2012-09-08

 

Auburn Protest

At Friday prayers, they were complaining about the Australian government making it illegal to assist the Free Syrian Army. I did a google search and found that here. You can get 10 years jail for doing that. I think they should be handing out Order of Australia medals for doing that! The Australian Federal Police said that if you want to help the Syrians you should:


Use constructive methods to voice your concerns, including through our democratic processes:
 
1. participate and engage in peaceful legal protest activities
2. write to a Senator or Representative of Federal Parliament
 
And it is true that we have access to funds and weapons via the democratic process. At least on paper. Pauline Hanson certainly managed to put the cat amongst the pigeons. But the 2 major parties colluded to do a reasonable job of excluding her, and the media did a hatchet job on her too. The situation may not be ideal, but it was technically within the Australian public's ability to call bullshit on that. Not that Pauline Hanson would have helped here. I don't trust any existing political parties to provide air support to the Syrian people.

I don't like this idea that we can ONLY fund the Syrian rebels via the democratic process. Australian law should allow the differentiation between good and bad, and that it is OK to aid the good. Obviously supporting terrorism should be illegal, but allowing individuals to assist freedom fighters shouldn't be.

Regardless, the fact is that Syrians have gone to the effort to write signs in English saying "HELP" and "SOS" and "NO FLY ZONE". That's a direct appeal to the English-speaking world, ie including me personally, to not just sit in front of TV watching them be slaughtered, but to take action.

The beautiful Australian Air Force is sitting there armed and trained and willing to go into action whenever called upon to do so. That's the assistance that will actually do the job. So close but yet so far. Regardless, I did my best to reach it.

I held a protest sign that said "AUSTRALIA SEND AIR SUPPORT TO THE SYRIAN REBELS NOW!" at Auburn Town Hall (where there were more likely to be people who understood my headband which said "I love Syria" in Arabic). I was there from 9am-6pm, with a brief stint at another Auburn location (a school) where I was kicked out by election officials. I was also kicked out of the actual Town Hall when I went inside to sit down for a while. But the end result was that I was indeed able to directly appeal to the Australian people with my message. I have faith in Australia's system of governance. The problem I face is getting the Australian people to take action, a probably insurmountable problem. But I wanted to at least say that I tried.

At the end of the day, when a Syrian looks me in the eye and says "When my brother was being shot and my sister raped, why did you do nothing?" to me, I can look him in the eye and say "I honestly did everything I could possibly think of" instead of being ashamed of myself.

Australia's democracy is quite beautiful to watch. Every single voter is basically treated as a rock star. The people handing out the "how to vote" leaflets know full well that these people's votes actually matter. Every single one of them. This is not like the Syrian dictator getting 99% of the vote in a foregone conclusion.

And the rival parties were not being nasty to each other. Everyone was given their opportunity to hand out their leaflets. And it was good to see that minority groups were out in force, far from feeling excluded from the political process. They can clearly see that they are just as important as anyone else in Australian society. A rejectionist attitude would have been very different.

While I didn't get a mass audience for my protest, I did touch the hearts of a handful of people. It's funny. No matter what someone like George Bush says or does, everything gets rejected. But when I'm out there basically doing exactly the same thing, no-one at all thinks I'm controlled by the xyz (insert conspiracy theory). They can tell from my words that I am sincere. I have to stress to them that it's not just me, go and ask any Australian what should be done about Syria, and probably 50% of them will support taking military action. Sure, they don't go and protest at local elections wearing an Arabic headband, but that just shows that 50% of Australians aren't batshit insane, even if they do care.


Here's a typical conversation, with an American, but it could just as easily have been an Australian:

Edwards, Paul 12:11 PM
hi akakak. do you care about the syrians being slaughtered by their government, and if you do, what do you think should be done about it?
akakak 12:11 PM
yes I do care
Edwards, Paul 12:12 PM
cool. someone told me on friday that the west doesn't care
you're my straw poll so that i can call him a liar
and ask him for an opinion poll that proves his point
akakak 12:12 PM
Not sure what do, probably the rest of teh Arab countries should step in but they jsut as bad
Edwards, Paul 12:13 PM
so if the other arabs are just as bad, do you think someone good should step in?
akakak 12:14 PM
sure
Edwards, Paul 12:19 PM
someone good like who? the UN is split, so they won't be doing anything. Turkey could unilaterally do something. NATO could do something. There could be an Australian-led multinational force. Indian-led multinational force. US unilateral. etc. what would you suggest?
akakak 12:20 PM
Well, If waiting on Europe, you can forgetit about it, by they tiem they decide tehr e will be no people left in Syria
Edwards, Paul 12:21 PM
:)
akakak 12:21 PM
Others never took actions on their own
but some of them did help US
US and Australia can do it, who needs anybody else
Edwards, Paul 12:22 PM
so your ideal action would be the ANZUS alliance to go in? Not even including the UK?
akakak 12:23 PM
O ya, they would probably join in, I forgot about them
Edwards, Paul 12:23 PM
and who should lead the action out of US, UK and Australia?
akakak 12:23 PM
US
Edwards, Paul 12:24 PM
ok, thanks for your thoughts. :)
akakak 12:24 PM
sure



