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本帖最后由 連長 于 2009-9-14 03:30 编辑
An Eyewitness Account from The Canberra April 24 Pro-Peoples Republic of China Rally
From The Bright Depths of The Sea of Red
Red Flags Everywhere
Driving down to Canberra the night before, I could already tell thatthe pro-PRC demonstration was going to be huge. At a highway eaterythat I stopped at somewhere between Mittagong and Goulburn, there weregroups of Chinese people with red flags and banners who had also brokejourney there. They were in good spirits, regularly breaking out intolaughter. But at other times they were huddled together with everyoneattentively listening in to what looked like serious discussions.
I overheard [white] people serving at the eatery commenting on thelarge number of Chinese people entering: "Look at 'em coming in.""Yeah, and there's more at the service station on their way." Theirtone was a mixture of, on the one hand, prejudice and on the other gleethat they were getting a whole lot of customers. Similar contradictionsexist in the Australian ruling class' attitude to China.
The next morning when I went into the centre of Canberra it was easyto find where I had to be. I just followed the red flags. There werehuge numbers of people carrying them. It was terrific! I ended upinitially in a park across Lake Burley Griffin from where the WarMemorial is. It was not far from the Aboriginal tent embassy.
I noticed that most of the people were young, overseas mainlandChinese students it turned out. Women made up a large proportion of thepro-China rally, including a big fraction of the slightly older Chinesepeople present. As well as the red five-star flags, people carriedbanners like "China: 56 ethnic groups, one family." There was also abig red banner carried by the pro-PRC demonstrators: "We Love Tibet."Meanwhile, a lot of youth were wearing a t-shirt with the PRC flag inthe shape of a love heart with the slogans "We love China. We lovepeace. We love the Olympic spirit."
When the Chinese students realised that you were on their side theywere overjoyed: "Thank you for your support." "Welcome to Beijing." Iam normally very camera shy but I ended up being asked to pose forphotos with pro-PRC students about 50 times. I could not refuse notonly because it would be rude to but because it was important for it tobe seen that there were non-Chinese leftists who were defending thePeoples Republic.
"I Am A Communist Too."
Indiscussing the Canberra trip beforehand with comrades, we wereconcerned to ensure that pro-PRC Chinese easily recognised me as ontheir side. So I made sure that I wore over my jumper a t-shirt that Ihave that has a big red Soviet flag on it. I also wrapped around myneck a red scarf. Furthermore, I knew that if people saw me holding outthe latest TP pamphlet that would in itself help identify my stance.The two comrades responsible for editing and layout of TP literaturehad done such a good job on the last pamphlet that it had anunmistakable communist "finish" to it - a shiny red cover with a hammerand sickle logo.
All this surely helped because when I was in Canberra peoplequickly recognised which side I was on. There was, however, oneexception early on in the morning. A student carrying a PRC flag that Igave the TP Open Letter to soon ran back towards me andreturned the statement ... but ripped into several pieces! He said tome "sorry but I support China," and then walked away so quickly that Icould not tell him that he had actually made a mistake and not realisedwhich side the statement was on.
This was, fortunately, a singular exception. Much more significantwere the seemingly endless positive responses. Some people who came upto get the TP statement proudly stated, "I am a communist too." Youcould really tell where the clots of staunch communists were because incertain circles of people almost everyone would grab a statementwhereas in others, few would. On a couple of occasions, students saidto me things like "we believe we must defend our party." Chinesemainlanders often refer to the Communist Party of China as "our party."
You do not have to be a rocket scientist to work out that it wassupporters of China's Communist Youth League (the youth wing of theCommunist Party of China) studying in Australia who had organised thedemonstration. And on the organisational side they sure did do aterrific job. I was also impressed about how politically engaged andsophisticated some of the Chinese overseas students were. A couple ofthem talked about the PRC's new Labour Law. This law in substance goesin the opposite direction to John Howard's Workchoices and, forexample, prevents long-term employees at a workplace who are withinfive years of retirement from ever being laid off. The students spokeof this law in terms of defending workers rights and of dealing with"class conflicts."
