Last week ended with me feeling very sad about the world and what had happened in an ugly 24 hours.
We awoke on Friday morning to the news of the killing of Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi. I have to say I am not at all unhappy that he was overthrown and unable to inflict heartache on his people anymore. The last few months have been particularly ghastly and the actions of the fool who called himself ‘father’ were frightening to hear about. His time was up and the clock ticked ever faster towards October 20th 2011. What I am horrified and sickened by is the manner of his death and the unseemly glee that attended that.
There is a (natural) temptation to talk about ‘those who live by the sword die by the sword’ in situations like this or ‘he was such a murderous bastard he got his just desserts’ etc. I wonder how that sort of thinking advances us as humans though. I wonder if that was the way we responded to all tyrannies if we would simply replace one form of tyranny with another – the sword replaced by the sword if you will. We can never make decisions about justice based on anger or hatred, that’s what justice, actually is – identifying a wrong and fixing it in a manner that comes from reasoned thought and the evaluation of all material/evidence relating to it. To decry someone as brutal or a butcher only to then humiliate and brutalise him before summarily slaughtering him is not justice, it is revenge and it is hateful and it is inhumane. And I don’t care who it is or why it happens, it is not right and does not advance us as a species. You cannot say someone is a tyrant and then act tyrannically.
My point is we must always be better than our first instinct. We must always be better than our revenge gene. We must always be better than our hatred and we must always, always be better than the person we are getting rid of.
The killing of Gaddafi means the people of Libya now never get to see him answer for his behaviour, to respond to the evidence which would no doubt have been put to him, to tell us if he was the one who ordered the Lockerbie crash, to justify killing his own people or to shed light on his relationship with the rest of the world.
I hope his end acts as a warning to the creep that runs Syria and the vile creature who rules Zimbabwe and causes the leaders of China, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen to reflect on what direction they want to take.
In the same way Bin Laden’s murder smells to high heaven but has been swept away because the US really can’t afford that to be questioned (in the same way they really couldn’t afford to have him in court – too many secrets) this killing is a cold hearted, savage and brutal taking of another human being’s life. And we all are diminished by this act.
And that’s way, way before we think about the body being put on display for three days in a cold store.
Meanwhile in Melbourne a couple of hundred (maybe)peaceful protestors we man handled and dragged out of the City Square by a dragoon of 400 or more police, including riot squad, horses and dogs. This despite no evidence of a violent intent and no suggestion of any inconvenience being caused apart from the complaints of a few businesses ( the irony of businesses complaining about the loss of income due to a protest about corporate greed is somewhat delicious).
There are around 900 ‘occupy New York’ type protests currently around the world. Four of these have so far been dispersed. To think that Melbourne would be one of those is shameful and frankly embarrassing.
I have no doubt that the Nero like Lord Mayor ordered the protest broken up (‘or dealt with’) for no reasons of philosophy, politics or right but because he thought it was dirty and unsightly, there was a planned private school function at the Town Hall (Mr Doyle has long had associations with private schools) and he was under considerable pressure from businesses. To then accuse protestors of arrogance is the height of, well arrogance. At last he shows his true colors.
Police, my police, are here to protect me from physical harm and to uphold the law. No one was under physical threat on Friday UNTIL the police arrived. The question of whether the protestors had a ‘right’ to be in the City Square and whether that had committed to moving on is interesting but something that could be resolved by asking a group of the protestors to have a chat and talk through the best ways to disperse. The word over-reaction doesn’t come close to how the story played out. Fences were erected to corral the campers, people were singled out and then dragged out, punches were thrown, horses were stormed in and it was on for young and old. Insults were thrown as strongly as fists and little boys and girls reverted to their immature and base selves to exert their might. This was true; I have no doubt of all sides. Meanwhile the Emperor looked down from his Town Hall eyrie.
A couple of questions I have been pondering – the riot squad were there; at what point was a decision made that things might turn in such a way that the riot squad would be ‘required’, similarly with the number of horses and dogs? I have seen any number of (often large) demonstrations in the last few years – the anti Iraq invasion, anti carbon tax, Falun Gong injustice, Work Choices, free detainees etc- and I have never seen this sort of ‘anti force’ presence. What was the evidence or intelligence that the decisions makers drew on to say these divisions would be employed? There was also obviously a fair number of plain clothes people with their cameras firing away (ah ASIO come back, all is forgiven), presumably in anticipation of any legal disputation. You have to suspect an agenda was being served by someone.
Peter Ryan described the police action as ‘magnificent’, the Premier has congratulated them and the Lord Mayor is almost beside himself with joy for what took place. And all for what? A piece of land in the centre of Melbourne where some well meaning and open hearted people gave up the comforts of home (and yes maybe their deodorant – ho hum so did the might Roman warriors and our ‘boys’ in the two world wars)to commit to a cause they believe in. In these days of banality and ennui, where most people can’t even be bothered having a conversation, I say thank god for them. And shame on anyone who tries to smash that.
Here we are then, another example where we have to be better than this. We have to be able to have strong exchanges of thought and ideas in a community so that we advance democracy if that’s what we feel is important. We have to constantly question capitalism and who has the power in the world and if that benefits everyone. We can’t applaud the rise of free speech in countries such as Libya, Egypt, Algiers etc and then say it’s fine in this country ‘as long as...’ We have to be better than that and it’s not up to our police force to be thugs and to be at the beck and call of disingenuous politicians with questionable motives.
So from these two events, seemingly disparate but to me obviously linked, there is a loud message for our powerful.
Over the last year or so we have seen minority governments in Australia, Britain and Belgium with other election results which came out of nowhere and unexpected. This year, this extraordinary year, we have seen the Arab Spring (surely it must now be at least autumn) where people have literally risked, and some (far too many) have lost, their lives. Many who have been silent for all their lives have found their voices and their courage and have taken to the streets to ask for change. This is change for themselves, their lives and their fellow citizens because the way they have been living, the way they have been governed and led is no longer the way they want to be living.
This new thinking is a clarion call to governments, decision makers, business leaders and politicians everywhere.
The concern for me is that I don’t know that they are listening. The government in this country seems to lack direction and you only have to watch question time in Parliament to want to shout ‘have you learnt nothing from the election result’. It is disheartening.
When you don’t listen to what a group of people are saying in Melbourne’s City Square you are also not listening to the people of New York, Rome, Sofia, Istanbul, London and Moscow. That is a lot of wisdom and that is a lot of people, people who vote and shape governments and might be future politicians or writers or in positions where they can influence opinion and thought for future generations.
We can be better and we must be. It is 2011 for heaven’s sake and it is what we are meant to be, we are the people who have been given the privilege of being here and shaping the present in preparation for the future.
How can we blow that just because we aren’t prepared to be ‘better’?