So that's at least one advantage I have. People don't think I'm some puppet. I wish that were all that was required. That's one common theme I encountered. Lots of conspiracy theories. I adopt a very simple non-conspiracy-theory model of earth, where people are taking actions because they personally think they are the right action, and they state their reasons right to your face. It's especially raw when you speak to the citizens who have no need to couch their language in diplomatic terms. I noticed that on the Iraqi blogs too. An Iraqi (Sarmad) was showing our comments to his friends, and he reported back that his friends/colleagues really believed us, because we (westerners) were saying things very directly to them, calling them nutcases etc.

Quite a few people wanted to have their picture taken with me as well. Two people only did that at closing time at 6pm, possibly because their professional obligations to remain aloof had ended. There was one colourful guy (Arabic speaker) who was giving me "advice" that I needed to make a scene to get noticed. He was the last person whose hand I shook before leaving. It was also interesting that he was talking on the phone to his friend about "the dogs" (the Bulldogs, a Rugby League team - something I don't follow myself - basically he was a more normal Australian than me - I don't follow crap like that when there's friggin wars on for much higher stakes). I hope the people whose heart I touched contact me. I'm glad I got a new URL - japan666.com - for my website to make it easy for people to remember. But I did have to explain that it doesn't mean anything, it's just that practically every domain name you can think of ending .com has been taken.

One person said he was going to put my photo in an Auburn newspaper, but not sure that will really happen or whether it will lead to anything.

Oh well, an interesting day, and this time I wasn't physically intimidated by anyone. I just had to deal with an irate Syrian woman who called the Syrian freedom fighters terrorists. But I'm glad she was able to express her opinion without any fear whatsoever. Man I love freedom. Quite literally everyone has this right to be free.


P.S. When I voted myself in the morning, I just crossed out all the parties and wrote "FREE SYRIA" on it and wrote www.mutazilah.org on it. That's the first time I've ever cast an invalid vote. I have previously voted Liberal, Labor, Independent and One Nation. None of them do what I want, but of course, that is to be expected, as I am only one person. But something as critical as the freedom of millions of people needs to be pushed through, even if it means changing the whole national conciousness. That's why I'm creating a single issue party. E.g. someone suggested to me that he wanted to see employers provide 4 day working weeks, with 10 hour working days. Officially I don't want to take a position on that. I don't want anything to interfere with getting people onto the "free Syria" train.

P.P.S. Someone asked me why I was still protesting when it was so cold (they were out in the cold themselves though) and I told them that all I had to do was put up with a bit of cold and sore legs. The real brave people were the Syrians who were risking their lives and getting shot. Interestingly, someone else said that he thought I was even braver than what the Syrians were doing, and in a way there is some truth to that - especially for a very shy person like me. I'm wearing my headband on the train and the fear of standing out and being ridiculed is indeed generally greater than the fear of physical harm. But that is my demon to fight, in a country where I have equal access to the RAAF as anyone else in Australia.

P.P.P.S. Someone suggested that I should protest at the Federal elections instead of local elections, to get media coverage on a federal issue. I explained to him (and he accepted) that at the federal elections the exact same voting booth would be open, the exact same people will come here, and I will get exactly the same amount of media coverage, ie none. The media is not interested in airing my opinion. Whether that is because of a conspiracy of media owners with agendas or just because there's a lot more interesting people than air time available, I have no way of knowing. Given that the Iraq protests of December 2003 were covered up (except for a few seconds on Fox News), I'm tending towards left-wing agendas and right-wing stupidity.

P.P.P.P.S. I was offered water by multiple people (but actually I had water in my bag), and one guy insisted I take a can of coke.

