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ou will hear many excuses about why Australians should celebrate Halloween, from our Celtic ancestry to our desire to pay homage to the dead on All Hallows'€™ Eve. Others simply claim it is a fun opportunity for kids to get dressed up and build community spirit.

There is a little bit of truth in each of these claims but the basic problem the pro-Halloween lobby has is that Australian culture has up until recently ignored Oct. 31. Indeed, prior to a couple of decades ago you would be hard pressed to find any Australians, other than US expats, participating in this paganistic ritual.

So what say the Halloween supporters? Just because we didn'€™t celebrate it in the past doesn'€™t mean we can'€™t adopt it now. Too true, but why are we adopting it now? Is it because we truly want to reawaken an old tradition celebrated in many countries other than the US or because we lack our own cultural celebrations and therefore need to plagiarize from others?

Despite little more than 200 years of white settlement, Australia has accumulated a plethora of historical events, both good and bad, that could and do form the basis of small-scale cultural celebrations. These include the Eureka Stockade of 1854; Ned Kelly'€™s last stand at Glenrowan in June 1880; and Banjo Patterson'€™s '€˜Waltzing Matilda'€™, composed in 1895.

But despite their significance to our history these events have failed to take on a national celebratory status. We do not see children playing in the streets wearing Ned Kelly masks or carrying swags or building mock stockades.

Our penchant for Halloween does not stem from any understanding of the roots of this ancient celebration. Oh, I know those who wish to see it celebrated in Australia can use Wikipedia to give some semblance of historical credibility to their arguments, but do they know if they ask Australians why they allow their children to dress up and go knocking on doors for candy? The answer will be as superficial as its recent origins.

As a nation of followers we find it easy to plagiarize the customs of others even if that means ignoring the cultural icons of our own past. This is particularly the case where those icons suggest something other than conformity. The Eureka Stockade, Ned Kelly and the lyrics to '€˜Waltzing Matilda'€™ are all icons of resistance to the status quo. Halloween is an import that doesn'€™t challenge anything, but reinforces US dominance over our culture while providing a veritable commercial boon for corporations.

The only hope for those who wish to promote home-grown cultural icons in Australia is to celebrate them on a small scale and to look to leaders from outside our parliamentary system to promote our own identity and culture.

Our ability for spontaneous effusion or any effusion based on iconic events in our relatively short history has been severely curtailed by our follower mentality. We not only grew up on the sheep'€™s back, we adopted their mentality!

Adam Bonner
Meroo Meadow, Australia