"The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."John Pilger rails against those who "celebrate a system of organised forgetting":
- Milan Kundera.
Every day, we breathe the hot air of these pseudo ideas with their pseudo truths and pseudo experts. They set the limits of public debate within the most advanced societies. They determine who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. They manipulate our compassion and our anger and make many of us feel there is nothing we can do.Pilger's article focusses on South Africa, but the message is universal:
Those who led the struggle against racial apartheid often said no. They dissented. They caused trouble. They took risks. They put people first. And they were the best that people can be. Above all, they had a social and political imagination that unaccountable power always fears. And they had courage. It is this imagination and courage that opens up real debate with real information and allows ordinary people to reclaim their confidence to demand their human and democratic rights.I am lucky: here in Australia, I enjoy pretty much all my "human and democratic rights". But my nation has conspired to actively participate in denying those rights to others. And until my country addresses those War Crimes, I will not know true peace.
I tell you this: as long as one child lives in poverty anywhere on this planet, as long as one man remains in prison for political reasons, as long as one woman is beaten and abused by government agents, the "Free World" will never be free.
One world. One people.