P.P.P.P.P.S. One white guy complained that at the medical centre in Auburn they had Arab doctors and Chinese doctors, and that each of these doctors gave priority to Arabs/Chinese respectively, so that when he asked how many people were in front of him, they wouldn't answer him. But I find that hard to believe.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. When I turned up to the school, one guy made a snide remark that I was just standing around getting photo opportunities. What the fuck else am I supposed to do to get control of the RAAF? Storm a fucking air force base? One man against the entire fucking Australian military? Even standing in the fucking school grounds was a challenge, as the election officials kicked me out. When I was at Auburn Town Hall the police saw me and looked at me for half a minute, but walked away without comment. I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to do what I did - as I didn't get a permit for my protest. Even if it was technically illegal, the police won't necessarily enforce the law any more than they will enforce the law on jaywalking. I would expect the law on jaywalking to only be enforced if the person doing it interferes with the flow of traffic. My protest was silent which might have made a difference. At the NSW state elections I wasn't silent - I was asking people to help Libya. I did talk a little bit this time, asking people if they supported the Free Syrian Army when they took notice of my sign. (Update - apparently I don't need a permit to protest unless I want to block traffic).

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. One of the people who were overwhelmed called out to me before he left and said "don't give up". Which is funny, because I sometimes do want to give up. The trouble is that I can see no technical barrier between me and the RAAF. The Australian government is not an oppressive regime that has locked me up, or banned me from using the internet, or anything at all. As far as I can tell, there exists a technical path for me to get from A to B, but I'm probably missing the forest for the trees. I am operating on the basis that the Australian citizen is fundamentally a good person (which is why they donate to charity all the time, including overseas charities), so is thus liable to be persuaded if only I can think of the right way of framing the question.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. After the entire weekend, not one person contacted me. ie not even the people who were overwhelmed in real life would meet me online. Even after I made so much effort to give them the easy-to-remember japan666.com, and even though they said they would contact me. It's almost like there's a conspiracy. Such as every single person I make contact with in real life is subsequently contacted (or assassinated!) by the police/illuminati/freemasons/Jews/ASIO/Brittney Spears to not make contact with me, to keep my political party at 1 member (ie myself). Again, I'm not into conspiracy theories, so I assume there's some innocent explanation, such as when they got home they changed their mind and decided that I wasn't a nice guy after all, I was just batshit insane. But if it is a conspiracy, what could it possibly be? The illuminati are doing what? Forcing me to go back to the drawing board again and again to find newer strategies to liberate the world - why? What's wrong with simply bombing the crap out of all dictatorships until they morph into liberal democracies? Is it because that won't help with solving the Russia/China problem, and they want to force me to find a diplomatic path instead of deploying the RAAF? They need me to analyze Russia/China's frame of reference so that I can step these countries towards enlightenment? Why do I need to do every bloody thing myself? Don't we have a CSIRO that could employ people with degrees in political psychology to do this?

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Instead of jailing (for up to 10 years) people who support the FSA, they should give an Order of Australia medal to any dual-citizen Syrian Australian who returns to Syria to fight. Two OOA medals for any dual citizen of an Arabic country. And three OOA medals for anyone who is not a native Arabic speaker but has made the effort to learn Arabic in advance just so that they were ready to hop into Syria as soon as there is an opportunity. No OOA medals should be given to anyone who doesn't speak Arabic and goes to Syria, because not being able to speak the friggin language is likely to cause misunderstandings ending in friendly fire, which will harm the war effort instead of helping. But non-Arabic speakers can still get an OOA medal if they go to Syria to join Assad's forces, with the intention of doing deliberate friendly fire (ie killing Assad's troops, with or without an accompanying amusing language barrier incident such as "so sorry, when you said 'salaam' I thought you said 'cut me into salami'").

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Regarding the other option they gave - speak to your political representative - fat lot of good that would do. If they wanted to send in the RAAF, they would have done so already. They're interested in presenting their own opinion, not yours. I'm also interested in presenting my opinion, not yours, unless yours happens to be the same as mine. I am willing to negotiate a little bit around the sides, e.g. if you insist that the RAAF paint "Bulldogs are the greatest" on the side of the plane before they can go to Syria, fine, we'll do it your way. I actually voted for Ted Mack because I was impressed that he stated that he would represent the electorate's opinion, not his own. At the time, I believed in "direct democracy" where things were done according to what the majority wanted, regardless of the fact that the majority aren't actually experts on the topic in question. But he was yet another person who simply voted according to his own opinion, voting against Australia's involvement in the 1991 Gulf War, despite being the representative of what was probably the most right-wing electorate in Australia. I never voted for him again after that, and wrote a nastygram to him as well. Note that I no longer support direct democracy like that, as I don't believe letting ill-informed people vote directly for policies is going to produce the best result as measured by objective science. Australia's system may not be perfect, but I'm hard-pressed to figure out how to improve on it. In the exact case in question though, I believe the current Australian political parties are the ones who are either ill-informed or immoral, and in either case need to be replaced (all of them, since none of them at all are responding properly to the life-or-death situation being faced by Australia's Syrian allies).

