This week, Holy Week for Christians, I went to a Westfield shopping mall in Melbourne. Being the week before Easter, you’d expect the place to be festooned with Happy Easter signs and decorations, exhorting us to spend up on choccie eggs, bunny ears, and all the rest of the festive paraphernalia.

But no. Except for an almost apologetic, tiny, Happy Easter sign strung obtrusively on the glass wall of an information booth, probably by the booth attendant on her own initiative, the only Easter signage to be seen was in some tenants’ shops, and those mostly the two-dollar shops that sell Easter kitsch and ephemera to the passing foot traffic.

Seasonal religion wasn’t totally ignored by the centre, however. Prominent and strategically located on each floor, at the top of escalators so you can’t miss them riding up, were static signs reminding patrons not of Easter but of the Muslim month of Ramadan.

Ramadan Kareem, say the signs. Holy Ramadan.

Elsewhere in the centre, electronic signage used for rotating adverts and promotions were regularly displaying Ramadan messages, not unlike those recently posted on destination boards in London’s King’s Cross station.

There were no similar Easter messages, nor anything marking the upcoming season of Passover. None.

I don’t have any problem with Ramadan, or the non-militant Islam practised by most of the Prophet’s followers. I admire their faith, and that so many Muslims are inspired by it to do good works and think of others. For my observant Muslim friends, Ramadan is the holiest time of their year, and they scrupulously follow the sunrise-to-sunset fasting rules laid down by their religion, and look forward to the evening iftar dinners breaking the fast. Their religion and their practices deserve to be respected by the rest of us.

I also don’t object to Westfield’s Ramadan messages. What I do object to is a major retail business like Westfield bending over backwards to show its commitment to ‘diversity’ by acknowledging and promoting the religious practices of less than three per cent of the Australian population, yet blatantly ignoring the religious and cultural beliefs, and Western Judaeo-Christian heritage, of the great majority of Australians and therefore the great majority of its patrons.

We are, after all, about to celebrate the Easter holidays, and at least notionally commemorate the death and resurrection of Christ. Isn’t that worth a mention, especially in Holy Week? Will the holiest time of the Jewish year also rate a mention in a few weeks?

I felt that I was in a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, or Riyadh, not in Melbourne. In those places, the religious affiliations of the overwhelming Muslim majority would not be obliterated while acknowledging a small minority, nor should they be. Yet in Australia, it seems the minority rules and the majority is ignored and airbrushed away.

It is, admittedly, a small thing, but this week’s Westfield mall visit brought home to me how ashamed we as a nation have come to be of our Judaeo-Christian and Western heritage, and how ingrained that’s become in our daily lives. The beliefs and traditions of the many are routinely and wilfully ignored by the corporations who want our money, out of fear of giving offence to some of the few.

It happened with the Voice, now it seems it’s happening with Easter.

Surely in this day and age, aren’t we as a community capable of respecting both Judaeo-Christian and Muslim faiths and traditions in their – this year – parallel holy times? But no, it seems that to wish someone a Happy Easter is an act of cultural imperialism and white privilege – at least in the eyes of Corporate Social Responsibility ideological warriors.

How sad.

Terry Barnes compiles the Spectator Australia Morning Double Shot email newsletter. The original version of this article mistakenly stated this week is Passover: in 2024 it commences on Monday, 22 April. The article has been corrected and updated.

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