tent embassy
27 Jan 2012
The Mob Violence That Wasn't
The media has framed it as violent but the tent embassy protest was basically peaceful. It's this gross distortion - and the heavy-handed response of the AFP - that warrant criticism, writes Ben Eltham
Somehow, with the strange alchemy that the media seems to summon, the dominant angle of reporting about yesterday’s Australia Day kerfuffle involving the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition has been to condemn it as a violent protest.
"Indigenous leaders condemn ‘disgraceful’ protesters" is how the ABC has been describing it and much of the Fairfax press has carried similar stories. The television networks have, of course, reveled in the dramatic footage. Channel 9’s news report from last night, which carried the inside-the-restaurant footage of the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader conferring on whether to evacuate, repeatedly framed the protest in emotive terms like "violent", "raging", "angry mob", under siege" and so on.
Few media outlets seem to have asked whether there was in fact any violence from protesters. The available video and eyewitness evidence suggests that the violence came mainly from police and security staff. Yes, there was chanting, Yes, there was banging on the windows of local restaurant The Lobby.
But were the protesters really "violent"? What exactly would this "violence" have consisted of?
Police have laid no charges. No-one appears to have been hurt through the actions of protesters. The available footage, particularly from Channel 9, which can be seen here on the 3AW site, shows no violence from protesters. What it shows is confusion and panic from police and security, protestors milling about shouting, and rough handling of protesters by police.
In response to a question about yesterday’s violence from a journalist at today’s tent embassy press conference, a spokeswoman for the embassy, Selina Davey-Newry, said:
"There was no violence, we had the AFP and riot squad pushing at us in a line, and invited the politicians to come out and speak. The AFP came out against us with force, and we did not retaliatie with force, we did not instigate any wrong-doing or any violence".
3AW’s Michael Pachi’s account of the affair, broadcast yesterday, appears to confirm this. "In terms of violence, if you call it violence … it was basically the protesters banging on the Commonwealth car once they were escorted from the car … but from the most part it was really just loud chanting," he said.
This report by Wil Wallace is the best available eyewitness account of the protest. Wallace spoke to Sam Castro, who was at the tent embassy. Wallace writes that "a contingent of about 100 protesters made their way up the road to The Lobby and surrounded it. Though they were loud and noisy they were non-violent."
New Matilda has spoken to one protester who attended yesterday’s march to the tent embassy, Jennifer Killen, a high school teacher from Sydney. "I got up early yesterday and went to the ANU at 9am for the start of the march," she said. "There were a couple of police on bikes either looking amused or bored, it was well marshalled. We walked over to parliament and back to the embassy. The camp kitchen was feeding everyone. I met people aged three to 80. It was a family occasion."
"There were — at a guess — around 2000 people on the big march. Why was that all ignored? The Sydney Morning Herald headline was ‘Australia day turns ugly’, but I saw a peaceful march by people who had been neglected for generations."
"Why was it that our politicians are completely unable to cope with meeting constituents unless it’s on an orchestrated basis where they can look good? Why couldn’t they just come out and talk?" she asks.
The Canberra Times’ Jack Waterford argues that the security forces panicked and over-reacted, and the politicians were never in danger. "At no stage did it appear that Gillard made contact with any protester, or that any lunged towards her. The stumble was a function of the extrication, not crowd pressure."
New Matilda contacted the Australian Federal Police for comment. They confirmed that no arrests had been made, though added that "investigations were ongoing". The AFP will issue a formal statement later this afternoon, we were told.
Despite no arrests being made, no physical harm coming to any of the guests of the ceremony, indeed, no real threat to the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition at all, through lazy reporting and the distorting lens of the television footage, the protests have been reported as though a group of violent protesters took Australia’s two most senior politicians hostage.
It hasn’t taken long for the usual suspects to rear their heads and issue forth with pompous outrage.
"The Aboriginal tent embassy has never engendered public respect," thundered News Limited’s David Penberthy. "It has never done anything to bring black and white Australia together." Penberthy also made wild claims about an "illegal assortment of galvanised humpies" and an "unprecedented outburst of violence that saw our Prime Minister being dragged along the ground and our Opposition Leader cowering behind a riot shield."
The Herald-Sun’s Andrew Bolt went one step further, calling the protest a "riot", writing of "Gillard, fear on her face, being monstered" and calling the end of the reconciliation movement. "It’s just too dangerous," he averred.
It’s easy to see why Indigenous leaders such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda were so exasperated by the events yesterday, and the inevitable backlash they will provoke. "An aggressive, divisive and frightening protest such as this, has no place in debates about the affairs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples or in any circumstances," he has been reported as saying, and it is true that the protest will not advance the cause of reconciliation.
But Tent Embassy spokesman Pal Coe made a point largely lost in the media coverage today, which is that Warren Mundine and Mick Gooda don’t speak for those involved, much less for Aboriginal Australia as a whole. "You cannot work a peaceful way when governments rely upon certain Aboriginal people to justify a position, a political position, a policy position that they take and they conveniently choose to ignore the rest of Aboriginal people because they have one or two convenient spokespeople," he told the ABC’s George Roberts.
And there should be no doubt as to whether this was a "violent" protest, and what the real cause of the dramatic pictures of Gillard and Abbott being bundled to their cars really was.
The blame for yesterday’s dramatic scenes should lie principally with the politicians and police. First and foremost, it should lie with Tony Abbott, for the cynically provocative comments he made about the value of the tent embassy, despite his mild-mannered protestations today.
Secondly, questions must be asked about why Gillard and Abbott both refused to interrupt their Australia Day ceremony to walk outside the restaurant and speak to the protestors.
Finally, and, most seriously, significant questions must be raised about the Australian Federal Police and their cack-handed overreaction to this non-riot.
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Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 1:57PM
Just as Mundine and Gooda don’t speak for Aboriginal people as a whole, neither does Pal Coe. His waving around the Prime Minister’s shoe was cheap and offensive. The protesters were not especially violent, but they were threatening. The idea that Gillard should have gone out and spoken to the crowed is absurd…they were angry and shouting, and nothing she could have said would have placated them. Besides, it was comments from Abbott that sparked the whole thing.
I agree that the commercial media have sensationalised this, as they always do with such stories. But you don’t treat the Prime Minister like that, no matter what they’ve said or done.
And you also confuse the protest march with the protest at the restaurant. The problem is, the stupidity of those who went and banged on the windows of the restaurant took all the attention away from the legitimate march and gave ammunition to the right-wingers who populate the opinion pages of the Murdoch press.
Gillard showed some real gumption yesterday.
http://thepoliticsproject.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/wed-better-help-him-t…
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 1:57PM
Good points, Ben.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 2:13PM
Ben’s article should remind many of us of the commonplace and widespread mis-characterisation of the demonstrations at Cronulla beach in December 2005 as a “riot” too. Despite the isolated violence that day being actually confined to a tiny minority of those attending, was not related to the peaceful demonstration itself (protesting the bashing of two teenage volunteer lifesavers), did not occur at the location of the demonstration, and even then occurred for only for a very limited time elsewhere well after the demonstration had finished.
