i wish
Martin Place
How convenient for our struggling Government that a lone imbecile equipped with a gun has showed up in a Sydney cafe at last. It was beginning to seem no one would bother answering their call. Now perhaps we’ll all fall back into line & stop whining about petty distractions such as racial hatred and climate chaos.
What is the difference between this guy and all the other guys who have held hostages at bay during a siege while they demanded the negotiation of a team of experts? Why is this the one we call “terrorism”? Is it just because the guy falsely claims Moslim beliefs to justify his narcissistic violence? Is it because maybe his ancestors weren’t all Northern European? Is it just because he got himself a banner printed? If IS or Al Qaeda are so influential they can plant well-organised agents on “our” soil (one’s language inevitably waxes purple) wouldn’t they be able to do better than a solitary weapon and sole unbalanced operator? Speaking of which, is our Prime Minister actually visibly grinning at the moment?
I think in the ways we report and digest this event Australia’s media and media consumers can have the grace to want the safe & soon release of the people trapped in the Lindt cafe without rushing to offer ourselves and our hysteria to the service of disruptive cruelty.
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Here’s a great example of the kinds of melodrama, self-righteousness, and hand-wringing self-pitying tone that directly serve anyone who actually does want to create the emotion of terror in people’s hearts. NB this florid writing is itself terrifying in its instant, unquestioning capitulation to the idea of the rule of a police state.
“We listen to the statements of our leaders and try and be reassured by their calm demeanour. We know that it masks a horrific truth of terror. But we also know that measured calm is the most important thing right now. It is that, and having faith in our security forces to do what they have been trained to do, that will most likely bring all of you home safe.”
http://www.mamamia.com.au/social/a-wish-for-frightened-strangers-sydney-siege/
My response to Mamamia’s article, which has attracted wave after wave of the kinds of responses that gladden army recruiter’s hearts:
Please be aware that your article, whilst well-meaning, is also meaningless. You cannot actually love strangers whom you don’t know. What you’re in love with, to judge by the purple tone, is your own ability to summon compassion and feel empathy.
How easily we speak of “terrorism” whenever a banner showing Arabic text happens to be used. We do not speak of terrorism in all the other instances of deranged men – somehow, it’s always been men – who have held their own coworkers and families hostage in Australia or even killed them, yet who because they make no false claims to be Moslim are depicted as lunatics rather than agents. The hostage taker/s, whoever they are, are no more genuinely religious than the Ku Klux Klan are representative of Christianity.
To repeatedly and obediently use words like “terrifying” and “terror” directly serves the interests of anyone who actually does want to create the emotion of terror in the Australian population; it also directly and rather conveniently serves the goals of our otherwise struggling government, whose idiocy on the larger terror of climate change has made them an international laughing stock and whose racist intolerance towards asylum seekers has made them deadly. Does it really only take one isolated incident for us all to lay down our common sense and give over willingly to the rule of an unquestioned police state? That’s what it sounds like when we speak without qualification of “having faith in our security forces to do what they have been trained to do, that will most likely bring all of you home safe.” Now watch as Abbott and cohorts take advantage of this situation to curb freedoms and institute new racist laws.
This irresponsible article and the wave of sentimental responses it has evoked fill me with cold fear. Listen to your own language, its dangerous sentimentality, its self-pity, it falseness. “All of our arms are around you right now. And if we could whisper in your ear, this is what we would say: You are loved. You are loved.” You don’t “love” these strangers, you don’t even know them. Or, if you do happen to be genuinely enlightened enough to feel actual love for thirteen strangers in a cafe, can’t you also love the demented person or persons whose violent narcissism has created this situation in the first place? Do we have to love the “good” people (those who have “families”… careful, there) and withhold our love from “terrorists” – ie, are we all good and the unspecified “they” all bad? This kind of pious, inaccurate, us ‘n’ them George W Bush thinking is dangerous in the extreme and our warmongering leaders have always put it to good use. I hope we can fervently wish for the safe release of everyone trapped in the Lindt cafe without rushing to offer our hysteria and our sentiment to the service of disruptive cruelty, either by a lone gunman or by our own inhumane government.