a few hardy australians turn out to support an imprisoned native son
the demonstration was right out of the 70s. in fact, most of the tiny crowd appeared to be in their 70s, relics of an earlier age when long-haired protestors railed against a long-ago war. and if attendance was a bit on the short (as in “almost non-existent”) side, it could have been because most of the demonstrators were long dead.
that didn’t stop the remaining faithful, all few dozen of them, from gathering at canberra’s glebe park on a gorgeous spring sunday afternoon to shout into the empty fields. kicking off the festivities, a white-haired guitarist growled the words to barry mcguire’s 1970s anti-war song “eve of distraction destruction” to an audience of four people singing along in front of a portable stage littered with protest signs. might’ve been his wife and grandkids.
what the demonstration lacked in bodies, it made up for with signs. it was like the old 1970s rock anthem.
signs, signs, everywhere signs.
FIVE MAN ELECTRICAL BAND–1971
blocking out the scenery,
breaking my mind.
do this! don’t do that!
can’t you read the signs?
there were billboards everywhere around the park, more signs than people. no nukes signs, anti-war signs, posters supporting whistleblowers and whistleblowing, misspelled signs, palestinian flags, indigenous australian flags, and “free assange” literature. but no one to read them.
being a journalist, the “free assange” theme had attracted me. assange is the the australian founder of wikileaks, a website that specialized in releasing classified documents from intelligence agencies. he’s currently in britain’s high security belmarsh prison awaiting extradition to the united states to face charges of publishing “secret” documents that revealed nefarious (read illegal) activity by the CIA.
but there were other causes vying for attention. “free david mc bride” was a popular one. mc bride, apparently a military whistleblower , was in attendance, followed around by a camera crew. mc bride was facing a court hearing the following day on charges of violating australian state secrecy laws that could carry a sentence of several years in prison. he was a bit of a folk hero among the assemblage, posing for pictures, and hugging and kissing the women. not an enviable task.
remarkably, the lack of an audience didn’t seem to deter the rally. a procession of speakers and mostly one-man bands crossed the stage, each acting as if the house were full of cheering supporters. applause even broke out a few times, though probably not enough to register on the applause meter. and when the call went out from the stage that sausages were ready on the barbeque , there was a noticeable shift of humanity toward the grill. p.s. the vegetarian sausages were mighty tasty.
the moral of the story is: if you’re going to hold an anti-government demonstration, don’t do it in a government town. the capital region was the only jurisdiction in australia to vote “yes” for the recent referendum on whether to give indigenous australians an extraconstitutional “voice” on matters of interest to them. overall, the referendum lost by a 40-60 margin, and it failed in every state. but in the capital territory it passed handily.
the assange case is now likely to move to the u.s., where it faces an uncertain future. wikileaks has never been popular in the american press, and the biden administration is bent on cracking down on whistleblowers, especially those who expose the secrets of the national security establishment. former president donald trump had promised to pardon the aussie wikileaks founder, but apparently got cold feet in the tumultuous last few days of his presidency. “free assange” may remain a rallying cry of the antiestablishment crowd for some time to come.
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not that heinlein 