See, for example, “Cronulla - louts, grog and lack of cops” at http://www.ada.asn.au/defence_brief/Brief%20117%20(Nov-Dec%2005).pdf
Or indeed the way the ostensibly reactive but real and widespread violence against persons and criminal damage to property across parts of Sydney the following nights, by carloads of thugs motivated by a volatile mix of ethnic identity and purported extremist religious bigoytry, is usually ignored when “Cronulla” is discussed. Violence that far worse and far more widespread than the supposed “riot” at Cronulla beach the day before.
The bottom line here is that political biases, on both sides of politics, and the media reporting that often reinforces such opinions rather than challenges them (eg. Murdoch/commercial TV current affairs versus Fairfax/ABC TV current affairs), too often lead to entrenched public misconceptions about events not witnessed directly or investigated objectively afterwards.
Neil James
Executive Director
Australia Defence Association
execdir@ada.asn.au
(02) 6231-4444
www.ada.asn.au
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 2:15PM
For some reason there is a large gap between the television footage I saw and the messages contained in this article.
People banging on the windows of a restaurant, a hundred people chanting and yelling and demanding that the P.M. and Opposition Leader leave the restaurant and ‘talk to them’, people banging on the P.M.’s car, the P.M. being thrown into her car by security personnel, etc, I think the average Australian would find it an incredibly frightening situation. I know I would.
The police, etc, who are charged with protecting the P.M. and Abbott, would’ve found it potentially dangerous and tried to close it down and remove the P.M. from the scene which is what they did.
The fact is that an unruly mob got out of control and made fools of themselves. That is the truth that I saw (and so did millions of others) and their aggressive mob rule tactics are unacceptable in our country.
To pretend it was otherwise is ridiculous!
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 2:26PM
Ben, sorry but you’ve missed the mark on this one. The fact is that the behaviour of the protestors, limited in number or not, was poor enough for the AFP to assess that a risk to the PM was developing. Having seen the footage of the yelling, the verbal abuse and the bashing on the windows of the restaurant, I can see exactly why they made that assessment. To characterise this assessment as an over reaction smacks of being wise after the event.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 2:33PM
What else would you expect from the media, beat it up, sensationalism and dramatisation to satisfy their own puny needs just to make themselves look good and profess to be good at it.
With the print media it is all in the need of corporate greed to publish gutter smut and lies to enhance their existence and as we all know the print media has finished and they are only flogging a dead horse to verify their world.
You only have to look at the Murdoch saga and that is only the tip of the iceberg. Fairfax are just as bad contrary to what they want people to believe.
The video media is no better, that is why the mute button on the remote was invented so as we don’t have to put up with their crap, better still turn off the TV.
Unfortunately a lot of people believe this scaremongering crap from the media (print/video) and they have a lot to accountable for.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 2:34PM
If the AFP were really concerned about safety they would have taken the obvious route out the back entrance, surely? NOT through the mob themselves. Bad going chaps!
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 2:43PM
To hinder a person’s freedom of movement or to cause a person to fear for their safety is a form of assault and/or violence.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 2:53PM
We have to thank Neil James for telling us that what we saw on television was not correct because we did not witness it ‘directly’ and because it has not been ‘investigated objectively’ yet.
So turn off your televisions, folks. Nothing that is shown there is factual until it has been ‘properly processed’ by officialdom.
All those floods in Queensland, road crashes, events at the Australian Open and the Cricket test, none of them are true unless you were at the oval or the tennis courts or standing on the river bank or the highway. And even if you saw it ‘directly’ that still doesn’t make it true until the Authorities have had a scratch around and made their pronouncements.
Big Brother is here! He will tell you what to think! That will save you the trouble!
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 3:08PM
Thanks for this article Ben.
I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if the PM and/or Opposition Leader had simply walked outside and started talking to the activists. Some people will speculate that they might have been in danger, but having been to many protests and demonstrations of this nature, I’m sceptical. In my experience, people who want to actually inflict physical violence on politicians do not attend protests like this.
In most protest situations, the protesters either want the target to listen or speak. I’m confident that Gillard could have easily won some (possibly temporary) respect from the protesters by calmly asking them whether they would like her to stand and listen to them or address them regarding Tony Abbott’s comments. I dont know which they would have chosen, but I think as long as she did what they asked there would have been no drama.
If the AFP and PM’s security team aren’t confident enough in their own abilities to let the leader talk to unarmed citizens face-to-face, they are undermining out democracy and should be replaced.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 3:10PM
Ben,
an absolute disgrace of an article and one that is, in effect, serving no point.
The Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition were in the middle of a medal ceremony to recognise the incredibly brave acts of our emergency services personnel. The fact that the group / mob disrupted the presentation is, in itself, a disgrace.
The AFP have the specific task of protecting the Prime Minister and, had something happened to during this outburst, they would have been castigated from here to the next Richmond grand final win. A very long time. It is no wonder they responded in the way they did.
Everyone involved in the protest should have arrested and charged with breach of the peace among other things. The reason they weren’t is not that they didn’t do anything that broke the law. Rather it is the police are now so reluctant to arrest aboriginals in case that they are abused of racism.
The sight of that idiot Paul Coe waving the Prime Minister’s shoe in the air and telling the PM that she should come collect it is a disgrace. This is Paul Coe, the same man that the NSW Legal Services Tribunal found he had filed an affidavit, that was “substantially false, was known by him to be false and was sworn with the intention of deceiving the court, who has declared himself leader of an Aboriginal parliament to which no-one seems to have voted members.
The hysteria was driven by Michael Anderson, a co-founder of the Aboriginal tent embassy near Parliament House in Canberra 40 years ago, who whipped up a crowd of demonstrators about Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
This is what Abbott had said during an interview earlier in the day: “Look, I can understand why the tent embassy was established all those years ago. I think a lot has changed for the better since then. We had the historic apology just a few years ago, one of the genuine achievements of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. We had the proposal which is currently for national consideration to recognise indigenous people in the constitution. I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian and yes, I think a lot has changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that.”
This is how Anderson characterised Abbott’s remarks: “He said the Aboriginal embassy had to go, we heard it on a radio broadcast. We thought no way, so we circled around the building … It’s just madness on the part of Tony Abbott. What he said amounts to inciting racial riots.”
The chasm between reality and hysteria is an embarrassment to Anderson and is behind the wild scenes of yesterday.
There would be a person in Australia who is less racist than I am but I am beginning to lose my support for the ‘political’ aboriginal community, most of whom, it has to be said are of mixed racial background. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of aboriginals are also becoming sick and tired of their self appointed leaders’ actions.
As I would also say to the recent ‘occupy the city’ protesters, the way to succeed in making change is to secure mainstream public support. Alienating this mainstream through acts of random violence and public disorder, will greatly lessen their chances of success.
