We pride ourselves as Australians on being open, happy with diversity, respecting other opinions, fair go, all that. But it is an illusion, the freedom only applies to those who repeat the standard memes, follow the party line, accept the Australian mythology about who and what we are. Deviate from that and the gatekeepers will come down on you like a ton of bricks.
Express a belief that the environment must have some protections and a shock jock newspaper columnist will call for you to be strung up from lamp posts. Point out the scientific evidence for climate change and receive hate mail and death threats prompted by the shock jocks. Have a long ago family background in communism like Senator Lee Rhiannon and you will be subject to constant vile attacks.
Oppose some actions by religious organisations and fundamentalist pastors will call for your head on a platter. As they will if you support marriage equality, or abortion, or admit to being an Atheist. Question the economic orthodoxy of continuous growth, austerity, public asset sales, removal of workplace regulation, and growing gap between rich and poor, and neoconservative editorial writers will abuse you for living in the past.
Question Australia’s military record, and its American links, and be prepared for accusations of unAustralianess. Same will happen if you suggest Australians are just a teeny bit racist. And if you suggest farming has contributed not insignificantly to Australian environmental problems. And if you dare to question whether the “War on Drugs” might be a little counterproductive. And if you dare to ask why so many guns in society.
Ask why the government funds private schools, why billionaires don’t pay more tax, why the coal industry gets massive subsidies, and you will be treated with contempt and scorn by the mainstream media. Question the role of vicious shock jocks in coarsening political debate and they will turn on you in a second screaming “free speech”.
In short. You are free to say whatever you like, of course you are. March along the broad highway constructed by Murdoch and friends and they will cheer you on like a winning football team. Dare to investigate side roads, bush tracks, little diversions under bridges, and the opinion muggers will beat you up and leave you bleeding by the roadside.
Of course many of the unspeakable opinions above are specific to Australia, but others apply more generally, and individual countries will have other additions related to history, culture, religion.
I suspect everywhere, to greater and lesser degrees, freedom of expression is really the freedom to conform.
http://www.theage.com.au/business/a-business-reporters-greatest-value-lies-in-asking-hard-questions-20120831-255w2.html
2 things
Firstly connecting the previous thread with this one is this article by Age business journo Verrender.
Couple of worthy extracts:
“The more vulnerable media companies become, the less capable they are of withstanding the pressure of vested interests and the more susceptible they will be to attack. Many will adopt the easy way out, that it is best to simply not cause trouble.”
[Thats only a partial truth of course, it implies the journo is not willingly complicit to start with - the next psty is a bit more honest and accurate]
“…when it comes to business, the Australian media generally has opted for a soft and fawning relationship. It has always been thus. And it comes back to bite”
[And then, later, gets even better]
“In the US, where freedom of the press is written into the constitution, business reporters failed to pick up the greatest scam ever perpetrated on the global financial system…..Why? It’s all a little too difficult. Because, unlike politics or sport, those running big business have a great deal of power ….”
There is more.
The sad, ironic but very telling fact about this artcile however is that it was his last. He, like 100s of others got sacked.
Too bad he waited until now to spill the beans,
Secondly I note your book had a foreword by Judith Wright.
I’m an admirer.
Did you get to meet her?
Hi Fred. I knew Judith reasonably well. Published her last book (a collection of essays). Unfortunately I only knew her quite late in life when she was almost completely deaf, which made communication a bit hard. I vividly remember having both her and Nugget Coombs, also totally deaf, in my office at the same time, trying to shout to be heard! She was delighted to read my manuscript and write the foreword, pleased to be asked I think. It was probably her last piece of writing, since she sadly died not long after. She was a very classy lady.
And Nugget was a pretty good fella too AFAIK.
My mum and dad went through the depression as workers and were proud of him, I dunno why exactly, but I think it may have a class thing.
I knew of him when I was a kid such was his reputation.
Nice to think of them as a couple.
You were [are] a lucky fella.
Could not agree more! If I was a cheerleader, I’d be dancing.
Look what it took me to get my own civil rights. And yes, I called the “regime” to account, I bucked the “system”, I refused to conform.
Admittedly, I received considerable personal support. Public support came from overseas readers. It is only in the last few months Australians have started to read my work in numbers: 30% of my traffic recently has come from Australia. Before is was more like 8%.
I believe it was because my fight made people uncomfortable. I was operating too far out of the norm.
Freedom is a funny thing.
It never ceases to amaze me the fundamental principle of the Liberal Party is individual freedoms. Yet they want to have religion in public schools, we have a leader who wants to take us back to the 1950′s when individual freedoms were few and far between.
I think I should hop off my soapbox now …. before I get into more trouble!
