Ready said:
Note that this is in Sydney... perhaps some need reacquainting with last summer's pictures of youths draped in Australian flags kicking seven shades out of anyone they took to be of Lebanese origin.
But why re-ignite this issue again?
It happened over a year ago, and was it the flag's fault?
Of course not!
The Cronulla Riot had nothing to do with the flag itself, but rather people who were fed-up with Lebanese gangs disrespecting Australians, and then these people got fuelled-up with alcohol and went on a hunt for people looking like a Lebanese.
For the organisers of Big Day Out to liken the Australian flag, OUR national flag and OUR symbol, to "gang colours" is a soft reason to hide their obvious dislike to anything Australian.
Secondly, "The Age" writes this:
Event organiser Ken West was quoted as saying fans' behaviour last year in the wake of the Cronulla riots and the recent ethnic violence at the Australian Open tennis tournament had forced his hand.
"The Australian flag was being used as gang colours. It was racism disguised as patriotism and I'm not going to tolerate it,'' the newspaper quoted Mr West saying.
Well Mr. West....how many Australian flags were present during the biffo at the tennis the other day?
I saw so-called 'Australians' wearing Greek, Croat, and Serb flags....yet they are not mentioned as 'gang colours'? why aren't they being banned as well at the Big Day Out?
Where are all the civil-libertarians who are usually very quick to cry out "racism", "discrimination" or "bigotry".....well, I am deafened by their silence this morning.
The Big Day Out organisers are discriminating against a race of people, aren't they? isn't this prejudice?
Thirdly, if all of us here are Australians, and the Australian flag represents gang-colours....then aren't we all part of the same gang?
The Age goes on to say:
But organisers today said Mr West had been misinterpreted
:cutelaugh.....he obviously uses the same spin-doctor as our fellow 'Australian', Sheik Hilaly...and has the same dislike of anything Australian as well.
The event tours six cities in Australia and New Zealand but the ban will only affect Sydney, where the festival has been shifted to the day before its usual Australia Day date to avoid nationalistic overtones.
Why is being an Australian, and proud of being an Australian, frowned upon by the Big Day Out organisers?
They shift the date to 'avoid nationalistic overtones', and then proceed to ban/confiscate Australian flags at the event itself.
What country are we living in here??? ???
And where to now?
Poor Freddy Flintoff feels a bit intimidated fielding at third-man....and a big Aussie wearing an Aussie flag as a cape, says something over the fence to him.
Let's ban the Aussie flag at the cricket next... :
The whole thing is just a farce, a disgrace, and if the anti-discrimination board have any balls, they'll take them to court for discriminating against a race of people, by singling out Australian flags, and not all flags, as a banned item.
No other country would tolerate their national flag being banned anywhere, and it just shows you how low this country is sinking when such things like this occur.