Ben, as I started, your article is way below the standard one expects on this website. You base your argument around the media exaggerating the events. I say to you, that you have grossly overstated your side of the story.
Suspend yourself from this site for four weeks!!!
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 3:20PM
Jane Agatha is quite correct in her comments about what constitutes violence. This behaviour in a domestic context would have certainly resulted in police initiating AVO requests.
Plate glass windows were repeatedly thumped. Many people have received fatal or extremely serious injuries from broken plate glass.
Thumping large car panels will result in them being permanently deformed. This is malicious damage.
Interrupting invitation only functions is completely unacceptable behaviour.
The failure of police to have taken action is not surprising. The ACT fire brigades also failed to take timely action a few years ago. People burned to death.
I am awaiting a complete apology from all the people involved in this affront to democracy, before I would consider voting for any sort of Constitutional recognition.
I am persuaded by logic, but threatening behaviour will leave me unmoved.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 3:22PM
@JaneAgatha Sure, but if you define violence that broadly there’s nothing inherently wrong with violence. The term loses its ability to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. In any event, if you define violence that broadly then every day Australian media outlets commit violent acts by publishing articles that make certain people fear for their safety (including myself, on occasion). So Ben’s point would then be about hypocrisy (media outlets calling the protest “violent” without acknowledging the violence of their own actions).
I don’t think Ben needs to establish the “true meaning” of the word “violence” in order to make his point. The point is simply that: media outlets used language that implied the protest was of a form that is generally deemed unacceptable, whereas the protest did not actually take that form.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 3:22PM
thanks for the article. very informative and gives voice to what a number of us were thinking.
The day we lose the right to protest (as some implicitly demand) is the day we lose our democracy. Matt
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 3:24PM
Jungarrayi
I was contacted by media to comment on the Yuendumu ‘riots’some time ago. I argued about the use of the word “riots”, I kept asserting that these weren’t “riots” I said that “targetted structured confrontations” was a far more accurate description of what was happening, and that anyone that wasn’t directly involved in the dispute was perfectly safe.
The media stopped calling me. “Targeted Structured Confrontation” a headline doesn’t make.
Seeing as the Government (with its opposition cheer squad) is about to extend the Intervention by a decade (the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory legislation) and all legitimate attempts at getting the authorities to see reason are to no avail (letters discussions meetings pleas etc.), I am surprised that remote Aboriginal Australia has been as non-violent and passive as it has been under this assimilationist attack.
It’s all very well to get precious and on one’s high horse about “That is no way to treat the Prime Minister…”
I say “That is no way to treat the First Australians”
Many overseas targets of demonstrations and protests would be much relieved if they were only subjected to shouting and knocking on windows.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 3:32PM
‘Oh no, black people are protesting. Call in the white cops.’ It was ever thus.
Stop the media lynching.
It wasn’t a wild protest. It wasn’t a riot. It wasn’t thuggery.
Those false accusations are examples of the constant racist stereotyping by the one percent and their media and part of the wider agenda to deepen even further the oppression of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
ACT Police have said there will be no arrests.
No arrests. Why not? Because there was no criminal activity.
For a more balanced report read my article ‘It is right to be angry; it is right to protest - Land rights now!’ on my blog En Passant with John Passant.
Here is a link. http://enpassant.com.au/?p=12131
John Passant
En Passant with John Passant
http://enpassant.com.au
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 3:35PM
@scottywean So you believe there’s a rule of political action that says: protesters must never “disrupt” “a medal ceremony to recognise the incredibly brave acts of our emergency services personnel”? What nonsense. Of course it would sometimes be inappropriate to disrupt such a presentation, but sometimes it would be perfectly appropriate. You may want to argue about where to draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate, but to claim that there are absolutely no circumstances in which it would be appropriate is myopic.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 3:57PM
The history books relate to the killing of a Kiwi for their traditional greetings being taken as threatening by Cooks men.
This is another construed situation of dignitaries being above the people who they were playing politically, in my view. Whilst Gillard & Abbott were busy using Australia Day, which is Nationalism, to thank the Koori people for the use of their land & promoting national ideology in it’s raw form & expecting no one to have any ill feelings is ridiculous.
This was another white ceremony on the tent embassies area which has become more common in the years since the tent embassy set up there & now we will see the Catholic’s, Gillard & Abbott join forces & appoint their Catholic Aboriginal spokes persons to speak on behalf of all Aboriginal (Koori) people.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 4:00PM
Hysteria and stereotypical cliches are never far from the minds of mainstream media and people like Philip Dowling and Jane Agatha who clearly live in fear of anything that makes them even slightly uncomfortable. Was it a ‘decent ceremonial presentation’ when we attempted genocide of the Australian Indigenous? As for the police, secret service, security etc. and their over reaction and propensity for violence as seen a number of times all over Australia recently, how is that acceptable behaviour in our ‘democracy’? We are indeed a mini America where brutality is the answer to the ‘system for the few’ as opposed to changing it for the better of us all.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 4:07PM
hey scottywean
I suggest you suspend youserelf from this site for four weeks for ripping sections of Paul SHeehan’s article in the Fairfax press word for word.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 4:21PM
Why ignore a march with 2000 people participating? Is this not news worthy?
Let’s argue that emergency service workers and our white upper class “leaders” have a right to go about their business without interference from any messy, emotional, perceivably aggressive acts from other sources.
Let’s argue then, that these highly privileged, white upperclass people, who do not live the ordinary life situations or circumstances of not only our indigenous people but of a large percentage of the rest of our population, don’t have the right to likewise interfere in the affairs of indigenous people, how they chose to protest and solve problems and specifically the Intervention…
Gillard and Abbott can’t handle ten minutes of feeling uncomfortable at the requests of another group of people, and they cannot see that they cause the lives of many indigenous people to be intereferred with every day, by their Intervention policies, in a much ruder, dominating and demoralising manner too.
If we argue that this very small protest WAS, in fact, violent, what would move a group of people to become so emotional? People in their right mind don’t go around disrupting other people’s affairs. Why is this not ackowledged as an issue, respected and treated seriously to allow these people themselves to feel LISTENED TO, to feel ACKNOWLEDGED, to be RECOGNISED??? How many other people and social groups in Australia do not also feel listened too? There is a big group I would say NOT feeling represented by our political parties.
Gillard, Abbott and our political process is every bit as violent towards indigenous people, they just do it so politely and “appropriately” according to white upper class standards and values - through the law courts, with legislation…it’s so much NICER than way. You can even overthrow the Discrimination Act if you want…so NICE and PEACEFUL…
And how would any of the negative commentors on here like it if the first thing people noticed about you was your skin colour, attributed a whole bunch of unsubstantiated characteristics and behaviours to you and then judged you, remembered you and validated or rejected your views, experiences and opinoins based on that…???
