Society/Culture Should Diwali, the Indian cultural festival, be made a public holiday across Australia?

[Cmarsh]

Calls for Diwali to be made a public holiday across Australia

Australia's Indian community is renewing calls for the Hindu festival of Diwali to be recognised as a publ...

www.9news.com.au

I guess the question is has it made enough of an impact in Australia's cultural landscape to be considered for a public holiday? Would it be accepted as such?

 

[skipper kelly]

If there's street cricket and good curry then I'm in. Time and place please.

 

[demondavey]

Ive have thought there should also be an Indigenous PH. Not sure what would be most appropriate though.

We have Australia Day but that’s just for white bogans to get drunk.

 

[Rusty Brookes]

As an Indian Muslim, I couldn’t bring myself to celebrate Diwali this year — here’s why - ABC Religion & Ethics

Celebrating Diwali is not an uncommon practice among Indian Muslims. For my family, it was always a cultural — not a religious — festival. But this year, amid a global surge of Islamophobia, I couldn’t take part in good conscience.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

Ive have thought there should also be an Indigenous PH. Not sure what would be most appropriate though.

A week off for NAIDOC would be cool!

NAIDOC Week - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Cmarsh]

A week off for NAIDOC would be cool!

NAIDOC Week - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A whole week?

 

[PiCkLeJuiCe]

I'm for public holidays, so why not?

I hate public holidays and the the need to shut everything down or charge 10-15% more as a surcharge if they do open.

I'd rather give employees say 12 extra days (or however many PH we get) that they can chose to take off every year at their discretion.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

A whole week?

Sure!

 

[00Stinger]

No

I'm in Melbourne's west with quite a few friends from Indian decent and they all agree it shouldn't be public holiday here

The fact it's being discussed is stupid

Sent from my SM-S928B using Tapatalk

 

[RedStarUncle]

I hate public holidays and the the need to shut everything down or charge 10-15% more as a surcharge if they do open.

I'd rather give employees say 12 extra days (or however many PH we get) that they can chose to take off every year at their discretion.

Except then... if you want to take Christmas off to celebrate with your family because all your family traditionally like to celebrate Christmas... you run the risk of being told "no" by your employer someone has already booked that day off you'll have to pick a different day.

Also... 12 extra individual leave days for each employee means, for a lot of businesses, exponentially more days in which they have to balance and coordinate shifts to make sure the right people are working to get the work as a whole completed. At least with a public holiday, everyone is off and we don't work that day. We'll then juggle leave allowances among the other days.

 

[Gethelred]

I hate public holidays and the the need to shut everything down or charge 10-15% more as a surcharge if they do open.

I'd rather give employees say 12 extra days (or however many PH we get) that they can chose to take off every year at their discretion.

I genuinely don't care about the above. This is a way we can begin to celebrate our multiculturalism properly, rather than just having more options when choosing something from Menulog.

 

[PiCkLeJuiCe]

I genuinely don't care about the above. This is a way we can begin to celebrate our multiculturalism properly, rather than just having more options when choosing something from Menulog.

Removing public holidays allows people to embrace whatever culture they want to and doesn't force anyone to embrace a culture they don't care to.

Want to have a week off for NAIDOC week - great.
Want to have a week off for Grand Final week - great
Want to have a week off for the Spring Festival - great.

If a business wants to remain open or to close - it's their choice.

 

[RedStarUncle]

Removing public holidays allows people to embrace whatever culture they want to and doesn't force anyone to embrace a culture they don't care to.

Want to have a week off for NAIDOC week - great.
Want to have a week off for Grand Final week - great
Want to have a week off for the Spring Festival - great.

If a business wants to remain open or to close - it's their choice.

... it can't be the business's choice to open or to close AND be each individual's choice.

You don't want to have a week off for NAIDOC week? Too bad, we're closed that week. That's you're week off. Oh and you do want Christmas off? Too bad you've already used your leave and we don't close for Christmas.




And it also causes problems the other way. You've got two mechanical fitters and need at least one for your plant to operate? I guess they both can't have Christmas off now... because your plant needs to run over Christmas since half the workforce don't want to take leave. They took NAIDOC week off instead and we had to force one of the fitters to work that week two even though they also wanted to take it off.



Or... one of our critical suppliers has shutdown for Chinese New Year. So we've got no option to shutdown too. Sorry anyone who wanted to celebrate New Year with your family on Jan 1st we're going to stay open that day instead.

 

[Gethelred]

Removing public holidays allows people to embrace whatever culture they want to and doesn't force anyone to embrace a culture they don't care to.

Want to have a week off for NAIDOC week - great.
Want to have a week off for Grand Final week - great
Want to have a week off for the Spring Festival - great.

If a business wants to remain open or to close - it's their choice.

... as though it wasn't their choice anyway?

It's a curious way of phrasing it, 'forcing anyone to embrace a culture they don't care to.' No-one's forcing anyone to celebrate Christmas; they're just giving them a day off for it.

Why do you think the addition of a public holiday for Diwali would 'force' someone to embrace Diwali? How do you even think that would work?

 

[adammania9]

Removing public holidays allows people to embrace whatever culture they want to and doesn't force anyone to embrace a culture they don't care to.

Want to have a week off for NAIDOC week - great.
Want to have a week off for Grand Final week - great
Want to have a week off for the Spring Festival - great.

If a business wants to remain open or to close - it's their choice.

Why move to Australia if you won’t embrace the culture of Australia?

 

[RedStarUncle]

Why move to Australia if you won’t embrace the culture of Australia?

Can you define the culture of Australia? Is the culture of Australia restricted to historically dominant Anglo-Saxon traditions? Should we have a Ministry of Culture that dictates what every Australian should and shouldn't embrace?

