Friends in the United States ask whether or not we celebrate Thanksgiving here and I explain to them that, no, Australians miss out on “turkey day” and a lot of important holidays like July 4th, Evacuation Day, and Sam Houston’s birthday. And hardly anybody here remembers the Alamo.
That’s a tongue-in-cheek reply, of course, and Kristi and I will be joining an American friend and her Australian husband tomorrow for a Thanksgiving feast with others, as we did last year. It will be Friday here as we start the festivities, but still Thursday in the US.
Aussies are aware of this uniquely American holiday, though. In today’s “The Australian,” the paper’s New York correspondent comments on several “things we should thank America for,” including baseball.
Although I doubt our Aussie host tomorrow will agree, David Nason calls it “a game of wonderful nuance and sublime skill that is a worthy rival of cricket,” even if it is “an acquired taste” best enjoyed with a beer in hand.
The post-World War II Marshall Plan, so different from “the Bush-Chaney cock-up in Iraq,” is another worthy gift to the world from the US, Nason says, as is Muhammad Ali, cultural and religious tolerance, freedom of speech, and freedom of inquiry.
Nason notes that freedom of inquiry “remains the most important element of the checks and balances a decent democracy needs in order to improve itself,” and I was particularly struck by that observation because there has been so much in the news here lately about FOI, freedom of information.
Australian state and federal government agencies seem addicted to keeping secrets. Just this week, the Howard government was able to block a FOI request for a document generated a couple of years ago outlining potential expansions of the politically-unpopular industrial relations policy that threatens to sink Liberal Party chances for continuing in power after Saturday’s election.
The Labor candidate for Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has pledged greater openness and FOI policies more like those in the United States. The Premier of Victoria, John Brumby, has just scrapped a $22 fee charged for FOI requests, a move hailed by “The Australian,” which has been fighting for greater government openness. (Agencies have been known to charge many hundreds of dollars for collecting and providing requested information.)
Remarkably, given that “The Australian” has been so blatantly favoring John Howard during the long campaign that is now ending, a signed article by Chris Merrit began by saying Brumby, a Labor Party member, has taught Howard that “government secrecy is political poison” just hours after the federal government “proved yet again that it views the term ‘open’ and ‘government’ as mutually exclusive.”
It’s not just the Liberals or the federal bureaucrats that have been hiding information, though. Here in Queensland it has long been common practice for trolley loads of public documents to be wheeled into and then out of council chambers so that they could be declared not available for release to the press or public. That went on during the term of a Labor Premier who has just retired. His successor, Anna Bligh, has pledged to abolish this practice.
Anyone familiar with American political history knows that our devious politicians, even before the Bush era, have found plenty of ways of keeping problematic truths hidden from citizens with a right to know, but it is good to be reminded that there are ways in which America still leads toward freedom and self-correction.
As another commentator in “The Australian” reminded us recently, the United States righted itself after the Civil War, the Depression, and the Vietnam War. “One of the striking features of American history,” Owen Harris wrote, “is the country’s ability to recover quickly from adversity and its own errors.”
With such a plenitude of both for America to deal with right now, and with Australia and the US remaining closely aligned, the ability to regain footing is something to be thankful for. David Nason is surely right in citing freedom of speech and of information as being at the center of that hopeful potentiality.
Voters here on Saturday and in the US next November will have a lot to say about how much freedom our two democracies retain. I’m hopeful and thankful. That’s as good as it gets for a vegetarian on turkey day. — Bob
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