It IS a tragedy that the only aspect from all this that gets remembered and noticed (and empowered) is a negative view of violent, aggressive, undisciplined people and that everything they are worried and upset about, is completely ignored. THIS is what is sad for AUstralia AND our indigenous people.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 4:48PM
Trust David Grayling to miss the point completely.
The first question he should ask himself is just what did he see, or think he saw, or believed that he read, about the Cronulla Beach demonstration. Same goes for yesterday’s demo.
Similarly, surely (as many of the above posts bring out), there was a range of factors that contributed to the incident at the “Lobby” yesterday - from unforeseen events (such as the medal ceremony being close to the Aboriginal tent embassy) to some perhaps bad decisions by the AFP in trying to keep the peace. As with Cronulla Beach in 2005, perhaps crowds, the weather, alcohol and a shortage of police on the ground through the day also played a part.
There is never one cause to such incidents. But surely any reasonable person would not expect the PM or the Opposition Leader to try and address an unruly crowd, angered by misinformation, and apparently keen on confrontation beyond the accepted community standards for reasonable two-way political discourse.
Neil James
Executive Director
Australia Defence Association
execdir@ada.asn.au
(02) 6231-4444
www.ada.asn.au
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 4:56PM
There is a slippage in the comments here (and, in part, in Ben’s post) between ‘danger’, ‘threat’ and ‘violence’. The AFP talks in terms of ‘threats’. Threats that increase or diminish. They have not talked about ‘violence’ but the ‘threat’ and have not said that Gillard was in *danger* at any point in any of the comments about this event. Does the perception of a threat produce disruptions that may actually turn into a danger? The AFP investigation into the event will more than likely try to ascertain how any ‘threat’ increased or diminished over the course of the event.
Anyway, i’ve written more here in terms of security and governmentality: http://bit.ly/A6jlVe
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 5:06PM
Apparently mypreferredusername sees nothing wrong with violenc and/or finds some forms of violence acceptable and others not.
The so-called “non-violent” protest appeared on viedo footage as a raucous and undignified free-for-all that in my view is entirely contrary to the original intent or effect of non-violent demonstrations initiated by Mahatma Gandhi for an otherwise powerless people.
The idea of then auctioning off the PM’s shoe was entirely consistent with the behaviour of a lawless rabble intent on using whatever means available to them to claim a transient but ill-gotten sense of power.
Gandhi’s way led to real power for his people.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 5:34PM
Neil ‘never-wrong’ James is at is again, trying to obfuscate his way out of trouble when his opinions are exposed for what they are: silly.
He confuses the Cronulla situation with what happened in Canberra. They are two separate issues, Neil.
He tells us that what we see is not correct unless we see it directly. Even then it is not correct until some official says it is.
Then he throws in a red herring by inferring that I said that Julia should have spoken to the mob. I never said any such thing.
Neil, perhaps you should spend more time thinking about things before you rush to produce yet another pretentious memo addressed to the N.M. crowd!
“Humans are Nature’s most Dangerous Creation!”
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 6:21PM
@JaneAgatha I love how you think the meaning of the word “violence” is fixed and self-evident. As I said before, if you want to define “violence” as “hindering a person’s freedom of movement or … caus[ing] a person to fear for their safety”, that’s fine, but you need to be consistent about what satisfies that definition. For example, many articles published by Australian newspapers and websites definitely satisfy that definition, since they cause some people to fear for their safety. You may want to argue about whether such fears are “rational”, but that just moves the debate from one about the meaning of the word “violence” to one about the meaning of the word “rational”.
In any event, do you realise what you’re saying when you say that all forms of violence are unacceptable? You’re saying there should be no police, no military, no taxes, basically no government, and no right to defend yourself or your family. I can see plenty of merit in that kind of pacifist anarchism, but is it really the argument you intended to make? I think if you examine your own views you’ll see that you are actually guilty of what you accuse me of: believing in a distinction between appropriate/inappropriate violence.
Furthermore, Gandhi’s definition of “non-violence” bears no resemblance to yours. For example, many British felt supremely threatened by the actions of Gandhi and his followers (for good reason—after all, Gandhi was ultimately successful), but Gandhi did not think that such feelings rendered his actions violent.
Gandhi advocated unlawful civil disobedience, and his followers engaged in law-breaking on a massive scale. I’ve no doubt that the British would have characterised many of Gandhi’s direct action protests as “raucous and undignified free-for-all[s]” and “lawless rabble[s]”.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 6:28PM
Brooza said that”people like Philip Dowling … who clearly live in fear of anything that makes them even slightly uncomfortable”.
Brooza uses a pseudonym. I don’t.
I would refer him to the definition of domestic violence in NSW.
It concerns me that people have justified public violence and aggressive behaviour because of their frustration. I would suggest that they consider an anger management course.
It is of particular concern that such logic can also be used to justify even more violent behaviour in their personal relationships, in discussions with their children’s teachers, with bus drivers and ambulance drivers and nurses and doctors in hospitals.
It would seem appropriate to direct some energy in this direction.
The rate of avoidable deaths in the indigenous population might be lowered by concentrating on appropriate ways of dealing with frustration.
I had this as a priority in educating my children from the age of two.
It is obvious that others had parents who did not have this as a priority.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 6:33PM
What this event reveals most is how removed both Abbott and Gillard are from the people. They are career politicians who like life to be stage managed, perpetually bathed in easy media glory. A real states-person would have been able to engage the real politic, read the mood, and communicate with the mob to their mutual advantage. Engaging with angry people from different cultural roots can be scary, but there can be real benefits by recognizing that conflict can be positive, and acknowledging the humanity of the situation could be the making of real political careers.
Fleeing the scene, leaving chaos in their wake was just another missed opportunity. Clumsy. Tripping over one’s own security. Its Cinderella in reverse, no prince left holding a shoe, in search of a princess; now it is the disenfranchised who will have to go in search of lost leadership, searching for the person who best fits the shoe. Perhaps never before have uninvited indigenous people been so close, yet so far away from having the ear of an Australian prime-minister on their own terms.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 6:50PM
AloysiusX
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 6:52PM
Sorry Ben, but you haven’t convinced me. The footage speaks for itself.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 7:04PM
Jungarrayi
A couple of years ago Tony Abbott visited Alice Springs and this is what I wrote at the time:
“As reported by Dan Moss in the Centralian Advocate, TA paid a visitation upon an Alice Springs ‘town camp’ with an entourage of politicians and journalists (17 people in all). I have been told that this visit was unannounced and uninvited. They descended on and filmed an unfortunate amputee sitting in ‘third world conditions’ (I saw it on the ABC TV News). TA gave him a spiel and asked him: “I’m here to help- what can I do?”
The fellow said he’d like some firewood! He didn’t mention a ‘Closing of the Gap’ or a decent house, or a ‘real job’, none of that, just firewood! Dan Moss wrote: “Did Abbott go fetch firewood? No. He and the stage hands moved on to the next poor bugger to run the same spiel”
It happens all the time and on all scales: the promise (“I’m here to help”) the ‘engagement’ (“what do you want?” “firewood” “our rights back” “respect”) the not listening (“langa pati”…langa=ears, pati= hard impenetrable soil”) and the moving on…. “next”!