Most interestingly some of the students were quite animated aboutquestions outside of China. A few spoke about police killings ofAboriginal people in custody in Australia and noted the presence of theAboriginal protest tent embassy near by. The knowledge of the studentson questions here pleasantly surprised me. I know that the CommunistParty of China has a policy of attempting "peaceful coexistence" withthe capitalist rulers of the imperialist world. According to thispolicy - which as we are seeing clearly today is a rather futile one -the Chinese masses are not to interfere in struggles outside of Chinain the hope that this would mean that the Western capitalists would inturn leave the PRC alone. I had expected that such a distorted way oflooking at the world would obscure from the view of Chinese communiststhe extent of injustice in Western capitalist societies. But theexperience of talking to people on April 24 showed to me that mythinking had been a bit mechanical. Outrage at the slanders against RedChina by the Western media naturally makes Chinese students alsoquestion the other propaganda that these media outlets beam out.Growing anger at the Western leaders' anti-PRC stance pushes PRCsupporters to confront what these Western governments are doing intheir own countries.
A Culture of Warmth And Traditions of Resistance
Ofcourse, like in any mass movement there were people at the pro-Chinaactions with a broad range of political consciousness. There wereconscious communists in the lead but also participating were peoplethere wholly out of Chinese patriotism, out of a sense that the Chinesepeople are once again being stomped on and hence there is a need tostand for "One China." But one thing I found common about most of thePRC overseas students at the rally was their genuine politeness andaffectionate disposition. I saw little evidence of the macho behaviourthat you find here or of the individualistic egotism typical of anysort of mass gathering in Australia.
The culture of the PRC students was not only different to typicalAussie culture but was also different to that of Hong Kong, Taiwaneseand Malaysian Chinese origin communities based here. It is a credit tothe still dominant collective-type economic organisation in the PRCthat it has brought up its young people to be so warm-hearted. I lookforward to the time when the construction of a socialist society inAustralia will generate such social norms here and enable people inthis island to interact with the warmth that held together Aboriginalcommunities prior to colonial invasion.
Of course, just because the PRC students are very well mannered itdoes not mean that they are not tough when they need to be. I firstwitnessed that when I first saw the pro-PRC students encounter asignificant clot of the anti-communist, so-called "Save Tibet" crowd.The Chinese students gave these anti-PRC people a well-deserved, verbalbarraging. The feeling between the two sides was very heated as youwould expect given the unbridgeable nature of the politicaldifferences. As the anti-communists marched past carrying pictures ofthe Dalai Lama and placards claiming to stand for "Free Tibet," someChinese students flanked this anti-China march with big red PRC flags.They wanted to make their point clear.
From the determination of the PRC students, you felt that they weretrying to stand on some of the traditions of the heroic Long March andof the 1949 anti-capitalist revolution. Those struggles are stilldearly held in memory by the Chinese masses. And the selflessness andsolidarity of those struggles are being honoured today too in the waythat the Chinese masses and communists have responded to thecatastrophic Sichuan Province earthquake. The way the PeoplesLiberation Army's troops have risked their lives to heroically rescuehundreds of thousands of people from the rubble; the way that activistsfrom far flung parts of the country formed volunteer rescue brigades;in the manner that students across the PRC have humbly queued for hoursat blood banks to donate their blood.
