Tuesday 10 June 2008

Queen's Birthday Holiday
The Age, mouthpiece of the republicans in Victoria, did not succeed in surprising us. In the paper’s Queen’s Birthday holiday edition the editorial claimed, Australia should get rid of Pomp, circumstance and a right royal anachronism. But what other than grumpiness do you expect of a journalist, who has to work on a holiday? S/He hates it and s/he could not care less, if this holiday was to be abolished. Interestingly, The Age just wants to do away with the Queen's Birthday holiday without suggesting what other holiday should be given to the Australian working families. Yesterday Michael Cooney was a little bit more disingenuous, when he demanded - again in The Age - a "Kid's day". Who would dare to say no to that? No politician would like to be called "anti-children" or worse: "anti-working family"!

Indeed, as the depth of feeling accompanying Anzac Day seems to grow more profound each year with younger generations embracing the sacrifice of their forebears, says The Age's editorialist. Queen’s Birthday holiday should be one way to explain, why “their forebears” made the sacrifice of leaving Australia to fight on foreign shores. You may not like the term, but the men and women of the World War I era fought for King and country. They did not fight for the Asia-Pacific region, even if an Australian politician, who wants to spearhead the creation of an Asia-Pacific Union similar to the European Union by 2020, would have liked that. Will they tell us one day, the Great Asian Pacific republic was always the wish of the forebears, and it had nothing to do with their loyalty to the Monarch? The Age would be in the forefront to re-write history. It's the paper's daily agenda. This Queen's Birthday holiday opinion piece should be relegated to the same historical dustbin as most other editorials of The Age.

No comments: