IS PEACEFUL PUBLIC ASSEMBLY THE PRESERVE OF THE LEFT?
22-August-2011
This week the right to peaceful public assembly got a bit of a battering. And those wielding the sticks were none other than freedom-of-speech-loving journalists.
The derision with which many critiqued the anti carbon tax rally seemed, to use one of their favourite descriptors, extreme.
The determination to find an offensive placard, to photograph someone looking unhinged, to find fault with the tone of the event should be a little concerning for those who champion free speech and peaceful public assembly as tenants of democracy.
On the anniversary of Julia’s “no carbon tax” election promise, around 7,000 Australians gathered on the laws of Parliament House to express their opposition to the tax. A massive crowd by any standard.
Unlike many of those sitting in judgement of the event - I was there, I spoke to the assembly, and of course I chatted with many people there. The overwhelming majority of those attending were concerned Aussies, many of whom had never attended a rally before.
You’ve got to wonder what they felt when the rally was labeled a “freak show” and those attending accused of being “barking mad” and “freaks and flat-earthers”. And that was just here on The Punch. The wider commentariat was just as scathing and derisive.
How much more reluctant will ordinary folks be to attend a rally and exercise their right to protest, following the vitriol that was directed at those attending the carbon tax rally?
How wary will any parliamentarians be of addressing public gatherings, following the sharp rebukes Tony Abbott received this week from the commentariat – just for going to talk to the assembled people?
Is that the type of democracy we want?
It seems somewhat ironic that the media decries the “blandness” of the political landscape, yet when passions are aroused on an issue and people are motivated, it’s time to marginalize and vilify those daring to stand up and be counted.
The media criticizes carefully stage-managed events and carefully scripted politicians, but then employs an eagle-eyed watch for the slightest image or placard that could remotely be seen to cause offence and then “tut-tut’s” the pollie for having the temerity to be within 20 feet of it.
But maybe, like beauty, “freak” is in the eye of the beholder?
I don’t seem to recall the same standards applied when protesters were burning effigies of John Howard or storming the offices of Coalition Ministers.
I don’t remember the media getting on their “tone of the debate” high horse when union thugs were making all sorts of threats during the waterfront dispute. Including, I recall, publishing photos of Coalition MP’s homes, in a veiled “we know where you live” standover tactic.
It seems to me that the derision and condescension stems from an uneasiness that the Government being protested against is a left-wing Labor Government, and the protesters are being cateogorised as that most reviled and fearful character – right-wing conservative (although, in truth, many are not).
The same uneasiness was revealed in the way the US media reacted to the Tea Party movement – protest, it seems, is the preserve of the left.
When our own journalists use the “tea party” descriptor as a term of ultimate insult and derision, they betray both their own left-leaning inclinations and their lack of understanding of the grass roots movement occurring in the US.
I’m sure if those tea party “freaks” had mobilized against that evil George Bush it would have been a very different story.
Whether the journos like it or not, protest is not the sole preserve of the left. Nor is a public rally a gentile debating society or a reasoned policy forum – it’s a loud, somewhat organic and therefore unpredictable, means of expressing protest.
Currently there are 11 convoys of trucks, from all corners of the nation, heading to Canberra as part of a “Convoy of no confidence” against the Gillard Government.
Let’s see if the media commentary can acknowledge their collective concerns and let them exercise their democratic right to peaceful assembly, rather than sit in judgement and impugn their sanity, intelligence and motives.
End.