Why it's time to start some fires

By Dominic Causley Todd

The following article is an opinion piece and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pulp or USU staff.

Q&A has a repeated habit of intermittently going viral with a talking point that gets people on the internet very intensely opinionated and charged up over an issue for a week, before fading back into the irrelevance that the ABC has come to represent.

Last Monday night’s token point of outrage though landed a little differently and as such I, an opinionated member of the internet, think we need to address this.  The discussion turned to the idea of the use of violent protest in response to state violence. Nayuka Gorrie, one of the panellists, stated “I wonder what our kind of tipping point in Australia's going to be when people will start burning stuff? I look forward to it”. Obviously, this caused huge outrage, because we’re indoctrinated to think of violence as inherently wrong and discrediting to the cause it is being carried out on behalf of. I started to think about this in a broader context of everything that is happening at the moment from policy to memes and in all honesty, I think the time to start lighting fires may be fast upon us.

Let’s consider the violence that is already present i.e. the state sanctioned violence that the police force is authorised to use. The police force is meant to be a social institution that upholds the law and keeps us safe. They’re meant to be the ‘good guys’, that you’re able to turn to for help and protection. The current reality is a long way from this ideal.

Our police force is inherently racist. This has been proven time and time again. Indigenous people are 20% more likely to be arrested by police across Australia. In the Northern Territory and Western Australia, it’s even higher. 17 Indigenous Australians have died in custody since August last year, and almost 40% of the time indigenous people in custody require medical assistance it is denied. Our police force unfairly targets Indigenous people and treats them significantly worse than the rest of the population.

In the last week another Indigenous teenager was killed by police. He was unarmed and already in police custody and they decided to shoot him dead. All the while lying to his family and community about his well-being until his body was carted out a few hours later in the back of an ambulance. This is the part where people get defensive and talk about police protecting themselves. The same police force a few months ago managed to detain a crazed mass shooter without even tasering the man. But when faced with an unarmed aboriginal teenager, these trained professionals used their best rational thinking and murdered him.

Another recent case of police violence is the treatment of the Extinction Rebellion protesters in Melbourne a few weeks ago and Sydney in September. The Sydney protesters were arrested without and informed that it would be illegal for them to be in contact with each other again. I’m sure you’re also aware of the brutality the police used on the demonstrators in Melbourne. This type of brutality is inherently horrific in and of itself. What makes it infuriating is that there are no such consequences for gatherings of far-right extremists and neo-Nazis. When you see images of police high fiving people with swastikas and then pepper spraying people protesting the literal END OF THE WORLD with “EAD Hippies” written on their chest you should be concerned about the intentions of our police force.

Q&A also brought up the issue of sexual assault and gendered violence. Mona Eltahawy asked how many rapists need to be murdered before men and boys stop raping. The Murdoch press obviously lost their minds over this and called for the show to be taken off air. But I think it is a valid point. After years of police telling women how to protect themselves from rapists and doing close to nothing to properly police the issue people are getting fed up. The police aren’t doing their job (it should be noted that more than one third of police officers are domestic abusers). The justice system has failed in providing justice for sexual assault victims. When all that is offered from police is “don’t walk home alone late at night and hold your keys between your fingers” one has to wonder about how much they actually care about this problem.

There have been years of ‘reclaim the night’ rallies, there have been countless white ribbon fundraisers, we’ve protested, petitioned, chanted, and donated and yet almost every woman you know will experience sexual and/or domestic violence in her lifetime. You’re not allowed to be ok with that, you’re not allowed to shrug your shoulders and say “it is how it is”. Because it really shouldn’t be like this.  You shouldn’t want to live in a society that protects abusers and is seemingly unaffected by the current violence and abuse that almost half the population lives through. Eltahawy’s question is valid, when will the tipping point come? When will we see victims turn around and show that they are sick of the violence? If someone or something is constantly beaten and abused it will reach a breaking point; give up and die or fight back. The police and government are not doing enough to stop the violence so we need to ask ourselves what will happen? Do we give up and die or do we fight back?

I went to the protest against the reduction in environmental protections being discussed in parliament on Tuesday morning. We stood there asking why the government is trying to make it easier for their buddies in the mining lobby to desecrate more of the environment as people all across the state were wondering if their homes were going to go up in flames. As a man from the mid-north coast, in tears, stood with the only remains of his home, literally in a bucket, coalition MPs and police officers on the steps of parliament house laughed and taunted the protestors. People have died in these fires; this environmental disaster has cleared as much land as the Black Saturday fires already. Those responsible for protecting us and governing us find this funny. The prime-minister and NSW premier decided that now is not the time to talk about climate change. They don’t want to have that discussion. They don’t want to take action; they don’t even want to address the fact that half the state is being torched and it’s not even summer. So what good is using our words if no one is going to listen?

These are the governments that are defunding public schools, privatising hospitals and healthcare, defunding aged care and the pension whilst giving themselves pay rises, granting mining subsidies and $200 Billion worth of defence spending. Because that’s going to help in the fight against climate change, drones and more mines. These are the governments actively trying to make work more unsafe for the majority of Australians through union busting. This government passed a bill stating that unions are not able to send representatives to inspect the safety of building sites. This is the government that does nothing about millions of dead fish turning up in the Murray-Darling, this is the government that looks around at the country on fire and offers hopes and prayers after cutting almost $40 million from the services that are trying to prevent and fight the inferno. 

It’s not like we are unaware of this as a population. The meme of the moment is very much about expressing our dissatisfaction with the failures of those in power. “OK boomer” isn’t aimed specifically at old people. Boomer in this context refers to those who represent the power structures of our society. The ones who say that millennials can’t afford houses because they eat too much avocado and not because the housing market has been shot to shit. The ones who complain about kids not being in school whilst they protest the end of the world. The ones who complain about ‘dole bludgers’ and people on welfare being a drain on society whilst they do everything possible to dodge tax. There is a growing divide in our society and Boomers aren’t people born in the post-war baby boom, although an unfortunate amount of them are. Boomers are those who like everything the way it is because they’re the ones benefitting. This isn’t just a bunch of inner-city hippies getting mad now. This is the majority of society. The climate strike was the largest protest in almost 20 years, extinction rebellion etc. and Ok Boomer memes are a global movement. Yet despite all of these united voices, nothing is being done.

Not only is nothing being done but the peaceful actions that we have been taking are being stripped away from us. The Morrison Government is attempting to make it increasingly difficult to protest through attempting to pass legislation making it illegal for any ‘disruptive’ protest. Our voices are literally being taken away from us. The inability to speak out against governments is the reason why we look down on countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia. Yet it is happening here. It is happening now. We are literally running out of options. The Government has decided that ignoring the people wasn’t enough and now wish to silence us.

I’m really angry. You should not be ok with the current state of our society. And unfortunately, the police and governments are doing their very best to make it worse. They’re killing Indigenous people through police violence and policy. They’re killing the environment and violently suppressing those who try to protect it. They’re doing nothing to protect us from sexual and domestic violence. So, I ask you this: how long do we have to get pepper sprayed by cops, how many Indigenous kids need to be shot in police stations, how many people need to lose their homes and lives to fires, how long before we actually fight back?

We can be proud of how good we are as people for not being violent. But the other side is and they’re winning. We applaud violent protest everywhere else in the world. When subjugated people rise up to make a positive change we cheer, be it South Africa or Hong Kong or Libya or even the US. Why do we expect ourselves to just take the violence and repression on the chin? Our society needs to change and we’re running out of time. We need to decide if we’re serious about protecting ourselves and our planet or if we’re going to politely sit back and watch as it’s all destroyed.