INFORM-ACTION
Issue
Number 44 - June
2002
A
New Endangered Species
In a recent newspaper
feature (Sydney Morning Herald, 25-26
May 2002) the journalist Adele Horin identified a new endangered
species - Australians who take a stand! She cited the
case of a woman (a bank employee) who won a Federal Court case
against a bank that had tried to gag her for her work as the
honorary president of the Finance Sector Union. Surely a triumph
of a courageous individual over corporate intimidation and
bullying! This feature article then looked at how powerful
government and corporate interests in this country have sought
to stifle fearless free speech through tactics of intimidation
and social control. Even the universities, once in a proud
tradition of free expression, are now timid and fearful of
biting the corporate and government hands that feed them.
While Adele Horin
uses examples at the Federal Government level, here in Queensland
we have not been immune to intimidation by State Government
representatives. A number of community service organisations
have had the experience of Government Ministers getting on
the phone and abusing staff because they dared to speak to
the local media and put a different view than that of the State
Government. It is not a very pleasant experience for those
concerned. As well as having to endure the bullying of an 'out
of control' politician, there is the real fear of losing funding
and access to policy processes and, finally, of becoming unemployed.
And, there is little redress in this situation.
The recent political
attack on the ABC is another example of how vested interests
are seeking to control informed public debate. While this national
cultural icon is under siege by men in suits who know the cost
of everything and the value of nothing, the radio shock-jocks
in private industry are free to peddle their views with little
accountability other than to keep radio ratings high to attract
the lucrative advertising dollar! Truth is the casualty in
this - as we have seen recently in the 'children-overboard'
saga and the debate on asylum seekers.
|
Democracy
won't survive
if citizens turn into lemmings!
Bill
Moyers
|
Passionate debate,
based on well-informed facts and mutual respect, is a hallmark
of democracy but it is being lost. Referring to the female
union representative who stood up to the bank, Adele Horin
comments:
This kind of
fearless speech is almost extinct in Australian public
life; this kind of passion informed by facts. People in
a position to take a stand are minding their backs, their
funding, their security. Their lips are zipped, or their
words tempered. If helpful, they beg for anonymity. They
are worried about the repercussions, and you can't blame
them. Dissent is becoming a perilous business.
It is ironic that,
at the same time as we are being told that we must fight a
war against terrorism to preserve and protect democracy, the
democratic process in our own country is being weakened by
a culture of resigned acquiescence. The term 'silent majority'
takes on a very disquieting meaning these days.
The consequence of
failing to speak up in the face of political intimidation was
captured eloquently by Pastor Martin Niemoeller, a founder
of the Confessing Church in Germany in the 1930s and imprisoned
for his dissent. After the war, when assessing the horror of
the Nazi era and confronted with the question "how could
this happen?", he said:
First they came
for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did
not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the
Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak
out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so
I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was
no one left to speak out for me.
While these words
are a reflection on a different time and place, when state
terrorism had reached a zenith, the truth they express is timeless.
Some endangered species
have come back from the brink of extinction. Let's hope that
'Australians who take a stand' manage to overcome the perils
of dissent and find a strong voice in the political debate.
That asks courage of us all - in whatever institutional arrangements
we find ourselves.
Next Newsletter Article
Newsletter Index