An Unholy Alliance
How about the opposing side? Well, when I first encountered theanti-PRC demonstrators several things struck me. One was how fewTibetans there were in the "Free Tibet" movement - it was a mostlywhite crowd. Many of the anti-communists were carrying banners of theGreens or Amnesty International. The pro-PRC demonstrators yelled outto them: "Find out the real facts before you comment! You don't knowanything about Tibet! You don't know anything about China!" That was,of course, spot on. But ignorance was not the only problem here. Whileuninformed, small l-liberal elements numerically made up the bulk ofthe anti-PRC lot, behind them stand some very well-informed, big CCapitalists and Conservatives. It is worth noting here that much of therecent spate of anti-China activities was coordinated by an"International Tibet Support Groups Conference" held in Brussels on May11-14 last year. That conference was organised by the Friedrich NaumannFoundation, a group largely financed by the German government. Theconference decided to make the Olympics the focus of their action plan.Among those attending the conference was the Undersecretary of State inthe U.S. State Department, Paula Dobriansky, who is also a well-knownNeocon.
There were to be sure some Asian people amongst the anti-PRC crowd atthe torch relay. These were those elements connected to the overthrownlandlord, feudal and capitalist classes in China, Tibet and Vietnam whostill rage with hatred at the social revolutions that ejected them frompower there. So, standing alongside the Greens and Amnesty types inCanberra were right-wing "Free China" groups like Falun Gong. I lateralso saw news footage of the anti-PRC people burning the hammer andsickle flag of the Communist Party of China.
There were a verysmall number of Tibetan people at the anti-China demonstration. Therewere some people dressed in priest (monk) clothing and some peoplewearing T-shirts of the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC.) The TYC is a hardline anti-communist group long backed by Western intelligenceorganisations.
When the anti-PRC crowd marched past thepro-PRC supporters, one of these TYC people, seeing that I was anon-Chinese person supporting the PRC, double backed from his march andaggressively approached me demanding to know why I was supportingChina. A heated exchange followed. The PRC students nearby told the TYCguy to go away. But then intervening into the argument was another typeof person, a type I had expected to see more of in Canberra. Thisperson, a Chinese man dressed in a smart suit, was kind of against thecampaign against the Beijing Olympics but was definitely notsympathetic to the Peoples Republic of China. When I responded to theTYC guy, the well-dressed Chinese man said "No," there are many humanrights abuses in China but we should not be attacking China with theOlympics and should support the Beijing Games. He also did not like itwhen I attacked the injustices in capitalist Australia. This anti-PRCguy definitely had a different purpose to the pro-Red China students. Inoticed, for example, that while he was carrying a sizeable Australianflag he was not holding the red PRC flag at all. If he truly were insome way against the attacks on the Beijing Olympics it would be onlyfor Chinese nationalist reasons. He was not at all pro-communist,likely quite the opposite. Such elements like him would hope that bymaking support for the Beijing Olympics rest in part on internationalsupport from anti-communist Chinese, they could make the Chinesegovernment yield to their political agenda. They could, for example,bid for Beijing to allow further penetration of the mainland's economyby overseas Chinese capitalists or lobby for greater politicaloperating space for bourgeois groups in China. Furthermore, anti-PRCexile forces may simply feel it necessary to be part of the pro-Chinamovement to try and ensure that the burgeoning sentiment for activelydefending China within overseas Chinese communities does not lead togreater support for communism.
I am sure that this anti-PRC but pro-Beijing Olympics guywas from a group like the Kuomintang. At other times he might bestanding shoulder to shoulder with the other "Free China"anti-communist forces that had converged in Canberra. I had expected tosee more of this type of person at the torch relay because I had readreports from the mainstream papers that in the U.S., some anti-PRCChinese groups had also come out against the China-bashing over theOlympics. But fortunately this was the one encounter I had in the wholeday with someone who was there ostensibly supporting the BeijingOlympics while being against the Red in Red China. I am sure that therewere more such people there but they were not that visible. It waspro-Red China forces who were in the ascendancy on April 24.
Irreconcilable Differences
Everyone was now moving North across the river to meet the torch on itsreturn back down Northbourne Avenue. As I headed North too I saw heapsof cars with the red five star flags sticking out. It was an incrediblesight - something that has surely not been seen in Australia's capitalbefore.