When our 9 year old grand-daughter overheard us talking about this she chimed in “He’ll have to get his own firewood….. by hopping”
I realize this does not have much to do with this article but is an illustration of the stage managed media encounter that our leaders much prefer to what happened in Canberra, when they’re not in control.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 7:10PM
Certainly smelt like a media beat up. There are more cops and media in the footage than protesters.
I must say though, we ought not comment and make judgements on the “security situation” from afar. Sure, an angry mob 200 strong surrounding the PM and banging on windows isn’t definitely a problem, but I’m not going to say they didn’t make the right precautionary call. I think it’s perhaps the “precaution” part that the media ought not be forgetting.
Also, I struggle to see how either one of the leaders going out to meet the protesters would have resulted in anything but a shouting match…but you never know…
Certainly no doubt that Abbot is a tactless and arrogant fool! Whatever you want to say about the need for a tonal change in indigenous advocacy/activism, don’t contextualise it with the tent embassy on Jan 26…what a smug IDIOT!
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 7:18PM
Well put David Grayling: “But surely any reasonable person would not expect the PM or the Opposition Leader to try and address an unruly crowd, angered by misinformation, and apparently keen on confrontation beyond the accepted community standards for reasonable two-way political discourse.”
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 7:43PM
New Matilda, please do not allow the proto-fascist Australian Defence Association promote themselves in this thread Its really disappointing and irresponsible that you allowed that to be posted in the first place.
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 7:46PM
But surely any reasonable person would expect the PM and Opposition Leader to engage with (rather than flee) a group of citizens who came to them to express their frustration on behalf of one of the most oppressed and disadvantaged minorities in the country, on a day celebrating the violent conquer of that minority’s ancestors, not long after the Opposition Leader had questioned the importance of one of the most prominent symbols of that minority’s continued oppression?
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 10:43PM
But surely any reasonable person would be able to recognize the use of the opening rhetorical question in an argument,wouldn’t they?
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 1:07AM
wow so many opinions posted from people who were not there - that is journalism for you! the differing accounts of between 100 and 200 protesters say it all..
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 7:24AM
So many comments & none wish to identify Nationalism & nearly all of them relate to media hype.
Even the Green’s Christine Milne is saying the Julia Gillard & Tony Abbott were removed from the premises “due to a security scare” http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/abbott-tent-embassy-comments-ill-co… & the fact that “Australia day should be remembered as a day of mourning as well as celebration”. Claiming that the two populations (white & black) need to co exist in Australia.
Nationalist propaganda does not create a platform for coexistence on a day that most Koori people know as the day they became slaves & their children were removed (stolen) by the white Christian invaders.
Gillard was giving medals to SES officers as an ‘Australia day’ promotion.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 9:13AM
Gee Ben, I wouldn’t put this article on your CV when applying for a job when NM goes under. Not your finest.
We all saw on TV what occurred - an angry mob threatened our parliamentary leaders in a violent, yes violent manner, and no amount of spin will ever change that.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 10:38AM
I am amused by some of the NIMBY comments here. When Egypt was having their Arab spring and the protestors got a bit rowdy, I think I mostly heard people saying go on, that they way you shouldn’t be oppressed and we all sat and wondered amazed as the guy from Google lead the online organization of the protests. Same with the other protests in Libya which ended up in an all out war and then the same again in Bahrain. But when a mob gets noisy here, then the people run screaming about saying “people shouldn’t do that”.
If someone is oppressed they will eventually take action, governments have provided various handouts that never fix the problem just keep enough of a lid on the oppression to not cause any real problem, probably because that is easier than actually fixing the real problems. Funny that would seem to be how most governments work around the world. The media loved this as they go sensational footage of the PM being bustled into a car. What doesn’t seem to have surfaced is much footage from those that were there on the other side.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 10:42AM
Another media beat-up! Business as usual! Everyone frothing at the mouth!
The Australian MSM a dangerous creation………..
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 12:02PM
Well said, Ben and fightmumma.
To my reading, the Feds absolutely panicked, and overacted in a racist and idiotic manner. They were also the most violent of anything I saw on TV. They just gathered up their charges, and headed into the scrum like Thugby players as possibly most of them are.
Then, a hustled and flustered Gillard stumbled and lost a shoe, was swept up by some clown of a protective officer who did some gender thinking,and wrapped his arms around her and practically carried her to her car. I note that Abbott just walked along with it, no running, no real fright. No one seemed to think to carry him! One has to wonder if this was not playing up to the Media which was presumably running backwards ahead snapping madly. I have seen much better co-ordination and actions by Police and Protective Service Officers (Secret Service) in the USA in various situations with various POTUSs under much more direct threats like gunfire. But of course, none of them have been female.
Without the reaction of the Feds, no one would have had any hassles. As always, they over-racted. Because they can, they always do. I note that Gillard has congratulated them even before any possible investigation of their actions, which of course there will NOT be. Never is.
I really do say that what violence I did see was perpetrated upon Indigenous people by racist Feds.
But of course the Media was there with cameras. so truth was immediately thrown out the window in the cause of a good beat-up.
The worst reporting of the matter that I have heard is from the ABC Radio National, they consistently relate totally incorrect ‘facts’, and are doing everything they can to make the beat-up worse. Or maybe it is just ‘journalistic’ laziness. I do think that a full sweep of the ABC for accurate reporting or activities, both here and abroad, is necessary. For some reason, they just do not check anything before spouting garbage. I suppose they have saçked all their Editors in the cause of budget cuts.
Now, I hear Brandeis and Pyne spouting increasingly stupid and inflammatory nonsense, and now Abbott is also getting on the bandwagon, anything to cause some ruptions in the Labor Govt. after actually being quite reasonable, even in his original statement which was mis-interpreted somewhere along the line to the Camp. For whatever reason.
The racism factor in this is glaringly evident from beginning to end, with the Federal Police, the Protective Detail, also some gender stupidity, so it has been a bad scene.
Self-appointed Indigenous spokespersons like Right-Wing ‘bovver-boy’ Mundine did not help one iota, Gooda was speaking the bleeding obvious, but also not helping.
And yes, how the Hell can anyone get through to this Government that the Invasion/Intervention in the NT was always badly carried out and has been a disaster ever since, both financially and personally. The Minister, Macklin, only ever talks to a couple of very full-on and one-eyed female Indigenous people to get her advice, and of course it is a long time since that Minister had an original thought of her own. She is totally wedded to continuing Maternalism. Which of course, is, in this situation, racist. I think that Gillard and the Govt. just follow her example, without much thought. No one really wants to really do any thinking and action to solve the ‘problem’.
