ANARCHY: The Election Day Alternative

An Essay by Roy Barnes

Have you ever asked yourself the questions: ‘Who represents me?’ ‘Who best knows my needs?’ ‘Who best understands my relationship with the community?’  The answer: you do, of course!

In a few months time you will be compelled to vote for someone whom you most likely do not know at all, yet this same person – it is claimed – will, out of a sense of public spirit, represent you and your needs.  You will be compelled to vote out of a) a belief in the time-tested process of parliamentary elections and b) fear of having to pay a fine for not voting.  The election is a good example of the carrot and stick approach that runs like a backbone through our so-called democracy.

Personally, no one represents me but me.  I recognize no person sitting behind a mahogany desk in Canberra as representing my interests.  I need no member of parliament or the laws that one creates to determine what I consider right and wrong.  Indeed, I consider the politician to be my natural enemy given that, time and time again, it acts contrary to my interests and that of the community for which I care. 

These so-called representatives of mine did not consider my feelings and wishes when, in early 2003, they committed this country to the barbaric destruction of Iraq.  In that instance, as in so many, they considered very few of the Australian public.  It would probably be correct to say that they considered no one but themselves.  Yet I witnessed only too well the results of the actions taken in my interests and in my name.  I saw the little boy lying in a hospital bed, his legs blown off by allied bombing and he still to be told that all of his family was dead.  I saw the pain and suffering etched on the faces of so many.  I saw the pathetic images of Iraq’s leader as he was consigned to the gallows; murdered in my name.

Even closer to home I have been exposed to the corruption and iniquities of our politicians and the political process.  I have seen The Tampa, a Norwegian vessel with an unexpected cargo of refugees denied a berth in Australian waters because our government saw more expediency in upholding it’s draconian territorial principles rather than maintaining compliance with international laws and those unspoken, unwritten laws that make it compulsory to tend to our fellows in their time of need.  I saw the grainy image of people floating in the ocean, supposedly cast overboard by others but also recall how the truth eventually came to be known by all.

I have also seen the people consigned to our detention centres because they acted contrary to the interests of our government by fleeing from torture and oppression overseas.  I have read the glossy brochures put out by our federal government that paint a glowing picture of our detention facilities, showing how they provide for every need in a warm, caring environment.   That our government can spend our money in selling their own lies is truly reprehensible.

I grew up with what I consider to be a fairly normal understanding of the servant/master relationship. I understood that the master was the dominant force and that, by virtue of that position, was the one endowed with wealth and power.  But the political process has drastically altered that perspective of mine. Aren’t public servants meant to be acting in the interests of their masters – the public?  Yet those who have enslaved us, the politicians and their wealthy ‘remora’, act only within the sphere of their own interests and they legislate and decree in order that none of us come near to threatening their position. 

The electoral system itself is flawed; geared to perpetuate the power of the lucky few.  We have the conservative coalition on one side of the Australian political fence and we have the Labor Party on the other side.  We also have a handful of minor parties and a smattering of independent MPs.  We are told that the system is fair.  That if you don’t like the party in power then you can simply vote them out at the next election.  Sounds good, sounds like an ideal.  But the reality is rather different because both major parties are essentially the same in policy, principle and practice.  The old days when Labor meant Labour are gone.  Choice only exists when you have one more than one entity and none is identical.

Some may be tempted to cast their vote at the Greens or the Democrats (or even one of the perennial independents) without realizing that, via the preferential system, their vote will eventually trickle into the dam of votes that belong to one of the major players.   Of course, much as we would perhaps deny it, the Greens and Democrats will never govern the nation; they simply do not have the economic backing of the business community to get them up and over the line. 

I look at the Howard Government and I see a puppet regime with the USA pulling the strings.  Labor is no different when in power; one only has to recall the fact that Hawke so readily signed Australian up to the war in Iraq at the beginning of 1991.

