half were primary school aged children planning to ‘get spooky’.

As I write this, supermarkets in this town have stocked up on orange pumpkins – the ones most favoured to carve lanterns. The ‘Jack O’ Lantern’ and various witch and ghost costumes accompany ‘trick and treaters’ as they go door to door hoping for candy (lollies).

A former colleague, also an October 31 baby, says he was spared trick and treaters for years by virtue of living in an inner-city apartment, where door knockers rarely strayed. But since he moved to the country, it’s a different matter.

“I was quietly watching television on October 31 when I heard the doorbell ring and to my surprise there were children, escorted by a parent who cried out “trick or treat”. I did not chase these people away, but rummaged through my cupboard and found some lollies that I have for sweet tooth indulgences.”

He recalls stocking his country larder with fresh apples for next year’s trick and treaters.

“I think the spirit of giving is important, so if we are going to be dragged into another American cultural tradition, let us shape it and give children something that is good for them, rather than things that add to obesity and dental issues.”

Retail therapy for some

The hard facts are that the retail sector needs to cram its calendar with special days (e.g. Black Friday) that will boost turnover and present opportunities to sell unique stock. It starts with Australia Day and the related merchandise, which includes flags to fly from your car, real flags, Australian flag flip-flops, stubby holders and cigarette lighters, packs of cards, beach towels and sun hats. The upside for Australian retailers is that unsold stock can be stored away until next year.

Then comes Valentine’s Day – a big thing in Australia with almost 90% of people aged 18-24 said to mark the day of lovers in some significant way. The comparison website finder.com.au reckons we spend $1 billion on that one day alone, mainly on flowers and restaurant meals.

Except for Nine’s Ben Fordham who, upon finding that most eateries outside of Macca’s or a kebab shop wanted $144 for a set menu, decided to stay home and cook!

There are other imported anniversaries which cynics dub ‘Hallmark Holidays’, including Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day. While I’m a self-confessed Grinch about Halloween, I feel justified in ignoring Black Friday sales. The great thing about being old is that high fashion, gadgets and gimmicks no longer seem to matter.

In America, Black Friday is known as the ‘day of deals’ and marks the start of the pre-Christmas shopping spree in the US. It has nevertheless been gaining traction here since 2017. This year Black Friday falls on November 25. If you miss it, there’s always our traditional Boxing Day sales.

Penny for the Guy

Some of you Brits will notice how I skipped over Guy Fawkes (November 5), a macabre celebration which now barely registers in Australia. It was quite a thing when we were children and the custom is still big in New Zealand, albeit tightly regulated.

The sale of fireworks was banned in Australian states in the 1980s, partly because of injuries and burns, but also because of the risk of bush fires in November.

The custom is still popular in the UK, where people start building bonfires in October while children make ‘guys’ which are traditionally burned on Guy Fawkes’ night. For the benefit of readers under 40, a summary: The Brits foiled a plot to blow up the House of Lords on November 5, 1605. Spanish anarchist Guy Fawkes, who was found guarding a stock of explosives associated with the ‘Gunpowder Plot’, was arrested, tortured, and executed. Every year thereafter on November 5, effigies are ceremonially burned, with or without Guy Fawkes masks, while fireworks are let off.

You may have seen the stylised face mask designed by British artist David Lloyd as part of the 1988 book series V for Vendetta. The mask has become well-known through the movie of the same name. It has also been appropriated by the Hacktivist group Anonymous, worn at protests and rallies, including Occupy Wall Street.

The Pagans and the Christians

Some Christian families want to redeem Halloween from unsavoury associations (wearing scanty clothing to Halloween parties).

Mother of six Samantha curates the blog www.cultivatingcatholics.com in which she reclaims Halloween as a Catholic tradition.

Halloween is, after all, the evening before All Saints’ Day, which the Church celebrates on November 1st. All Souls’ Day follows on November 2nd, when Catholics pray for all the dead.

“All Saints’ Day (or All Hallows’ Day) is a major feast day on the Catholic Church’s calendar!” writes Samantha.

“On this day we honour not only the saints we know by name in Heaven, but also any saints whose names we don’t know! All Saints’ Day is a day dedicated to them”.

As for those orange pumpkins, those left unsold are unlikely to be a threat to the market favourites, Kent and Queensland Blue.

We keep a close watch on pumpkin prices here at FOMM HQ as our dog lives on a diet of cooked chicken mince and mashed up pumpkin and sweet potato. Those orange pumpkins are edible, if they have not already been carved or left outside for days. Just check the prices.

This week marks the start of a month-long subscriber campaign. Those on our email list would have received a message on Wednesday. WordPress followers please refer to the website page “FOMM Subscriber Drive 2022.”

Human Rights and Halloween

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Human rights billboard Image provided by Fr Rod Bower of Gosford Anglican Church

You always have to look for the silver lining; like the Queensland Parliament introducing a Human Rights Act on the same day (31st October) that people were walking the streets dressed as ghouls and zombies, reminding us that Christmas is just 55 days away.