I headed to an intersection towards the southern end ofNorthbourne Avenue where there was a big crowd gathered. Almosteverywhere you looked the pro-PRC demonstrators heavily outnumbered theanti-communist crowd. The next day the mainstream media variouslyreported that the pro-China protesters outnumbered the "Free Tibet"forces by 5 to 1 or 10 to 1. But it seemed to be much more like 30 to 1.
Soonthe chanting from the opposing sides was getting more and moreboisterous. The atmosphere was close to ignition point. Anti-PRC typestried to jostle their way to be closest to the torch's path. Theywanted to be in prime photo-op position knowing that the anti-PRC mediawere yearning for any anti-China stunt to publicise. But theanti-communists were hopelessly outnumbered. The students bearing thered, pro-communist flags outmanuoevred the "Free Tibet" types andsuccessfully occupied the region closest to the torch path. An irateanti-communist, a tall white hippy-looking guy started bouncing intothe PRC students. But they stood very firm. "How much are you beingpaid by Western governments," they asked rhetorically.
Asisolated clots of anti-PRC protesters shouted out anti-China slogansthey were thoroughly drowned out by the Red students. One Chinesestudent jibed: "Why are there no Tibetans here protesting against China[which was true of the part of the crowd that we were in], onlyGreens? All the Tibetans in China support China." The pro-PRCdemonstrators sure did make some effective responses. To ignorant criesof "Human rights for Tibet" by the anti-communists, some pro-PRCstudents retorted, "What about human rights in Australia? What aboutwhat happened to the Indian doctor, Dr Haneef?" I joined in with theother pro-PRC demonstrators and tried to emphasise the difference inthe class character between the Western countries and Red China: "It isnot China's Peoples Liberation Army that is massacring the people ofIraq and Afghanistan? It is the Western capitalists' armies that aredoing this." "Who is torturing people in Guantanamo Bay? Who istorturing people in Abu Ghraib?" "Which country's police bash blackpeople to death in custody?" When some so-called "Free Tibet"protesters shouted "Save Tibet", I responded "Save Tibet from the DalaiLama." "Just because capitalist Australia has a monarch as head ofstate you don't have to reimpose a monarchy on the Tibetan people." "Noreturn to slavery and feudalism." I pointed out to some anti-PRC typesthat the pro-PRC regional government of the Tibetan Autonomous Regionis mostly made up of ethnic Tibetan liberated slaves and serfs.
Bythis time the anti-PRC types were absolutely howling at me. The pro-PRCdemonstrators meanwhile were cheering. And they felt encouraged to goon the offensive. "What about Australian police killing Aboriginalpeople," they queried the anti-China protesters. Now the anti-Beijingpeople were on the back foot. Look, we are concerned about human rightsissues in Australia too, they pleaded. This was disingenuous. Most ofthese soft l-liberals and certainly most of the Greens party do notbother to organise themselves to participate in demonstrations againstracist cop brutality in Australia. And supporting the Westerncapitalist rulers' propaganda offensive against communist-leaning Chinacan only harm the struggle against exploitation and oppression inAustralia. If the Western capitalists succeed in their project forChina - and that project is to disintegrate the current PRC workingclass state and create a state there unquestionably loyal to capitalism- then they will be emboldened to be even more arrogant towards theworking class and downtrodden in their own countries.
Theclaims of some "Free Tibet" protesters that they were also concernedabout problems in this country were shown to be fake when they startedsaying to the PRC students: "You're lucky that you're in a free countryhere." But the PRC students were in no mood to be patronised. When oneof the arrogant anti-communists jibed that Australia is a country that"guarantees peoples rights," a student carrying the red flag demolishedthe argument by responding that, "Australia just takes away the rightsof peoples in other countries. What about what its doing in Iraq?" Thenanother student undercut the "free country" claims with the reminderthat this is "stolen Aboriginal land."
