What, no Satanists down at Crown? http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000915/A65518-2000Sep14.html By DAVID WROE Friday 15 September 2000 So a Labor premier has described hippies and school students, among others, as "fascists". If Jeff Kennett had done it, we all would have said: "Gee, he's really lost it this time." Steve Bracks' little bit of hyperbole - fascist behavior is "where you think you are right absolutely and you don't like debate" - could equally be applied to the daily activities of most elected governments and, from time to time, just about every ordinary person. Bracks' description of the demonstrators' behavior as "fascist" was just one example of the absurdly overstated, but carefully calculated, language used during the World Economic Forum protests that will, ultimately, rob such words of the power to depict true breaches of freedom. Alexander Downer came up with a goodie, describing the more extreme demonstrators as "like those people in the first half of the 20th century who wanted to deny free speech to their opponents". How exactly did this go from being a global economic issue to an issue of free speech? The average WEF delegate would have more of his or words reproduced in newspaper column centimetres, TV sound-bites, Hansard transcripts and conference discussion papers than all the protesters put together. The forum delegates are not the silenced, disaffected majority, denied their right to a voice in society. They are listened to all day every day, and every word they speak is picked up and acted upon. Didn't Bracks see the irony in going on Melbourne's most popular radio station to complain about being denied his freedom to speak? The same applies to the star attraction, Bill Gates, whose mega-company, Microsoft, has just been found guilty of breaching rules that ensure its competitors' freedom to compete. If Gates wanted to build a speaker the size of the MCG, stick it on the moon and transmit his nasally opinions on IT to the world, he alone could afford to do it. Eventually, people will tire of the references to fascism, Hitler, Stalin and dictatorships, and the spin-doctors will have to come up with alternative baseless terms that have an immediate, instinctive, emotional impact. Meanwhile, history will become clouded and confused. How are future generations supposed to understand the word "fascist" as simultaneously a dictator responsible for the deaths of millions and a dreadlocked woman tussling with police outside Crown casino? Blockading the WEF was a pretty pointless act. The delegates were there to discuss broad issues, not to make decisions or form policies. Letting them know (however vehemently) that you think their approach is wrong or self-serving is one thing. Trying to stop them getting in was just an overreaction that made me wonder how many of the blockaders had the WEF confused with the IMF. But the blockade was neither fascist, Stalinist, dictatorial nor un-Australian (whatever that word means). Bracks, Downer, Howard, Carr and Napthine knew that. But they also knew that an effective way to undermine an opponent is turn their own words back on them. If they call you a fascist, call them fascists back. It's really just a slightly - and only slightly - more sophisticated version of that game kids play in which one says, "You're a so-and-so", and his interlocutor replies, "I know you are, but what am I?" The protesters, not to be bested with hyperbole, regrettably picked up on the tactic. Friends of the Earth spokesman Damien Sullivan said of the baton charge by police on Tuesday night: "I don't think it was a confrontation at all. It was basically a massacre ... It's like something you see in a military dictatorship." That's right. It was a massacre in which no one was killed, by a military dictatorship that seized power in a bloodless coup that no one saw coming last September. Be thankful it was only a three-day forum, otherwise the ante would have been upped and upped until each side was accusing the other of being the reincarnations of Richard III, Ted Bundy, Captain Hook and Satan thereafter. David Wroe is a staff writer. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