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. One guy said that I didn't have Bahrain listed, so I was biassed. I told him that I agreed that the people of Bahrain had the right to be free, and left it at that. Actually my plan for the Australian military has us abandoning territorial defence and relying on the US to protect us if anything goes wrong. I don't think it is strategic for us to go around bombing US allies when we're relying on them for protection (from China or whoever).

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Check out the chick I met at Auburn when I decided to move from Town Hall to a school. I'm definitely moving to Auburn while there's a chance I'll meet her again! Actually I have decided to start protesting in the streets of Auburn on weekends while ever there are Syrians still actively fighting. That's only fair. Somewhat fair. Better than nothing, anyway.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. I was also asked what religion I was. I really hate to have to answer that. I said the shahada in July 2012, but I don't want people to think I am some nutcase westerner who has decided to drop western science in favour of some romantic idea of Islam. So I stressed that this had nothing to do with religion, and that I was protesting at the NSW state elections for intervention in Libya, long before I said the shahada. Actually I decided to become a Muslim because I don't want certain segments (ie not everyone!!!) of Syrian society refusing to accept my help because I'm a kuffar. It's easier to simply become a Muslim and do the various rituals rather than make an issue out of something that should not be an issue in the struggle for freedom.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The "interesting" guy asked me who wrote my headband, and that I didn't write it myself. I agreed I didn't write it myself, and told him that it was written by someone at the Arabic Sufi prayer/chanting session (zikr) in Auburn that I sometimes attend. He couldn't think of a snide remark to say about that.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. One observation - if I walk on the streets, without doing anything in particular, I am basically a "neutral" and can seamlessly pass through crowds. But as soon as I advertise this political view, people suddenly split into pro-liberation, anti-liberation and neutral. The split exists in Australia, and I met people from both the pro and anti camp. This is basically the exact same split that exists in Syria. The Syrian civil war isn't just in Syria. It's also in Australia.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. I had one interesting reaction from a Lebanese - she misread my sign, or maybe thought that I was some government official or something, because she said "The Australian government is finally doing something?" and I had to explain to her that no, that was the problem!

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. I had this conversation with a "friend" of mine from my teenage years. We had great respect for each other back then, but then she took a leftist path while I took a rightist path. She's now a watermelon (green (environmentalist) outside, red (communist) inside) and I had the following conversation with her today:

paul:
hi vvv. i did another one-man protest. this time for syria
i'm planning on protesting for as long as the syrians are fighting
i'll give up when they give up
check out the cool chick i met:
click on the photo for a larger version
 
vvv:
yeah its outrageous how the media portray american takeover as resistance

paul:
i will meet you over the barrel of a gun one day. :-)smile
the syrian civil war exists globally, and in australia between whites too
just the weapons are different, as appropriate
 
Basically, I consider this callous cow to be directly responsible for 9/11. She has both attacked a completely innocent America who is NOT trying to take over Syria. Just like her more active colleagues did on 9/11. Also she gives no rights to the Syrian rebels to live in freedom, while she has enjoyed the full benefits of living in a free country her entire life. It's disgraceful and disgusting. Would I really kill her? No, of course not. She has the right to air her disgusting views, and I have a right to air what to her is a disgusting view. The battlefield we meet on is election day. Also, the victor at the ballot box gets to change the education system, so each of us tries to influence future voters. Although it should be noted from the Libyan example that even with 4 decades of complete control of the education system by Gaddafi, people still smell bullshit from a mile away. Even if I had a minority view, I do not believe she would suppress it. She would merely try social engineering of future generations to try to get them to think the same as her. If she picked up a gun and took away my human rights then I would kill her in an instant though. But she's not doing that. Her ally Assad is though. I don't know how the Australian education system manages to churn out such different points of view though.
 
She made a reasonable point though. She attacked the media for not presenting her point of view. And indeed, that is true. Even though I consider the media to be full of left-wing ratbags (who would never ever - none of them - let my right-wing opinions get airtime), at the end of the day, they do indeed show the rebels as glorious freedom fighters and the Assad dictatorship as the bad guy. The media just doesn't want us to actually take any action. It's almost like they need a long drawn-out war to continue so that they have material every night. Or maybe they just like the idea of revolutions, having been brought up on complete lies about the American "revolution". I don't know. The media (none of it - including Muslim media) is willing to let someone like me get anywhere near them so that I can question them about what their agenda is. As I once read - people in power love the status quo. If you think you know of a media outlet that is genuinely independent of the current power structures, see if they're willing to publish the photo below and be prepared to find out the truth. I need to organize at a grassroots level, one person at a time, because no media outlet will let me fast-track that. That's fine. Australia is a democracy, so no-one is holding me back, and as I said before - check out the chicks we have here!!!
 
 





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