Comment by Iggy Kim
HOBART — Since the 3000-strong protest here that caused Pauline Hanson to cancel her public meeting, local Hansonites have thrown up their arms at the "anti-democratic rabble". Likewise, "respectable" commentators have gasped and crossed themselves at the denial of the heaven-sent right to free speech.
Unfortunately, neither demagogy nor abstract morality are helpful for a constructive debate on the concrete exercise of democratic rights and the social relations that shape them .
When workers strike, they have to endure the mob rule of the Murdoch media herd and the parliamentary zoo, both madly shrieking about the "national interest".
When protesters, sick of the impotence of the union bureaucracy in the face of Coalition impudence, pushed into federal parliament on August 19 — denying no-one even the formal right to freedom of speech — they had to put up with not only those same shrieks, but also the whimpering of their "leaders" in the ACTU. Who among them gave those protesters a fair hearing?
The reality is that there is no genuine free speech for ordinary people — public servants facing the axe, students facing up-front fees, working mothers forced back into the home by rising child-care costs — other than mass protest and strike actions.
The right to free speech is meaningless within the "correct channels" — the capitalist media and parliament — because those channels are beyond the majority's control. And even if working people's views were aired fairly, they have no power to then decide and implement them.
Our "representatives" in parliament are preoccupied with careers that depend on how well they maintain social peace and stable investment conditions.
The capitalist media's control of what is "legitimate" debate leads numerous activists into worrying more about how the issue looks on TV than about organising effective means for people to directly express their concerns and fight for them.
In other words, the contest of ideas and views is distorted by the existing power relations. Therefore, those of us working for social change have to facilitate the fullest expression of ordinary people's interests so as to further the self-organisation and confidence of larger numbers to act (not just speak) on those interests.
Only this can break the monopoly of free speech by the capitalist media, politicians and their corporate bosses.
It is ludicrous to pretend that Pauline Hanson does not have free speech, when almost anything she chooses to say is spread far and wide by the media. But on May 9, some 3000 protesters decided to exercise their right to free speech by loudly telling Hanson what they think of her and her supporters' racist vitriol.
Fortunately, it didn't occur to the anti-racists to listen politely to Hanson's garbage in the hope that the bigots would see the error of their ways. That would only have encouraged the Hansonites and potential Hansonites, in Tasmania and throughout Australia.
Moreover, in the current political climate, victories such as the Hobart demo can inspire much-needed broader confidence in collective action and rally others to join in future protests.
That confidence is what the "respectable" commentators are trying to undermine with their attacks on the May 9 demonstration. They are attempting the same kind of "damage control" that the federal government attempted after workers on August 19 expressed their anger at the federal government's attacks.
In both cases, the message is the same: the only permissible "free speech" for workers and the targets of racists takes place in channels which guarantee that it is ineffective.
The only real line of defence against racism and the far right is the ability and confidence of masses of people to organise against them.
History has shown that the current political make-up and constitution are quite compatible with that most vile white Australia policy. It was only the Aboriginal movement and the mass social upheaval that supported it in the late '60s and early '70s that brought its demise and led to anti-discrimination laws.
However, these laws remain precarious without continual mass vigilance and action. In fact, Howard was recently prepared to change them to erode native title.
Therefore, the last people we should entrust our democratic freedoms to are the existing authorities and political system. We should continually assert the right to exercise our democratic freedoms directly and in channels that we choose, rather than those chosen for us by people who disagree with our goals.
[Iggy Kim is the Hobart secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party and a member of Tasmanians Against Racism.]