Tears of Defeat
Perhaps the comment that most infuriated pro-PRC protesters waswhen the anti-communists started yelling out "we want not only Tibet tobe free but China to be free." Almost simultaneously the mainlandChinese students turned around and yelled back "we are free in China."I noticed that the women students were in the lead of this unrehearsedchorus: "We feel free in China, what are you talking about!"
Sometime around then was when I noticed one younger "Free Tibet,Free China" demonstrator on the verge of tears. But these were nottears of being physically bullied by red flag waving students as theAustralian media later made out. No, it was the tears of beingpolitically defeated. Of being, for starters, massively outnumbered bythe reds. But also of having one's world view turned upside down. Theanti-communist side had been willingly brain-washed by the capitalistmedia into thinking that almost everyone in China was yearning to be"freed" from "communist dictatorship" and craving for Western-style"liberal democracy." But when the anti-PRC "activists" came to Canberrathese anti-communists were instead told by tens of thousands of youngChinese people - people who by the way happened to have lived in boththe PRC and Australia - that they love China the way it is. And the"Free China" forces were even being told by some of these young Chinesepeople that the Western rulers' claims to be "democratic" are fake.
Ofcourse, some of the small l-liberal, middle-class form of anti-PRCdemonstrators have been misled by the Western capitalist establishment.And the Western capitalist establishment sure have been out to mislead!For the capitalist ruling classes in the U.S., Australia, Britain,Germany etc, the existence of pro-communist rule in China, as imperfectas that socialism may be, is understood as a threat to their "rights"to exploit the world's peoples. Murdoch's The Weekend Australian(12-13 April) has featured an article by conservative commentator,Gerard Baker, that was unashamedly titled, "Olympics become part of thebattlefield as liberalism struggles against its enemies." The articleworries that "for the past few years democracy has been in globalretreat. The tide has turned. The most significant defeat has been inChina..." The right-winger was, however, greatly encouraged by theanti-PRC, "Free Tibet" protests around the world: "For some time, themodern wisdom that brought young protesters on to the streets ofLondon, Paris and San Francisco has held the US and its ally Britain tobe the root of all evil. So it's a quaint departure for those samecrowds, albeit in a much smaller numbers, to protest loudly against theactions of men for whom tyranny is a chosen method of governing."
But middle-class anti-communists are not simply being misled byright-wing conservatives - they are being willingly misled. Tounderstand why we have to take a step back and consider what the middleclasses are. What are broadly referred to as the middle class, or inMarxist terms, the petit-bourgeois, is that intermediate layer of thepopulation which sits between, on the one hand, the capitalistexploiters and on the other the workers whose labour is exploited bythe capitalists. Suffering to different degrees from capitalist decay,many in the middle class can be won to a pro-working class (and thatultimately means pro-communist) stance. But to the degree thatmiddle-class people (even "progressive" ones) do not unswervinglyadhere to a pro-working class standpoint, middle-class individuals areshaped by their ambition to become part of the capitalist upper classor at least to become one of the upper class' well-paid functionaries.The mid-ranking public servant who wants to become a top rankingdepartment boss or possibly even a member of parliament. The trendysmall cafe partners who dream of soon owning a huge restaurantemploying lots of (inevitably exploited) cooks and waiters. The "broadminded" young law student who yearns to one day be called "yourworship" but dares not tell his peers about this fantasy for fear oflosing his "broad-minded" image. For such middle-class people who arealso progressive because they know the injustices of capitalism feelguilty about their yearning to be part of the exploiting elite. So theyconsole themselves by saying that "communism does not work" and so itis OK to in the future be part of the upper class here "as long as Iact fairly when I get there." Thus opposition to communism becomesessential for the middle-class "progressive" to soothe his or herconscience. And a big part of that equation means convincing oneselfthat there is nothing progressive about the state structure in the mostpopulous nation in the world. After all, if one cannot hate Red China,then one has to accept that there is a viable alternative to capitalismand if one accepts that, how can one in good conscience try to be partof the ruling elite here? This explains why the small-l liberalmiddle-class foot soldier for anti-communism can sometimes appear morehysterical in his opposition to Red China than the capitalist figureswho are orchestrating the anti-China campaign. For the latter,hostility to the PRC is simply part of enforcing his class interests,but for the former it is a matter of upholding his tainted self worth.