 

[carltonchelsea]

Why move to Australia if you won’t embrace the culture of Australia?

Why did your ancestors move here and do exactly what you now accuse the new folks of?

 

[adammania9]

Why did your ancestors move here and do exactly what you now accuse the new folks of?

My ancestors helped build a country that didn't exist, and contributed to a successful culture that saw Australia absolutely blossom as a country in just over 200 years.

 

[adammania9]

Can you define the culture of Australia? Is the culture of Australia restricted to historically dominant Anglo-Saxon traditions? Should we have a Ministry of Culture that dictates what every Australian should and shouldn't embrace?

Our public holidays represent the values held by the predominantly Anglo-Saxon population that helped build Australia into the successful country it is.

Nobody is being forced to celebrate Christmas Day or any other holiday. Suggesting no public holidays at all - particularly for such culturally important holidays - strips these days heavily of their importance and value to Australian culture and identity.

 

[RedStarUncle]

Our public holidays represent the values held by the predominantly Anglo-Saxon population that helped build Australia into the successful country it is.

Nobody is being forced to celebrate Christmas Day or any other holiday. Suggesting no public holidays at all - particularly for such culturally important holidays - strips these days heavily of their importance and value to Australian culture and identity.

I agree with all that. What's it got to do with immigrants "embracing Australian culture"?

 

[carltonchelsea]

My ancestors helped build a country that didn't exist, and contributed to a successful culture that saw Australia absolutely blossom as a country in just over 200 years.

A country and peoples did exist, history didn’t magically appear once the Union Jack was raised, unbelievably ignorant, no surprises there though, given your posting empty rhetoric.
Where are your ancestors from…….?
What did they build?
What did they steal?
What do you define as “successful culture”.
What have you personally done that has contributed to the above?

 

[adammania9]

A country and peoples did exist, history didn’t magically appear once the Union Jack was raised, unbelievably ignorant, no surprises there though, given your posting empty rhetoric.
Where are your ancestors from…….?
What did they build?
What did they steal?
What do you define as “successful culture”.
What have you personally done that has contributed to the above?

My ancestors were from Britain. They didn’t migrate, they settled. Are you suggesting that the early settlement on a land with no government or infrastructure, and 21st migration are the same thing?

They as well as many others’ ancestors built an amazing country from scratch.

 

[adammania9]

I agree with all that. What's it got to do with immigrants "embracing Australian culture"?

I agree with all that. What's it got to do with immigrants "embracing Australian culture"?

The post I responded to suggested we do away with our traditional holidays in favour of just choosing your own celebrations whenever. I may have overstepped by implying it would purely be a move to appease immigrants, as it is possible several-generational Australians would choose not to celebrate some holidays. But an overwhelming majority do recognise and celebrate the holidays we have.

Allowing everyone to choose their holidays at any time opens up cans of worms for businesses who would traditionally just not operate on public holidays. Any change would be to appease our growing population of migrants who celebrate other holidays. They’re welcome to do that in their country.

 

[carltonchelsea]

My ancestors were from Britain. They didn’t migrate, they settled. Are you suggesting that the early settlement on a land with no government or infrastructure, and 21st migration are the same thing?

They as well as many others’ ancestors built an amazing country from scratch.

They settled did they?
I’m not suggesting anything, you’re the one interpreting a brutal colonisation of a people and landmass, already occupied for tens of thousands of years was a mere “settling”.
Your ancestors built an amazing country from scratch did they?
What did your ancestors build, again, I’m asking you a very direct question here?
What personally did your ancestors build?
You continue to evade this challenge to your claims, cough up or be outed as an historically inept numpty…..

 

[RedStarUncle]

The post I responded to suggested we do away with our traditional holidays in favour of just choosing your own celebrations whenever. I may have overstepped by implying it would purely be a move to appease immigrants, as it is possible several-generational Australians would choose not to celebrate some holidays. But an overwhelming majority do recognise and celebrate the holidays we have.

Allowing everyone to choose their holidays at any time opens up cans of worms for businesses who would traditionally just not operate on public holidays. Any change would be to appease our growing population of migrants who celebrate other holidays. They’re welcome to do that in their country.

I'm an advocate for maintaining public holidays because I think annual leave as a substitute for public holidays is inherently more difficult to manage and would have negative implications on businesses and employees. So we agree on that.

I think that's a largely mutually exclusive conversation to the one on "embracing culture". I think we should have Christmas holidays... I don't care if you want to use that holiday to go to church or listen to Estonian folk music or plan your Australia Day protest or do an Uber shift because you want to make some extra money; it's YOUR Christmas holiday.

I equally have no problem with people wanting to celebrate Ramadan or Diwali or 4th July, and if people want to take time off for those celebrations I think businesses should be encouraged to facilitate that. But they should only be public holidays if they hit a threshold of public value to allow everyone to take those days off. I don't think any of those celebrations hit a broad enough threshold... not because they're "not Australian" just because not enough Australians celebrate them for it to be practicable. If that changes in the future then it'd be a conversation to keep having.



The key point is that if you want to use the "embrace Australian culture" angle over practical historical and current social positions on a celebration, then you're going to have to formally define Australia culture. Which is in my opinion a pretty nasty path to start going down.

 

[carltonchelsea]

The post I responded to suggested we do away with our traditional holidays in favour of just choosing your own celebrations whenever. I may have overstepped by implying it would purely be a move to appease immigrants, as it is possible several-generational Australians would choose not to celebrate some holidays. But an overwhelming majority do recognise and celebrate the holidays we have.

Allowing everyone to choose their holidays at any time opens up cans of worms for businesses who would traditionally just not operate on public holidays. Any change would be to appease our growing population of migrants who celebrate other holidays. They’re welcome to do that in their country.

Slippery slope fallacy identitfied!