Christmas Island is just around the corner too – well, it’s precisely 1,550 kms north-west of Perth. But it is an Australian territory, unlike Nauru and Manus Island.

I mention human rights in the context of offshore processing of asylum seekers to make the point that Australia is one of the few democracies that does not have a so-called Bill of Rights.

Victoria and the ACT have their own Human Rights acts and Queensland’s new act will become law next year. But there is no specific Federal law. In case you did not know, Queensland’s Human Rights Act will replace a hit-and-miss system in which individual liberties are said to be protected under the constitution and by common law. The Federalists have always argued that the latter is sufficient protection to ensure freedom of speech, privacy, equality and such like. The anti-Federalists in Queensland have been quietly pushing for this new act for the last four or five years.

The subject came up more than once when former Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs was in town for Outspoken, a literary event that draws a mixed crowd of avid readers. Triggs, as one would imagine, was well aware that Queensland was considering introducing a Human Rights act and there was a bit of discussion as to what form that might take. As she mentioned at the time, she hoped this new Act would protect indigenous culture (and it does).

Queensland’s act mimics Victoria’s laws in many ways – it protects 23 human rights as basic as the right to freedom from forced work, to equality, the right to life and the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of association (remember Campbell Newman’s bikie laws?).The Australian Government should make a note of this one: ‘protection from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’, in terms of refugees being kept on Nauru and Manus Island.

If this new Act is set to enhance the protection and privacy of individuals, will this extend to trick and treaters coming down the driveway, uninvited? This did not happen in our street, the Halloween revellers opting to approach only those houses suitably adorned with spooky lights, cobwebs, pumpkins and other faux-accoutrements of a distinctly American tradition.

Protecting the privacy of individuals should surely extend to preventing real estate agents, politicians, Clive Palmer and the NBN from shoving unwanted solicitations in your letterbox?

Should it not also cover the telephone ringing at 6.50pm with the chatter of a call centre in the background and a long pause while someone realises yours is the next cold call they must attend to (by which time you have hung up).

ABC News provided a handy guide to the new Act, which meant that although I downloaded it, I do not necessarily have to wade my way through all 88 pages of the Act. The main objects are to:

  • to protect and promote human rights; and
  • to help build a culture in the Queensland public sector

that respects and promotes human rights; and

  • to help promote a dialogue about the nature, meaning

and scope of human rights.”

Under this new Act, the Anti-Discrimination Commission will be re-named the Queensland Human Rights Commission and as such receive complaints from the public. The specifics of the Act ensure that the Parliament, the government and more importantly, the bureaucracy that administers Queensland’s laws will have to comply with them.

Dan Rogers from Caxton Legal told the ABC the new act would provide a broad spectrum of individual rights. He said Victoria and the ACT had benefited from having similar legislation for over a decade.

“When government departments deliver services, they’re more likely to comply with our fundamental human rights.”

Rogers gave examples of when these rights may be compromised (cameras recording conversations or abuse of search powers by police and government inspectors).

Queensland Council of Civil Liberties president Michael Cope told the ABC that Australian States were some of the last in the world not yet be covered by a human rights act.

“We know from history that democracies can quickly change from being democracies to something else. It only took Hitler six or seven years to transform Germany.”

Predictably, the Queensland Opposition described the new Act as a ‘distraction’ from the real issue (the economy) and harped on about the time and money spent implementing the new Act. (Victoria’s Human Rights Act has been estimated to cost 50c per person, per year).

Most democracies have a bill of rights of some type and 192 member States have become signatories to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights since it was established in 1948. There are eight notable hold-outs: South Africa, Belorussia, Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Saudi Arabia, Yugoslavia and Russia.

Since we mentioned Nauru in the context of Australia’s decision to use the tiny island as a holding depot for asylum seekers and refugees, here’s what we know about its place in the world.

Of the nine core United Nations human rights treaties, Nauru, which has been a member since 1999, has ratified or acceded to four of them. They include the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture. In response to recommendations from other States and human rights monitoring bodies, Nauru ratified the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees in June 2011. Just so we know.

The UN has gone to a lot of trouble to set up a portal to teach children the basics of human rights. It’s not a bad place for adults to digest a summary of the obvious and not-so obvious things we regard as rights.

Item 19 is of particular interest to me and my 27 readers (and an old blue heeler called Herbie who chases his tail when he hears FOMM go ‘ping’ in the inbox):

We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share our ideas with other people.

That would be of small comfort to journalists jailed last year by regimes that do not brook public dissent. A record 262 journalists were jailed in 2017, amid an aggressive crackdown by government authorities, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In this free-ranging discussion about human rights you may have noticed my own bias creeping in about Halloween. I just do not care for the pervasive infiltration of American ‘culture’ into the Australian-way-of-life. Pumpkins were meant to be cooked and eaten, mate, by me or the dog.

And don‘t get me started on those Council workers cluttering up the only roundabout in the village with a truck and crane adorning the Flame Tree with shiny Christmas baubles and fake presents.

“Mate, you’re infringing on my right to freedom of movement,” the grumpy septuagenarian hollered out the car window.

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