Picnicking in peace
Situated, as I am, in a somewhat northerly aspect of this landscape, a few kilometres south of the Tropic of Capricorn and in cooee of a cane toad or two, I leave myself open to being addressed at all-too-frequent intervals by the Brisbane Courier Mail. Despite the huge continental bulk and stretch of cold southern chill that separates the Mail's readers from the Port Arthur peninsula, we too are guilty of causing the recent tragedy — or so says the Courier Mail.
Such collective responsibility which knows no state borders, jumps fences and swims ashore unaided, has proceeded north to meet the toads on their southern trek and now, as I write, disturbs my reverie. Indeed, so says the Courier Mail, the singular cause of violence in this society are our freedoms — there are too many of them. Not only do we have the freedom to own guns (thereby availing ourselves far too readily of the freedom to shoot people) but we also possess the right to free speech "even when it mutates into the abuse of teachers, police, and other one-time guardians of society".
Perhaps now you are feeling a little sheepish. And so you should! Who would have thought that behind your indulgence in seeing, doing and acting as you pleased you harboured the possibility, if the whim should suddenly possess you, to take out Sunday picnickers with a rapid burst of small arms fire.
Being sorry won't help. How do we know we can trust you? For all we know, maybe all you want out of life is some firing practice and an excuse to say "Hasta la vista, baby!".
In fact, our problem, or so the Courier Mail informs us, is one of cowardice "where in an ill-disciplined, in-your-face world there are too few in authority prepared to say no (and too many who would not heed them if they did)". As for the rest of us, we are just too damned selfish to break the code of "correctness" and hand over our cherished freedoms for the greater good. In this give-me world, says the Courier Mail "there are so many good people in it that it is just too accommodating".
Challenging us with these thoughts is the newspaper's managing editor Terry Quinn. One would assume that Quinn's piece in the May 3 Courier Mail visited the page uncensored. Herein we have it neat, and herein the Port Arthur massacre becomes an excuse — and Terry Quinn an unapologetic opportunist.
The fickle finger of blame has now been pointed at you and me. A simple alibi for the day in question won't do. We stand accused of a heinous crime — of crying out for "more money, more leisure time, more space, more respect, more independence, more privacy, more services, more support, more freedom. More equality. More freedom. Now", pronounces Quinn. "There's a killer and there's an irony."
I hope you are listening here. Don't go nodding off between paragraphs because you lot are perhaps the main culprits. Rabidly one-eyed, maybe you have failed to recognise irony when it sits up and barks at you. Rat-a-tat-tat, bang bang, you freedom junkies are blind to the consequences of your actions.
Since it is unlikely that you or I will choose to mend our ways the Courier Mail will, no doubt, be keen to fight on without us. My guess is that support will be forthcoming from all those one-time guardians of civil society who have, until this tragic event shook them from their timidity, been suffering from cowardice. Cowardly cops will be a thing of the past. Magistrates and legislators, instead of pandering to the freedom lobby, will once again boldly proclaim what's right and what's wrong. The press will cheer louder than at any time before. And if we keep our noses clean, the rest of us will live happily ever after, safe in the knowledge that in future we can picnic in peace.
Dave Riley