Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about the celebration of the Christian calendar that is New Year’s Eve. While there may not be much that is Christian in the average New Year’s Eve party – apart from a wish to turn water into wine – it is a celebration of the end of a Christian chronological unit. If we were a truly multicultural country – rather than simply a tolerant one – we would have equal but different celebrations for the Chinese and Greek New Years, the Buddhist Calender, and so on. But we will in fact be entering the year 2014 AD – atheism denied.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not averse to either a beer or a holiday - but if we are going to have a day to reflect on a year then let’s do it properly.
No doubt the TV will be full of banal retrospectives featuring the Crows, the Australian cricket team, James Hird and Tony Abbott – probably in that order. But despite our obsession with sport, the Adelaide Thunderbirds’ netball championship probably won’t feature: women don’t realy count in sport, or politics apparently. Julia who?
A Filipino cyclone might get a look in to the 2013 retrospective because the pictures were dramatic, but those people are overseas and aren’t really relevant. People overseas only become relevant when they arrive by boat, but since the boats were going to stop when the government changed, there can be no more news about that.
That said, Nelson Mandela will feature in the 2013 flashback, despite the fact that he trained with foreign revolutionaries and led an armed insurrection – a fact which does not diminish the legacy of one of the world’s truly great leaders, but should make us question our current Hollywood notions of terrorism.
In a year when “gender explains part of” the demise of a prime minister, climate change deniers got elected to parliament despite a year of horrendous bushfires following a year of record temperatures, Holdens (unsurprisingly) put the interest of international shareholders above those of South Australian workers, same sex couples still were not allowed to marry, the rich got a superannuation bonus at the expense of the poor, and literally thousands remain homeless or sleeping rough in Adelaide, it is hard to know what to make a New Year’s resolution about.
Somehow, I don’t think beer, chocolate or exercise will do it.
I am Greg, and I am grumbling.
This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-22/
First Broadcast: 31 December 2013
Greg's Grumbles can be heard on Radio Adelaide during SACOSS' Small Change program - 6pm every Tuesday night. 101.5FM or online.
