The violence at the protest on Gadigal Country against the visit of Israel’s president reflects a deeper political failure – where authority suppresses dissent rather than confronting uncomfortable truths about Gaza, protest rights and democratic responsibility.
NSW Police’s explanations of violence at Sydney Town Hall on February 9 make out they were only trying to maintain public safety, through various professional measures. This is false. Behind the extensive police powers to control and suppress protest lies a cancerous-like cowardice, facilitated by a cornered Prime Minister and by an Israeli sympathizing and authoritarian NSW Premier.
Cowardice can be nurtured by pleasure in dominating, fear of losing control, being frightened to face truths and deceits in pretending that all is well when it manifestly is not.
Restricting protests to stifle concern about genocide in Gaza and slaughter in the West Bank, or the Prime Minister asking the public to “turn the temperature down” so that justifiable outrage about the Bondi massacres will deflect attention from an ongoing genocide in Palestine, is a cowardly technique.
The PM is not the worst offender, even though government cowardice began when wedged by the Zionist Federation of Australia into supporting their invitation to the Israeli President. Who runs the show you might ask?
Suppression-oriented Minns delegates responsibility for his anti protest laws to the chief of NSW Police — who is happy to oblige.
In and out of uniform, cowards appear as strong men (usually men), who like to manhandle or beat up people. There’s no manliness in the police thuggery witnessed in Sydney streets on February 9.
The facile Premier — or is he just naive — with no recognition of his own hypocrisy says on the next day’s news that “NSW police are not punching bags”. His holier-than-thou posture is contrasted with a man on the light-rail tracks, being held down by police which are repeatedly punching him in the kidneys.
Then the Prime Minister tells federal parliament that “what the [NSW] police were trying to do was sensible”.
Police punched Greens MP Abigail Boyd, knocked her over and were completely indifferent to her explanations about who she was and the reasons for her presence at a legitimate, peaceful protest.
Footage shows police becoming angry at Muslims undertaking prayer in the Town Hall Square — away from any road. There was no civility, only the raw emotions of cowards not getting their way. The men kneeling in prayer, protected by others including Boyd, are then thrown aside.
The question should be asked about whether deep seated prejudice affected police conduct.
The mood of thuggery moved to the House of Representatives on February 10 when Elizabeth Watson-Brown, a federal Greens MP, asked the Prime Minister whether the invitation to Herzog had undermined the country’s unity, whether he would condemn police violence and send Herzog home.
Before the PM could answer, the opposition MPs found a unity which had eluded them for months, and one of the newly-reformed Coalition was heard to advise his colleagues: “Rip her apart”. This was exactly what he said until the speaker asked him to withdraw his comment.
Further support for cowardice, camouflaged by thuggery, was not far away. Keen to revive his image as macho man at large, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said police accused of punching protesters should receive a commendation and, in future, be able fire rubber bullets.
To meet the PM’s requests to “lower the temperature”, the country needs to replace cowardice with sufficient courage to admit the truths about a genocide, the truths about the values of freedom of speech and the right to protest.
[Stuart Rees AM is Professor Emeritus at the University of Sydney & recipient of the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize. This article was first published by Pearls and Irritations.]