So we have, sometimes, a lot of noise at the Tent Embassy. However, it does seem that this time, this particular bit of ‘noise’ was stirred up by someone, for whatever reason, that we have not been made conversant with as yet. Maybe it was totally innocent, maybe it was not, but it sure got a bit out of hand when the mix got stirred by some of the players such as the Feds. Really it is a pity that they will not be investigated for their actions. I am sure that they will try their best to find some scapegoat, now that the Media and the Opposition are bleating so loudly. Dazza.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 12:04PM
Well said, pameacs. Dazza.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 12:30PM
Just read this item, inter alia, in Fairfax Media, under by-line Dylan Welch. Interesting.
“The issue was first raised on radio yesterday morning, when the announcer Ray Hadley revealed that a woman had approached the Aboriginal activist Barbara Shaw and told her Mr Abbott had suggested the tent embassy should be closed.
”I said what’s wrong with Tony Abbott, what has he done or said now?” Ms Shaw told the Herald yesterday.
”And that’s when she said Tony Abbott is over at the coffee shop making statements to press, about closing down the embassy - the Aboriginal tent embassy.” Ms Shaw said she did not know the woman but did not think she was Aboriginal.”
Questions now as to whether some section of Media actually tried to cause violent dissent for their own purposes, or perhaps it may have been an action of the Liberal Party Dirty Tricks Department. Hope someone can eventually get hold of this particular person and ask some questions. Certainly, if true, this is actionable under Law. The outcome must have exceeded all expectations. Perhaps the Gillard staffer can be asked if he was ASKED about the presence of Abbott by some female person.
Do I smell a small conspiracy!
Or is this all just unfortunate co-incidences. Dazza.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 1:18PM
Jungarrayi
It’s not that Abbott actually said that the Tent Embassy should close. He is far too politically savvy to actually say it. No, what is far more obnoxious is that he told Aboriginal Australia that they could be “proud” of the fact that “all Australians respect” them and that they should “move on”.
Well I live on a place where some of the people Tony Abbott tells to “move on” live. The NT Intervention shows them no respect whatsoever and makes it bloody hard to move at all, let alone “move on” No Tony, you can’t get off the hook that easily, it is your mob that started this latest assimilationist attack on Indigenous rights, and you can’t get away with us not noticing you pulling the strings.
And Dazza…. thank you!!! At last a mention of what is driving Aboriginal anger: such as the NT Intervention and the “Four hours English only” policy, and the watering down of Land Rights.
The frustration that results in manifestations of anger (such as the burning of the flag) is largely due to the authorities not listening to the people whose lives they control.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 1:39PM
I’d put more faith in trained professionals to assess whether the situation was threatening than some semi-employed reporter who wasn’t even there but accepts a self-serving version of events from the mob.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 1:55PM
Jungarrayi
I think Joseph Goebbels was a trained professional.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 2:24PM
What are your thoughts?
http://theconversation.edu.au/its-time-to-reassess-australia-day-and-the…
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 5:58PM
This situation has been going on for a long, long time, this Aboriginal-White invader confrontation.
Despite the talking that has been done and the billions of dollars spent, real reconciliation has not taken place and, given the way things are going, most likely it never will.
Australia is a divided country, a bit like America. In America, the African people were the unwilling immigrants (the Native Indians having been slaughtered by the White Trash that came from Europe) .
In Australia, the bulk of the white invaders (thanks to Britain wanting to set up a Penal Colony) came from the prisons initially. Eventually free settlers also came and, together with all manner of immigrants from Europe, pushed their way across the whole of the country with scant regard for the indigenous people.
The slaughter of the indigenous people here was not the same as in America although we will never know the extent of the genocide caused directly by the gun and indirectly by disease and alcohol.
But that is in the past and we can’t change the past. We can only deal with the present and possibly the future!
Interestingly millions of immigrants have moved into Australia in the last hundred years and have become part of its fabric. But not the Aboriginals!
It seems to me to be time to consider setting aside Tasmania or part of the Northern Territory as a sovereign country for Aboriginals where they can congregate and live their nomadic lifestyle and hunt and fish and carry out their smoking rituals to their heart’s content.
Surely this is a better option than spending the next 1,000 years arguing and fighting with each other.
What do you think?
“Humans are Nature’s most Dangerous Creation.”
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 6:24PM
Jungarrayi, If you really opposed the four hours English only policy surely you would not use it to communicate but rather your native language, n’est-ce pas?
Surely doing so would indicate a certain savoir faire in communicating with those who would suggest “ex pluribus, unum” as an appropriate weltanschauung in the increasingly bizarre bazaar of ideas.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 7:19PM
One of the speakers at this protest - Marianne - is an articulate and confrontational activist who we will see more of. In the not so distant past Aboriginal people would be too scared too complain - Aboriginal people are waking up to the fact that they can speak up without ‘old school’ police reprisals - In WA where Marianne is from - since the 1990s royal commission into ‘Black Deaths in custody’ their have been 296 deaths in custody - 43 % of the prison population in WA is Aboriginal - about a third of these are for repeat driving offences - they have little choice but to continue to drive in remote areas - the recent Warburton elder who was cooked alive in the back of a van for a drink driving offence - 80 % of juvenile offenders re offend - time in prison has been normalised and seen as a part of living under white rule - Aboriginal people are victims of racism on a daily basis - the crisis in Aboriginal communities is spilling over - a generation is being harden by prison and drugs - we need to start listening and look honestly at the past, respect their culture, we are witnessing a mini epidemic of social problems that the dominant culture can no longer keep hidden. Expect more of the same and worse.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 7:40PM
I watched the Gillard Press Conference earlier today. What I saw shocked me. This is one woman who was very very scared, and is now very, VERY angry! She was fuming. Her neck and chest was bright pink from her pent-up emotions.
She was also using il-temperate language and seems to be laying ALL blame for the situation with the protesters, mainly indigenous I guess. This was not someone who should hold the office of PM. She really has ‘lost her cool’. Her voice spat venom!
I would suggest that Indigenous peoples in Australia will pay for that demo, for as long as Gillard holds office. From now on, Government money will dry up, and she will use every opportunity to make life even more difficult for them. Particularly anyone associated with the Tent Embassy and probably the NT Indigenous peoples.
It would seem that the person who stirred the pot with the Protesters was actually a senior Labor Party hackess. Maybe on her own bat, maybe with backing and direction. But what was she trying to do, have the Indigenous peoples swamp the venue of the handing out of gongs to annoy Abbott? Surely she knew that Gillard was there also, but she does not seem to have mentioned this to Barbara Shaw. And quite deliberately misquoting Abbott. Now there is a woman who should be questioned by the Feds, and fast.
I know that politics is a dirty game, but I really think that this is one possibly dirty trick that really backfired something fierce. Abbott and Co. are going to make a lot of hay while the sun is shining on this one. One could hope that this woman is totally dumped from the Labor Party, if what we see and hear is true.