Victory
Whilethe anti-Red China groups were smarting, the much greater numbers ofpro-PRC supporters were in a different mood. They were buoyant, yet atthe same time still very angry - angry at all the lies against China.Then suddenly, all the red flags closest to the barricades went up andthen all the other red flags too. The Olympic Torch was passing. Ibriefly got a glimpse of it. But this was not by itself the main issue.Just like in a revolution the building of government is not in itselfthe main prize being fought over but just a symbol of the greaterbattle for supremacy that is taking place.There is nothing per se sacred about the Olympics itself, as highquality a sporting event and diverse a cultural exchange that it is.During the Sydney 2000 Olympics there should have been massive protestsagainst racist inequality in Australia. And it could be a smart idea touse the attention given by the London 2012 Olympics to protest againstBritish imperialism, for example its participation in the murderousinvasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. But the protests against the PRCover Beijing 2008 were of a pro-imperialistcharacter - they were helping the imperialist agenda to destroy theproletarian state in China. And that is the whole point! Even thoughChina's socialism is presently a deformed and rather unfinishedsocialism, the struggle over the Beijing 2008 torch relay was in manyways the front line in the political struggle between capitalism andcommunism.
Canberra, April 24 2008: Pro-Peoples Republic of China demonstrators at the Olympic torch relay.
Women in Charge
Afterthe torch passed, some of the pro-PRC supporters started to head backSouth over the river. On the way a group of mainly white anti-PRCpeople including many Amnesty International placard bearers marched theother way through the pro-China crowd. Suddenly one guy in thisanti-PRC group recognized one Chinese woman in the pro-PRC crowd. Theygreeted each other - they probably know each other from university orsomething. The pro-PRC woman then realized that the guy was on theother side and demanded to know "what are you doing?" He kind ofapologetically replied to the effect of "we agree to disagree" and thathe "loves the Chinese people." But the way he went to water, meltinglike butter in the face of the strong stand taken by one of his peersemphasized to me that the mass mobilizations by pro-PRC Chinese musthave a broader effect on the wider community. After all, even thoughAustralia's racism leads to considerable social segregation ofdifferent ethnic communities, the tens of thousands of pro-PRC studentsdo have non-Chinese classmates, friends, fellow sports team members etcthat they would talk to. Of course, the political effect of thesestudents will be most important not so much on anti-communist liberalslike the guy who went to water but on leftists who are alreadyhalf-suspicious of the media China-bashing.
After crossing Lake Burley Griffin we sat in a park nearby. Severalstudents involved in organizing the pro-PRC demonstration came up andintroduced themselves to me. Notably, when I was subsequently passed upthe leadership structure of the student-based groups, it was women whowere at the apex. This reminded me of how much women have gained fromthe 1949 Chinese Revolution. Before 1949 most women in China werebrutally oppressed like serfs under their fathers, husbands andin-laws. But since the revolutionary foundation of the Peoples Republicin 1949 women's position in China has made great strides forward. Thereis still a very long way to go. But many young women realize how muchthey have gained from the existence of the Peoples Republic and nowthey are in the front lines of campaigning to defend the PRC.
"Democratic" Australia: Policeman arrests pro-China demonstrator during Olympic torch relay in Canberra.
