By Jorge Andres
The spoken word can be powerful, but immeasurably more so when spoken by the powerful. When those who make rules for the rulers, like Pauline Hanson and John Howard, have "their say", they do it on our behalf and without our permission.
The political power of the ruling class puts the exercise of free speech on a very uneven playing field. Those with money, especially those on the gravy train of the corporate sector, not only have the abstract right to free speech, but also monopolise access to all the means of communication that can spread their word. At the same time, those systematically discriminated against are denied access to the means of mass communication just as systematically.
When we hear bigots in positions of power and influence inciting discrimination against those already oppressed by capitalism, we have every right to be "intolerant" and to campaign to marginalise and eliminate such views. What we are fighting against is not just the views expressed nor the individuals who express them, but against the social system that encourages racism and other prejudices as a means of enabling the corporate minority to divide and rule over the vast majority.
Our power to fight such views appears limited, however, in the face of how the principle of free speech is applied by liberal democracy — apparently working people have the right to speak only in hidden corners. For ethnic and Aboriginal communities, this is the source of the greatest frustration: to be slandered and ridiculed and then to be silenced.
To counter this power over the word exercised by big business politicians and their mates, there is no point appealing to this same mob to legally suppress the word itself. Racial vilification and other censorship laws are not the way to combat racism or any form of prejudice.
This was the strategy that the Labor Party imposed on social movements and oppressed communities — parliamentary and legal regulation of free speech to discourage the promotion of racist and other discriminatory views. As a result, migrant and Aboriginal communities were lulled into a completely false sense of security and politically demobilised. Now we face Howard and the racists he supports further disarmed. We were forced by Labor to impose silence on ourselves, to be content to leave a few petty bureaucrats to sit on government committees and commissions and "represent" us.
We need to regain the only weapon we have to fight racist views: our ability for collective social action and organisation, independent of government control and manipulation. Censorship laws of a state that is based and fed on racism at best drive some racist sentiments underground; mostly they just disguise them. Our intention is to eradicate them.
Because the Liberals will continue to play the racist card, the challenge is to rebuild the independent political organisation of Aboriginal and ethnic communities, to rid ourselves of the shackles of Labor's "consensus-making" politics and to build campaigns aimed against every racist attack and the source of racism itself.
To start with, if David Irving is allowed into the country, let's ensure that he gets an "intolerant" welcome.