David Grayling, I think that you are being very naive. There is no way that Whites would desert Tasmania for Indigenous peoples, and in any case, the mainland Aboriginals have no connection to that place. As for the NT, when no one thought that the Territory was covered in Minerals and rich grazing lands, quite a few in Governments waned to leave it to the Natives. However, just as in the USA, as soon as minerals and underground riches (Uranium) were found, the whites moved in and claimed the place, and have been moving in on Aboriginal territory ever since. Howard and now Rudd and Gillard have been working ever since to take over Aboriginal lands in the Terrirory, by various semi-legal means such as forced handovers and leases. Hence the Invasion. Sorry, Intervention.
Also, what are you saying, send all city blacks and from other States back to the bush, into the Territory, where they have no connection to land whatsoever???
Gawd, wouldn’t that cause a kerfuffle.
Gillard made a very big mistake by having that sort of Press Conference, but then, she is always making big mistakes. She really displayed for all to see that she is unfit for Office. I hope we can all be relieved from this misery of her presence soon.
Just unfortunate that the winner will probably be man also totally unfit for high office. Shades of the USA and the elections over there.
The losers will be all the rest of us. Dazza.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 8:04PM
Jungarrayi
Hi Philip- Why am I opposed to four hours English only policy?
I suggest you look at the interview with my wife (Wendy Baarda) a few years ago (4 corners ABC)…she said it so much better than I can
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2009/s2683288.htm
Having had the great fortune of growing up tri-lingually (Dutch, Spanish and English in that order) I consider that denying a multilingual education to children- WHEN THE POSSIBILITY TO PROVIDE IT EXISTS is nothing less than criminal.
Het zou dwaas zijn als ik m’n moeder taal hier zou gebruiken. De meeste lezers kunnen alleen Engels verstaan.
I’m NOT opposed to the English language which I consider a beautiful language that I had the great fortune to learn. I’m in favour of bilingual education (bi as in TWO!!!)
Again someone else said it so much better than I:
“Above all, let us permit native children to keep their own languages, -those beautiful and expressive tongues, rich in true Australian imagery, charged with poetry and with love for all that is great, ancient and eternal in the continent. There is no need to fear that their own languages will interfere with the learning of English as the common medium of expression for all Australians. In most areas of Australia the natives have been bilingual, probably from time immemorial. Today white Australians are among the few remaining civilized people who still think that knowledge of one language is the normal limit of linguistic achievement.”
- T.G.H Strelow,1958.
Note in particular: “…there is no need to fear…”
Worlwide research has proved that teaching in the vernacular is the most effective way of teaching children ANYTHING (including English as a second language). No hay que sér Einstein para saber porque.
And I haven’t said anything about the respect and self-respect being denied speakers of Aboriginal languages by telling them that their languages (and the Weltanschauung-plural that goes with them)are not important and irrelevant and that “to have any future at all, Aboriginal Australians have to join the mainstream” as John Howard so famously said at Ntaria (Hermannsburg)at the beginning of the Intervention.
Ex pluribus unum indeed, I much prefer to celebrate diversity.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 8:20PM
I doubt that the sanctimonious condemnations of honorary whiteys Mundine and Gooda would have an impact on the 2000 protesters (black and white) who rallied in Canberra on Australia Day.
Rather than speak to these protesters, Abbott and Gillard did a runner and left the goons to incite the protesters. Abbott’s hypocrisy and cowadice was again on display considering he spoke at length to the anti-carbon tax rally in preference to heading for the hills. Here redneck cowboys brandished placards : “Ditch the Witch,” “Bob Brown’s Bitch,” “Stop Communists” and yet another placard depicting Gillard as the grim reaper to the “tsk tsk” murmerings of Abbott, obviously in his element.
Of course it would have been difficult for Gillard or Abbott to have appeased an outraged mob on Australia Day by denying that they (and bad-ass spy Ferguson) are indeed the true representatives – the real stooges of the land-grabbing, anti-native title, anti-environment, polluting, plundering - Quarry Australia.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 9:02PM
Dazza, I didn’t mean that all Aborigines would have to go to their new homeland, only those who want to. Of course, they would have to accept new sacred lands and be happy with that.
In their new land they could set up tourist places which would allow city-living whites to experience living off the land and getting back to nature for a few weeks.
Perhaps many whites might want to apply to live there, wanting to get away from crime-ridden, stress-filled, polluted cities. This would require Aboriginal approval of course and the filling in of an application form which would have to be checked!
P.S. Of course, the Aborigines would have their own police force and woe betide any ‘white’ who got drunk!
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 10:13PM
Are we advocating a new version of apartheid?
Agree, humans can be dangerous creations indeed.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 10:35PM
Jungarrayi
Share your sentiments.
Grew up tri-lingually as well (German, French and English in that order). I also consider multilingual education for children to be of great importance. If only to overcome the prevailing propensity to insularity and blinkered attitudes.
Posted Saturday, 28 January 12 at 11:05PM
The desirable concept of “Membri communitatis” (Ein akzeptiertes und integriertes Mitglied der Gemeinschaft) regardless of ethnicity!
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 7:34AM
Talking about so called dangerous “creations”.
Predictably things go wrong when humans with serious character flaws get into a position of power and influence. Politically Howard and now Abbott come to mind. “Gutter press” Murdoch is an ongoing menace.
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 7:54AM
As an eye opener I would recommend a Google search on “Jungarrayi”.
Impressive indeed.
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 8:34AM
Actually David Grayling, The Aboriginals of Tasmania were a genocide race & were hunted to extinction. The few which remained were treated like garbage & their dream time is well short on history due to what was done to them.
I don’t feel that isolating them to a specific part of Australia is any sort of a solution to the history of an entire race of intelligent people & although many people may have their ideas of what the solution might be the right solution, that lies with the Koori people themselves.
It is a gutless charade being played out by these politicians & as I watched the media interview with Barbara Shaw on ABC news 24 yesterday, I could see a media trying to force her to explain herself & couldn’t help wondering why they were making it a point to pursue her, until I heard Christopher Pine give a full account of Labors actions in this issue & just how much the unions had to do with it. It became obvious who was setting up who & just how much the mafia had stuck it’s boot into the Koori camp & their friends within the Koori tent embassy, being the messengers of foul play.
The more this issue becomes a public fiasco, the more the government motives become evident of just exactly what they were trying to achieve & just how much they are trying to cover up in their attempts to reverse the apology they gave the Koori people. Thanking them for the use of their land whilst playing up Nationalist ideology is like taking a cocktail of uppers & downers at the same time, or for those who aren’t welfare educated, on a great big roller coaster.
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 9:20AM
What a hornet’s nest.
Firstly Neil James. So very white and middle class of you to somehow conflate recent events at old Parliament House with the scenes at Cronulla. While you may say the Cronulla ‘demonstrations’ were not riots they certainly involved physical harm and property damage, not just the brief kidnapping of a single shoe.