Bitter Broadcaster
Sadly the time came when I had to step out of the warm, red glow of thepro-PRC rally and dive back into the coldness of capitalist Australiansociety. I was still in a jubilant mood but as I began driving home, Ibegan to feel nauseous. For I had turned on the radio and tuned intothe talkback show on (the aptly named) 666 ABC Canberra. They werepiling on the slanders against pro-China demonstrators: violent,intimidating. The talk show host was herself the main handle holder inwhipping up the anti-communist sentiment. And there was more than awhiff of "yellow peril" White Australia fears in the comments byanti-China callers. Racism and anti-communism feed off each other. Thatis the way it has always been, especially in Australia, and especiallyafter the Chinese Revolution. In the next morning's papers, a commentquoted from an Amnesty International anti-PRC activist typified the"liberal" version of such xenophobic attitudes: "It's pretty insultingthat Australians in their own country need riot police to protect themfrom foreign nationals." (The Australian, 25 April.)
Of course, most of the anti-PRC comments like the one above couldnot but admit that the pro-China protesters vastly outnumbered theanti-China forces. In accepting this, the ABC 666 broadcaster could nothide her bitterness. She tried to save face by trying to focus on thesupposedly "magnificent job" done by Australian Federal Police (AFP)and Australian organizers in ensuring a successful Olympic event. Thetruth is that the AFP were rather hostile to the pro-PRC side. It isnotable that of the seven people arrested on the day, five were pro-PRCdemonstrators even though they were obviously not the ones trying todisrupt the torch relay. Perhaps more galling was what I saw featuredin the TV news reports that night: on several occasions the AFP hadshoved and publicly scolded the tracksuit wearing Chinese flameattendants who accompanied the torch. All week in the lead up to April24 there had been a diplomatic stand-off with the Australian governmentrudely saying that the Chinese flame attendants would not be able to betoo near the torch. But the AFP's piggish behaviour topped it off. Indiplomatic terms, their actions were somewhat unprecedented forauthorities in dealing with visiting representatives of a country withwhich this country is not at war with and ostensibly has "normal"official relations with. China is Australia's biggest trading partnerand mineral purchases by Chinese state-owned enterprises are holding upthis country's economy. But still China's official guests here weretreated with the very same contempt that the AFP treats the non-whitepeople of Asia-Pacific countries when the AFP operates in East Timor,The Solomon Islands, PNG etc.
The obvious reason why there was no disruption to the Olympic torchrelay had little to do with what was claimed by the broadcaster. Thetrue reason was that pro-PRC students had succeeded in mobilising a"people's army" to protect the torch. However, the ABC radiobroadcaster sought to undercut this fact by carrying on with thefamiliar refrain that people [meaning pro-communist supporters] shouldbe thankful they are in a "great country" like ours that allows them tofreely express their views. Spare me, please! In this "free country"right now 13 young Muslim men in Melbourne are facing a racist,frame-up trial that could see them jailed for life on "anti-terrorism"charges simply because they were spied on by ASIO while engaging insome anti-Western loose talk. Meanwhile, recently, 91 building workersin Western Australia were fined $10,000 each for participating in aunion strike two years ago. The prosecutions of the workers were pushedby the government's Gestapo-like Australian Building and ConstructionCommission (ABCC.) As a union solidarity rally in Sydney on April 9noted: "Since the ABCC was set up in 2006, building industry workershave been under surveillance by a task force of more than 100 police,secretly interrogated, compelled to answer, compelled to keepinterrogations secret, all under threats of gaol and fines." Meanwhile,Palm Island Aboriginal hero Lex Wotton is facing over ten years jailfor alleged involvement in an anti-racist resistance struggle thatresponded to yet another racist police bashing to death of anAboriginal man in custody. So the "liberties" in capitalist Australiaonly apply to some and definitely do not apply to the exploited andoppressed when they fight for their class' liberation.
So I was not impressed at what I was hearing on the radio. But thefrown on my face did not last long. In fact soon, I was smirking. Forit was obvious that all the pro-Western, anti-communist mouthpieceswere bitter for only one reason: they had lost. Big time. And that wasthe short and the long of the matter. On April 24 in Canberra thepro-Red China forces rolled the anti-communists.
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发表于 2009-9-14 03:26
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发表于 2009-9-14 23:19