Thanks Rob, yes, you have experienced it personally more than most.
I think it’s a little more complex than that. Mainstream opinion (right or wrong, which anyway is primarily a subjective judgement) is just that, because it it is held – vicariously or otherwise, in an informed or uninformed way – by the majority.
Of course it raises a hue and cry, especially now the internet has made social media a true force.
I would be what most people would describe as conservative. Yet I do not practise active religion; I think Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers is despicable; I believe we should work very hard to eradicate atmospheric pollution and to ensure that remaining wilderness remains intact; I support a necessary redefinition of marriage in our post-religious era; and politically I believe legislatures should properly reflect the balance of electors’ views (and that all politicians should work within those parameters and not as if government is an I win-You lose situation).
So some might say I’m a bit of a closet radical.
But I do not believe in paying people never to work; or in publicly funding make-work schemes; or vast – and vastly unproductive – and hopelessly circular further education systems; or in creeping renationalisation of so-called public assets; or in the nanny state we have allowed to develop; or Big Brother (either administratively or on the TV).
Nor do I believe that beating up on the Americans, a favourite pastime of the Left in Australia, is a very good idea at all. Or that retreating from military alliance with the US would be in Australia’s long-term interest. The global economy and the power bases that go with it are shifting. Australia’s future security lies in helping to manage that change, which a large part means staying on the cousinly terms with America and other western democracies.
If we think we’re unfairly under fire from time to time, for saying things the great and powerful don’t like, think about what would be the result if you tried to do that in China.
Thanks Richard. Sure, but saying we are better than China is setting the bar pretty low eh?
On one method of measurement, yes
But I think the point is we’re actually much better off (freedom of speech-wise) than might at first glance be apparent. People who shout are a pest, of course.
Appreciate your well thought out comments here 8. Isn’t individual thought one of the primary purposes of a free society?
You and I agree on many things and disagree on a few. But isn’t civil discourse how we (as well as others reading this blog) learn and grow? I may want so see more of a “nanny state” and you don’t. We should be able to passionately argue these points and either learn from one another or become more firm in our convictions.
“Hate speech” comes from both sides and has no place among human beings who are simply trying to feed hungry, clothe naked, shelter homeless and, generally, make the world a better place to live. Unfortunately, apathy and willful ignorance becomes more prevalent as civil society turns to “might makes right.”
Eric: Absolutely. Argument is good
Eric, fine, but I’m not sure how that relates to what I wrote?
You have every right to be pleased with this post, Melon (for those non-Twitter readers, ‘Melon’ is a term of endearment). And I must say I’m pleased that the whole vexed question of ‘Freedom of Speech’ is gaining such attention through MSM and Social Media.
It would seem there are 2 categories: 1. FOS for all – regardless of content and 2. FOS along with the other ‘freedoms’ of Association, Assembly, Religion and Movement that are bound by Law against inciting hatred on the grounds of Culture, Ethnicity or Background.
We are used to ‘shock-jocks’ from the 1st category who ‘stir the pot’ in a non-progressive, often hateful manner against groups seen as minorities (and therefore ‘less-important’) such as our Indigenous people, Gays & Lesbians, Atheists, Asylum -Seekers and dare I say Women.
But you speak not of the reaction/adulation received by ‘shock-jocks’ paid to gain notoriety in pursuit of the sponsors’ dollar (and to hell with the Law) but of the attacks suffered by ordinary everyday citizens concerned about issues affecting us all: Environment, Human Rights, Climate Change and Equality et al that are considered (in much of the MSM) as Non-conformist, Leftie, Greenie or Whacker.
Worrying indeed!
Hi Nancy, glad you liked it.
Gidday Nancy,
May I suggest you check this site out [particularly the 'enough is enough' petition] and see what you think.
http://weaveinc.org.au/
“We pride ourselves as Australians on being open, happy with diversity, respecting other opinions, fair go, all that.” Indeed, David, indeed – a misty-eyed relic of ancient lines. A bit like “Cheer up comrades and be gay” – which I am sure you would not have enough shock-jock in you to say to Cardinal Pell or Archbishop Peter Jensen if they were a bit down in the mouth. As Dylan Thomas noted – the times they are a-changing – running up and down (now mostly down), the scale of social harmony in the manner of blind mice. Enough, before you throw me off your forum. Colin
Colin, I devoted the entire essay to disproving that initial mythology, which I don’t believe but an awful lot of Australians do. Sort of our version of American exceptionalism. Have another read!
Please, David, do not be upset. My apologies. Your very relevant article needs no expansion, and I am sorry I made a glib comment in a way which has been so easily misconstrued. Regards, Colin