Immediately after the February 17 demonstrations in Sydney and Melbourne last week calling for the release of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan (see article page 14), newspaper editors began pumping out the same line as that being trumpeted by the major political parties.
Media coverage of the demonstrations was clearly designed to discourage other Australians from sympathising with the Kurdish struggle: it appealed to the racist stereotype of migrants who protest about injustices in their home countries as being violent and unreasonable.
The Daily Telegraph editorial on February 18 stated: "Australians should feel a sense of outrage at the irresponsible actions of Kurdish extremists who have used our cities to renew old hostilities ... over an issue in which Australia had no involvement." NSW Labor premier Bob Carr was quoted as saying, "You're not entitled to pursue a violent protest on Australian soil about old struggles overseas ... It's not the Australian way."
The editorial warns all migrants that Carr's message "must be heeded by those who seek to make Australia their home". Yet the Australian government's support for demonstrations by Chinese students against the Tienanmen Square massacre in 1989 indicates that this opposition to protests by migrants applies only to those struggles not supported by the Australian government.
Carr and the Daily Telegraph's demand that migrants forget the injustices in their homeland are pure hypocrisy when they don't also demand that the Australian government stop interfering in the affairs of other countries.
The Australian government had spies in Chile in 1972. Australian military officers spied for the United States in Iraq. Australia sent troops to Vietnam, Malaysia and the Persian Gulf. It supplies weapons and military training to repressive governments such as the Indonesian government.
Despite well-documented atrocities by the Turkish government against the Kurdish people, the Australian government refuses to condemn it.
Australian Liberal PM John Howard was quoted in the Daily Telegraph on February 18: "All Australians have that right [to protest] but it must be done in accordance with the law." The February 18 Australian editorial continues this theme: "Ours is a safe country with little history of political violence ... The concept of furthering homeland grievances by unlawful activity here is alien to our culture."
While it is true that the right to protest does exist in Australia, there are many Australian laws that severely restrict that right. Those restrictions are implemented selectively. Just last year, newspaper editorials argued that police should go in harder against the Maritime Union of Australia picketers, "even at the risk of violence".
By seeking to create the perception that the Kurdish demonstrators last week were "violent terrorists", the media is preparing the public to accept police violence against future Kurdish demonstrations. If it can portray as illegitimate campaigns by migrant communities for justice in their home countries, the Australian government can more easily cover up its interfering role in other countries' affairs.
The fact that the Australian government does intervene in other countries' affairs, and is part of a military alliance with the United States, means that migrant groups have every right and reason to maintain their political activity in opposition to injustice in their home countries. By giving solidarity and support to liberation and social justice struggles around the world, other Australians are helping to counter the Australian state's repressive role in international politics.