Over the weekend I joined up with a freeze flash mob raising awareness of the sex trafficking trade and calling for an end to the practice.
The protest was organised by Adrian Greenwood from the More Praxis network, an expression of the Uniting Church in Australia, Victoria/Tasmania Synod. Many of the participants were attending the Forge Grassroots Festival. The idea was for a group to freeze on cue for five minutes, while pedestrians walked past, stopped and stared, or took brochures. It’s designed to be a non violent, viral kind of exercise that invites others to engage in their own way.
Interestingly enough the photograph here shows a freeze flash mob outside The Body Shop. Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, was a strong advocate for the introduction of a new European convention against the trafficking of human beings.
This YouTube clip was prepared by Darren Wright, who while freezing in Bourke St had his camera on rapid photography mode.
John Evans, a fellow Uniting Church minister, based at Church of All Nations in Carlton, Melbourne, has hit the news with his suggestion that Australia rethinks Good Friday.
John’s arguing that in a more multicultural, multifaith society, designating the Christian festival of Good Friday as a public holiday is becoming less and less appropriate. Outside the Christian community there is little religious significance for most Australians. “Whether Good Friday is a public holiday or not will not change or challenge the day’s significance. In fact, in the place of Good Friday, there should be a national holiday to mark our endeavours towards Aboriginal reconciliation”, John is quoted as saying.
How to respond?
I’ve heard people saying that the arrival of people with different religious beliefs shouldn’t lead to the abandonment of Christian practices and observances. But, of course, it’s too late for that. The arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus just doesn’t figure for most people. And aligning lives with the life of Jesus less so.
Many Christians, Protestant and Catholic, gather for Good Friday services in which they reflect on the suffering of the Christ. People from the Orthodox wing of Christianity, however, are usually observing Easter at some other time, this year on April 25 to 27. Fortunately for these people in Australia and New Zealand Good Friday for them will coincide with ANZAC Day this year.
Without Good Friday as a public holiday people would go to work as usual. Those who wished to take part in religious observances would have the choice of gathering before work, at lunch time, after work. Or taking the afternoon off to attend a service at 3 pm. Not a big deal. Easter camps for young people would be shorter however, starting on Friday nights.
Elsewhere in the world
Good Friday is a public holiday in Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Peru, the countries of the Caribbean, Germany, Malta, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Ireland observes the day as bank holiday and bans the sale of alcohol. Indonesia and Malaysia, majority Muslim countries, observe the day as a national holiday.
John Evans points out that Good Friday is not a national holiday in the United States. The day is given as a holiday in some states, including Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Tennessee. Some schools and universities observe the day as a Spring holiday.
Bottom Line
Easter, although associated with a Christian tradition, is a key part of the Australian culture. Most Australians, regardless of beliefs or ethnic backgrounds, enjoy having an extra long weekend, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday observed on Monday. People get to travel, see family and just have a relaxing time. Judging by the number of people at the bottle store on Thursday, it’s also a traditional time for communal consumption of food and alcohol. The long weekend is a chance for the practice of ’sabbath’ - recognising that we need to stop our obsession with making and spending money.
Now the discussion of a day of reconciliation is another question, worthy of a discussion in itself.
On this day in 1935 Bert Sachse is credited for creating the pavlova. Sachse was a chef at the Esplanade Hotel in Perth, Western Australia. It is said that the pavlova was named after ballerina Anna Pavlova who had visited Australia in 1926 and 1929 and had died in 1931. Australians like to use this date to claim pavlova as a national dessert.
New Zealanders have a problem with this. Professor Helen Leach, a culinary anthropologist at Otago University in New Zealand, found a pavlova recipe in a 1933 Rangiora Mothers’ Union cookery book, along with an even earlier copy of the pavlova recipe from a 1929 rural New Zealand magazine. She’s written the story up in “The pavlova cake: the evolution of a national dish”, an article in Food on the Move: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 1996, edited by Harlan Walker.
The pavlova, a whipped cream-filled meringue dish usually topped generously with passionfruit, strawberries or kiwifruit, is considered the national dessert of both Australia and New Zealand.