More importantly you seem to indicate that there is some equivalence between the ‘oppression’ suffered by the white population of Sutherland and that of the Indigenous population of our country. This is of course bullshit of the rankest and most offensive kind.
In terms of the actual events it seems clear that the real harm done was that both Julia and Tony suffered a great deal of discomfort. I feel little for their plight and point to Indigenous children having the same feeling for much of their young lives.
The many voices saying that the tent embassy does nothing to bring black and white people together are wrong. I have spent time at the tent embassy when it was up in Sydney, learned a lot and felt both welcomed and respected.
Further I assert that the point of the tent embassy is not reconciliation. There are many others, black and white, engaged in this important task.
Abbott and Gillard and the millions of others who feel that Aboriginal people should ‘move on’ are ignorant of the fact that the tent embassy represents the unfinished business of a treaty. Until that is complete Aboriginal people have every right to maintain a delegation of representatives.
It might also be said that until the treaty exists any act of violence or aggression is a matter for Aboriginal people alone, any suppression of that violence being simply another rule enforced by white people in uniforms, with the threat of harm, death or jail for Aboriginal people who reject their authority and the authority of those that stand behind them.
Our Indigenous people do not always serve themselves in the way the respond to issues. Some are volotile and angry, not fully informed or ill-considered in their speech. The same could be said of the people they confronted, the main difference being whether they have a place at the table. Until a treaty exists that brings Aboriginal people inside I encourage them to keep hammering on the windows.
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 9:32AM
JaneAgatha
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 7:18PM
the accepted community standards for reasonable two-way political discourse.”
“Do you realy understand what all of that realy means, the WEST and our way of life only became possible through what you suggest you fear.
I refer to mypreferredusername good article”.
mypreferredusername
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 6:21PM
“Neil James, this is indeed the bottom line, good point. David Grayling give credit where credit is due.”
Neil James
“The bottom line here is that political biases, on both sides of politics, and the media reporting that often reinforces such opinions rather than challenges them (eg. Murdoch/commercial TV current affairs versus Fairfax/ABC TV current affairs), too often lead to entrenched public misconceptions about events not witnessed directly or investigated objectively afterwards”.
I think however despite all of the good comments here and important point was maybe missed.
How can one man, Mr Hodges, so easily incite a Lynch mob, if you will and it wasn’t, but I’m making a point. It happened at the Cronulla riots and at a grander scale it happened to create WW1 which led to WW2.
How and why can people like Hodges, Churchill or Adolf get so many people to be foolish, both before and after the Lynching.
Australians were, whether we like it or not a Lynch Mob that used Violance to confront the accused, the vilified and it is Violance that not only gave the West its wealth but also our Industrial reforms, despite the fact that economies actualy collapsed every ten years with the Consumer Confidence Cycle, not high wages or industrial action, violant or otherwise.
So my question to you all is, seeing as to what we are, have become, what does it mean to be human.
Are we all incapable of dealing with our failings as humans and therfore just play the blame game, while the Media just takes advantage, for profits sake, of our inability to confront ourselves on all levels of awareness.
How much of all of this is actualy, unhuman.
Why do we realy need people like Neil James and the rest of his Knuckle Dragging Buddies in drongo Uniforms. We have choices, we don’t make the right ones most of the time, thats why.
To be human or not to be human, by one’s own defenition.
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 9:51AM
DrD, I agree with what you are saying here. One of the most important parts of this issue is that white people cannot possibly have the answers - we can only be supportive and encouraging. The offensive part of Abbott’s alleged comments is the blatant display of a lack of respect and sensitivity for these people as a whole and for various social issues in part. All other Australians can do IS have sensitivity, respect and open arms. We are talking about peoples/culture who have been around a very long time…to have an attitude that our out-of-touch-politicians (and our MSM ravenous for morsels of the sensational) can arrogantly think they have all the answers and know best - it IS offensive.
While major social actors have such an attitude, how can we progress? How can indigenous Australia feel empowered? How can ANYONE negotiate, discuss policies or express views when leaders have such closed-minded attitudes?
I’d also simply like to know - WHO benefitted from all this? And it seems strange to me that even though Abbott as usual said something very stupid - but Julia seems to still cop the crap!!
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 9:59AM
“Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Macbeth Quote (Act V, Scene V).
We humans, fractious creatures that we are, fill our lives with endless disputation, conflict and war.
We truly are ignoble idiots, devoid of humility, compassion and intelligence but filled to overflowing with greed, envy and a desire to hurt and kill!
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 10:01AM
Hi jackal - just read your post which appeared shortly before mine - what you raise is something that intrigues me too - there’s something in human nature that is self serving if one is not the type of individual to self-assess and have a moral aspect (whatever significance that word has to an individual). Competition, owning stuff, having to ensure your possession of your own stuff even at the expense of others.
This is where many indigenous cultures are harmed by western imperialist values of money/ownership. So many cultures do not even view ownership the same way as capitalist cultures. Water, land - no one owns them, European ordering of society didn’t even become so set about ownership until the closure of the commons…then there have been struggles over who owns what and what exactly is justice, equality etc…
My opinion - some people are deluded that they own stuff - and they go to incredible and tragic lengths to ensure this version of reality…
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 10:03AM
David - but what you quote from is the work of a great writer, actor and observer of human relationships…which is part of the also beauty of humanity is it not?
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 10:32AM
The ‘beauty of humanity’ you say, fightmumma! It’s a concept that I find difficult to comprehend.
What I see in the world, from the Koori issue to the Palestinian issue to the Iran issue, to the income inequalities that exists in the world and the use of torture and depleted uranium and drones, etc, etc, they all seem to show the increasing ugliness of humanity.
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 10:35AM
Mr Abbobtt’s first comments on the Tent Embassy were insensitive and patronising — ‘hey, you got recognised as humans with a vote and a sincere apology from PM Rudd (along with no hope of compensation) what else could you possibly want or ask for’. Yet his observation about the danger to those inside The Lobby was exceptionally ill-informed and/or panicked.
In the Ch9 footage Abbott makes the observation to the PM’s minders who describe the situation as deteriorating (sans justification) along the lines of ‘Those glass windows could easily be smashed’. Floor to ceiling glass which is always toughened glass would need to be smashed with projectiles or weighty battering ram. Mild banging with 200 hands would not smash toughened glass in one million years of sustained banging.
I guess Abbott was a little scared or embarrassed to have precipitated events (conspiracy @dazza suggested not withstanding), and maybe felt a little culpable for his insensitive answer to a press question on the tent embassy — more like his answer was typically dismissive, condescending and patronising like you’d expect from an apologist for the establishment.
Posted Sunday, 29 January 12 at 11:42AM
wideeyedpupil - “more like his answer was typically dismissive, condescending and patronising like you’d expect from an apologist for the establishment.” - that’s a cracker of a comment!! Couldn’t say it better myself - now how do we change this from being the status quo and get some motion, some progression? I’m sick of it myself - it’s an embarrassment and ugly, it’s arrogant.