Governments simply don’t work to the good of all.  Want proof?  You don’t have to look far.  Just stop and consider where our taxes get spent and where they don’t get spent:

Spent:

Not Spent:

• Public schools requiring significant personal contributions from parents in order that the schools can maintain a reasonable standard of facilities
• Roads in Sydney with huge potholes and weeds growing on them
• Hospitals with grossly inflated waiting-lists and ambulances ferrying patients around in search of beds – the cost to the population is, of course, unnecessary deaths
• List goes on…

There are a great many ways in which the institution of government imposes itself unjustly on the people.  We have seen in recent years, particularly post 9/11, that government are all to willing to engender fear and submission into the population while, at the same time, using their new found power to impose more and more restrictions on the masses.  We are straight-jacketed by increased limits on our freedoms while being fed a sugar-coated pill that numbs many into believing that these restrictions are for their own good.  One only need consider the recently increased power of our law enforcement and spy agencies to gain a real appreciation for George Orwell’s visionary 1984.  Even as I write, one Dr Mohamed Haneef languishes behind bars, not because he has necessary done anything wrong, but because our government and its (law) enforcement agencies must live their own lie and ensure that others (victims like Haneef) are substantive of the government’s position.

Generation after generation expresses discontent at governments but none seems to have the ability to engender change…real change.  Fear of the big bureaucratic stick and the imposition of sanction lead many to just live with the beast that is their burden. Some simply trot out the trite phrase that it [the government] is the best system that we have at the moment and until something better comes along….

I say that something better has always existed; that being the integrity and common sense of the individual and the endemic community spirit that prevails through even the worst of adversity.  This huge country of Australia, that 20 million of us call home, was once the sole domain of its indigenous population and these people existed in harmony for tens of thousands of years.  Yet they did so, like many tribal and indigenous peoples around the world, without any formal institution of government relying, instead, on simple tribal and community rules and customs, overseen by revered elders who simply administered the wisdom of preceding generations.

In a more modern setting, one only need consider the office environment to see that anarchy does not mean a lack of law.  If the manager is absent from the office for a protracted period, those that normally operate under his direction do not resort to such lawless activity that the office is thrown into chaos.  The office continues as it always does.  People assume the roles they have always assumed, remaining focused on the duties and responsibilities assigned to them.  On a national level, if our government (Liberal or Labor) were suddenly zapped up to a spaceship and whisked away from planet Earth, Australia would not suddenly collapse in an economic and social heap.  It would, in fact, compensate and carry on much as before – if not better.

Why would I do anything simply for the sake of it?  Do we have to have a system at all?  I simply cannot believe that the system works if it maintains huge numbers in near poverty while a few are allowed to build empires on the backs of everyone else.  It is not good enough that a saying – Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely – is simply consigned to the pages of a dictionary of quotations.  If we are truly moved by the sentiments expressed by this statement we are obliged to act on it, to see that power is not afforded to anyone, that corruption is denied. 

We know that our politicians are corrupt.  We see and hear of it daily.  We know never to trust a politician, that it’s one rule for them and another for us.  So why do we continue to do their bidding?  Why do we continue to participate in the process (exercising the so-called democratic rights that we are told are good for us) that ensures that we are enslaved to the power of a corrupt few?  The recent matter concerning Indian Doctor Mohamed Haneef is a clear case in point; the government and its agencies jumped in and destroyed the life of a man in Australia, acting on impulse to accuse and vilify yet, when it became clear that they were way off the mark, they simply created a smokescreen of bureaucratic hullabaloo. End result: Haneef gets his working visa denied and the government and its agencies lie back and wait for the public outrage to abate (which it inevitably does) before getting back to the task of fleecing the working man.

Is this how it has to be?  I don’t think so.  I am personally tired of having the powers-that-be tell me what I can and cannot do, what is good and bad for me.  I was not born to be a slave and I shall not become one.  Since 2003 I have renounced all cooperation with the Government and its agencies and now I seek to challenge others to do the same. 

This is a potentially greater challenge than that posed by Con-Census 2006.  For I am now suggesting that others desist from voting this year in the federal election.  I am not talking about making protest votes or doing something inane like simply invalidating the ballot paper.  I am challenging all to put their feelings into practice, to do what is right rather than what one is told.  I am suggesting that people REFUSE to vote on principle, that individuals should not be forced into compliance, taking part in a process in which they have no confidence.

I will be true to me before I am ever held in a state of servitude by those who would decree themselves my masters.